Judging that One is Asleep

IT may be thought that my argument obtains a specious plausibility from a feature of the connotation of ‘assert’, namely, that to say that someone asserted so and so is to say that he declared it to another person. Admittedly a man who is asleep cannot address another person, it may be said, because this would imply a perception of the presence of the other person, which would falsify the hypothesis that he is asleep. ¹ ‘Claim’ and ‘maintain’ have the same connotation, and so it is true that a sleeping man cannot assert or claim or maintain that he is asleep. But ‘judge’ does not have this connotation. People make many judgments that they do not express to anyone. From the fact, therefore, that one cannot make assertions while asleep, it does not follow that one cannot make judgments. And indeed they are made during sleep. For example, St. Thomas says that ‘sometimes while asleep a man may judge that what 9he sees is a dream . . .’ (Aquinas, I, Q. 84, Art. 8). ¹