[posted 6-21-97]
To sleep, perchance to make mistakes?
There are two parts to this exercise. The questions asked in Part II seem--in some respects--analogous to questions asked and answered in Part I; so it is suggested that you use the discussion on part I to help illuminate and clarify your responses to Part II. Before you begin, look up the word, "mistake," in your dictionary.
Part I.
Let's suppose that our class attended, last night, a performance of a play in Stansbury. The play was written by a Lawrence student, Agatha Griste, and was staged with great accuracy. Harold Kumquat was cast as Inspector Escarole. Let's suppose that we notice and remember the following things:
[i] Late in the first scene, Inspector Escarole is interrogating Pierre Shallot in an elegant Parisian dining room; only the two actors are on stage. Shallot hoarsely whispers to Escarole, "Now that we cannot be overheard, I must tell you some things in confidence." But just then, Shallot grimaces and falls to the floor. Escarole's eyes immediately widen, and he cries out, "These man ees dead! Murder most foul!" Escarole then sniffs Shallot's drinking glass and adds, " 'E 'as been poisoned!" At the other end of the stage near a window, a caged parrot croaks, "Awk--Cook done eet." The parrot's cage is conspicuously labeled, 'Boardman.' "
[ii] A small child in the row behind us exclaims in a whisper, "Oh mummy, they aren't just acting: that man on the stage is dead! Look how the arrow is still quivering!"
[iii] Besides the child and his mother, one hundred and fifty Lawrentians hear and see the first scene.
[iv] Seated next to us, the Critic for The Lawrentian chuckles as the curtain falls on the first scene. She jots down in her notebook: "In the first scene, the audience is treated to a shrewd but sometimes comically inept Inspector: at one point, he confidently asserts that Shallot has been poisoned when, before his very eyes, we have seen Shallot shot with an arrow. (The props-manager is to be congratulated on the technical trick by which the arrow suddenly appears in Shallot's side: stunningly done! The parrot, on the other hand, is distractingly repetitive and expressionless. During the intermission, I overheard someone suggest that its boring recitation is intended by the author as a barb aimed at a professor at Lawrence!)"
[v] In the dramatic climax of the play, Escarole proves to the few surviving characters that the butler, with bow and arrow, killed some thirty odd characters. Although at first the butler denies the charges and tries to implicate the parrot in the crimes, he sullenly confesses at last.
[vi] Later in the evening, while we toast the cast in the Viking Room, we notice the student who played Pierre Shallot: he is swilling beer in a most lively and animated way.
[vii] I tell a friend who joins the party and who had to leave the performance before the last act, "The butler did it." In an attempt to make a casual and humorous reference to the representation of me as a parrot, I add: "So evidently I was mistaken when I croaked that the cook did it."
[viii] The actor who played the butler, now slightly tipsy, has overheard my comment; he approaches our table, leans over confidentially, and remarks with a sneer, "Yes, I did them all in--and in cold blood!" Then he asks, more brightly, "Was my performance convincing?" As he moves away, we hear him mutter, "Seems to have lost his feathers!"
[ix] A student of French History has also overheard my comment; he jumps to his feet, pointing at me with an accusing gesture: "You are mistaken, Boardman! The butler could not have committed such murders! I recognized the historical period from the furnishings of the dining room, and it is an established fact that during that period of Parisian history, not one butler committed a murder. It was probably the concierge, or perhaps Cook--cooks knew nothing about kitchen hygiene during that period, and were scarcely better than savages."
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Consider the following questions and their answers, noticing the sorts of distinctions they require.
(1) Was the author, Agatha Griste, mistaken when she typed in her manuscript the words, "Escarole sees at once that Shallot is dead"? Was she mistaken when she went on to type: "Escarole, in careless haste, jumps to the conclusion that Shallot has been poisoned. (This should be staged so that his mistake is obvious to the audience, provoking their laughter: the arrow should be clearly visible to the audience, but obscured from Escarole's cursory inspection by the way that Shallot's body lies. While Escarole's attention is then drawn to the parrot--which must be clearly identified as 'Boardman'--the curtain falls as the butler enters and sneaks an appreciative sip from Shallot's drink."?
[ANSWER: Of course not: Griste is the creator of this fictional world: whatever she writes is what happens in it. Notice that in this fictional world Escarole can "see at once" without merely inferring from Shallot's lack of motion that he is dead; it is irrelevant that no one could have such an ability in the real world.]
(2) Was Escarole mistaken when he said, "These man ees dead"? Was Escarole mistaken when he said, "'E 'as been poisoned"?
[ANSWER: While he is not mistaken in the first claim, he is mistaken in the second.]
(3) Was Harold Kumquat mistaken when he uttered, "These man ees dead"? To whom does "these man" refer, in the sentence Kumquat uttered?
[ANSWER: Kumquat was reciting the words in his portrayal of Escarole; since Kumquat did not use the words to express his own belief, he is neither correct nor mistaken.]
(4) Was the parrot mistaken when it croaked, "Awk--Cook done eet"?
[ANSWER: The parrot is expressing no beliefs, but is mimicking sounds: it is neither mistaken nor correct.]
(5) Was Pierre Shallot mistaken when he said, "We cannot be overheard"?
[ANSWER: He was not: the audience is not part of his world; and since the marksman is not in the dining room, he will not have been able to overhear the conversation.]
(6) Was the Critic mistaken when she wrote, "we have seen Shallot shot with an arrow"?
[ANSWER: What she means is that the audience has seen the portrayal of Shallot's being shot with an arrow; she is correct.]
(7) Was the child behind us mistaken in saying, "that man on the stage is dead"?
[ANSWER: Yes: he is clearly referring to the actor--the actor is "on stage;" the character is in a Parisian dining room.]
(8) Was the butler mistaken when, at first, he denied his guilt?
[ANSWER: No: he was lying.]
(9) Was I mistaken when I told my friend at the Viking Room, "The butler did it"?
[ANSWER: No.]
Was I mistaken when I said, "So evidently I was mistaken when I croaked that the cook did it"?
[ANSWER: I am obviously referring to my namesake, the parrot, which--to my embarrassment--represented me in the play. Since I must know that Boardman-the-parrot could not have a belief, I am only humorously acknowledging that it represented me.]
(10) Was the actor mistaken when he sneered, "I did them all in"?
[ANSWER: He is in effect reprising his role; since he is speaking as the character, he (Escarole redux) is correct.]
(11) Was the Critic mistaken when, early this morning, she began her story, "Last night, in a brilliantly staged play by Lawrence senior, Agatha Griste, some thirty odd Parisians were murdered"?
[ANSWER: She is correct; the temporal reference is, of course, to the portrayal of the murders.]
(12) Was the student of French History mistaken when he exclaimed, "You are mistaken, Boardman! The butler could not have committed such murders!"?
[ANSWER: Yes; although the play is set in Paris at some historical period, the truth of statements referring to the plot of the play are not determined by what had actually happened, as a matter of historical fact, in Paris during the period portrayed. Boardman was obviously referring to events in the play, not events in the real world.]
Part II.
Let's suppose that later that night, I go home and go to bed. When I wake up in the morning, I think the "house- lights" are on. But then I realize that I am in my own room, the sun is up, and I have been dreaming; in fact, the sun is beating down on me and I am hot and sweaty, with feathers from my old pillow sticking to my head. I remember dreaming this: I go to a matinee performance in Stansbury; as the curtain goes up, I am rubbing my head. I don't pay very close attention to the beginning of the first act because my full head of feathers itches; after some preening, the itching mercifully subsides. In the middle of scene one, a chap on stage abruptly falls over; he appears to have an arrow in his back. It seems done so crudely, I laugh out loud. Then a commotion ensues: the various other actors rush off stage, screaming. I look again at the fallen actor and form the terrible conviction that he is dead. Since my seat is very close to the stage, I get up and go examine him. The arrow is firmly fixed in place, and I feel a slightly sticky warm liquid on his coat. In my nervousness, I rub my mouth and find the liquid to be faintly salty: it is blood. I murmur plaintively, "This afternoon has become a nightmare." Mechanically, I pinch myself--it hurts. I am too shaken to move. In a short while, some Appleton policemen walk down the aisles asking that everyone leave quietly and quickly. The curtain is brought down and the "house-lights" are turned on full.
I tell my son at breakfast, "I dreamt that I saw an actor killed in Stansbury during the performance of a play." Later this day I discover that Stansbury was completely empty during the period that I slept; but due to someone's oversight, the theater "house-lights" were left on throughout that period.
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Here are some questions. Consider carefully why you answer as you do. If you make use of analogies from Part I--as I hope you will--try to articulate the respects in which questions of Part I are analogous to questions of Part II. Note
(1) In my dream, did the actor really die on stage, or was he merely portraying a death? In my dream, did I--for a short while--mistakenly believe that the actor was not really dead but only clumsily portraying a death? In my dream, was I mistaken when I "form[ed] the terrible conviction" that the actor was dead? In my dream, how did I confirm my conviction? In my dream, were my eyes open or closed?
(2) While I was sleeping, was anyone killed in Stansbury: while I was sleeping, was I in Stansbury watching a catastrophe? While I was dreaming, was I awake? In my dream, was I awake? While I was sleeping, did I have a full head of feathers? In my dream, did I have a full head of feathers? In my dream, did I mistakenly believe that I had a full head of feathers?
(3) If the person who was dreaming was actually bald and with his eyes closed, and if the person in the dream who saw the killing was feathery, what sort of distinction seems to be required? In my dream I evidently believed that I had feathers--since I preened them: was this belief correct or mistaken? When someone says, "I dreamed that I flew on a carpet," he uses the pronoun twice. But if the person can have different characteristics in his dream than he has in real life, are we to think of him as having entered a special world where he has been changed? Compare with the parrot in the play of part I: although the parrot in some sense represents Boardman, won't we need to distinguish the real Boardman from the Boardman-of-the-play?
(4) When I first woke up, was I mistaken when I believed that the "house-lights" were on? (You will need to ask, to what "house-lights" was my belief referring?) Just before I awoke, I dreamed that I noticed the house-lights being turned on: was I mistaken in dreaming that? (Explain briefly.)
(5) It is certainly true that this morning I dreamt I saw an actor killed. Is it also true that this morning I saw an actor killed? Is it true that this morning, while I was asleep and dreaming, I believed I was seeing an actor killed? In having the dream which I had this morning, was I having a belief which turns out to have been false? (Consider carefully.)
(6) Suppose that after I had told my son of my dream, he subsequently confided to a friend, "My dad seems to believe that he saw a murder this morning." Has my child accurately reported what I told him? Suppose that my child's friend tells his mother, who happens to be the county Sheriff, and she advises my child sternly, "If your father has so much as believed that he might have seen a murder, he is legally required to report to me!" Must I report to the Sheriff?
(7) Imagine that I tell you that I dreamed of you last night, and that in the dream, you promised me fifty dollars; and suppose that you are convinced of the sincerity of my assertion that I did dream this. Imagine that I now politely but firmly insist that you keep your word. On what ground may you refuse? If you do not think I am lying, then how can you decently refuse to keep your word? If you had made the promise in Green Bay, say, or somewhere other than Appleton, it would still have been a promise, wouldn't it? So why should your having made it in my dream make any difference to the question whether you now owe me fifty dollars? If it is true that in my dream you promised me fifty dollars, and true that you ought to keep your promises, then oughtn't you pay me fifty dollars? Of course, I admit, if you had paid me the money in my dream then we would now be square; but, unfortunately, you did not. Surely you admit that I can recognize you: surely I wouldn't think that I dreamed of you if I hadn't.
(8) In his first meditation, Descartes gives as a reason for distrusting his senses generally that he sometimes dreams that he is sitting by a fire in his dressing gown while he is in fact naked in bed and asleep. Is Descartes having a mistaken belief while he is thus asleep and dreaming? In this case, it is worth trying to sort out who believes what, and which beliefs are true or false. Would Descartes, while he is sleeping, be having a correct belief if he dreamed that his bedroom window were rattling while, in fact, his bedroom window was rattling? Would Descartes be having a mistaken belief if he dreamed that he was bald while, in fact, he retained a full head of hair throughout the time he was sleeping? Briefly compare these two assertions: "in my bedroom I heard a loud sound;" "in my dream I heard a loud sound." Do both assertions imply that the speaker believes that he heard a loud sound? It is a fact that sometimes one dreams of things which do not correspond to what is happening in real life at the time he is dreaming: does that fact show that sometimes one makes mistakes? (Consider carefully.) Is Descartes' Dream Problem a reason for withholding complete confidence from the senses? (Consider carefully and fully.)
(9) While Boardman is asleep, what is he believing? The question is not, "how does he know that he is dreaming?" That latter question doesn't arise unless he does believe something while he is dreaming. That some character in his dream believes something isn't to the point. Of course, once one awakes, he can believe things; he can even believe that what he seems to remember actually happened a while ago. But now, since he is having the belief while he is awake, it is possible for him to test his memory.
(10) In light of your discussion consider whether the dream problem which concerns Descartes gives legitimate grounds for doubting what our senses tell us.
Important Note: Please note that this exercise does not ask you to answer the questions in the way you think Descartes would answer them. It gives to you the critical task of answering the questions independently of what Descartes' theory would require. Then you can apply what you say to his argument in order to help you appraise its soundness. Thus, you may not suppose that you have a reason for doubting what the senses tell you, since we are here examining just those assumptions which lead Descartes to claim that we have a reason for doubting what the senses tell us. (Since the issue being explored is whether one has a general reason for doubting what the senses tell him, to assume that one has would be to beg the very question being raised.) [Return to text.]