Abstract

Philosophers have based arguments on the contention that we arc deceived in our dreams. I argue that we are not, and that this can be shown by considerations concerning the meaning? of the word ?deceive?. This kind of argument, common in recent philosophy, has been much criticized. In a methodological digression (sections 2?6), some aspects of the nature, the rationale, and the relevance of the appeal to ordinary language in philosophy are exposed and defended. The paper presents an analysis of the meaning of the word ?deceive? by way of a list of necessary conditions for the semantically nondeviant occurrences of utterances containing it. It is shown that the philosophical uses in question do not satisfy these conditions