ABSTRACT
Retrenchment after the Dreaming Argument takes place in two phases-that is, two different assumptions are implicitly advanced (in succession) as unimpugned by it. First Descartes suggests that the argument is effective only against certain ‘particulars’:
Suppose therefore that we are asleep, and that these particulars are not true, that we open our eyes, move our head, extend our hands, and that perhaps we don’t even have such hands, nor such a whole body; nevertheless it at least must be admitted that things seen in sleep [visa per quietem] are like some sort of painted images [veluti quasdam pictas imagines], which cannot be formed except on resemblance to real things [nisi ad similitudinem rerum verarum]; and that thus at least these general [things], eyes, head, hands, and the whole body are not imaginary things, but really existing ones [res quasdam non imaginarias, sed veras existere]. (AT VII, 19; HR I, 146)
If we do admit what Descartes here says we must admit, we would hold that only some such assumption as the following can survive the Dreaming Argument:
Beliefs that certain sorts of experienced physical objects exist are true beliefs, as long as the things in question aren’t specified at all particularly.
