The Philosophy of Sleep between Paradoxes and Thought Experiments

Abstract

This lecture examines how early modern philosophers used the phenomenon of sleep to probe fundamental questions about thought, consciousness, and personal identity. Descartes’s claim that the soul always thinks raised difficulties that his (late) contemporaries -- most notably Gassendi, Locke, and Leibniz -- addressed through objections and imaginary scenarios involving dreamless sleep, and mind swaps. By following these exchanges, the lecture highlights the methodological role of paradoxes and thought experiments in shaping early modern theories of mind.