Descartes' Evil Demon Argument

Descartes’s mission in the meditations was to doubt everything and that what remained from his doubting could be considered the truth. This lead Descartes to argue for the existence of God. For the purpose of this paper, I will first discuss Descartes’s argument for the existence of God. I will then take issue with Descartes’s argument first with his view on formal reality and varying levels of reality, then with his argument that only God can cause the idea of God. I will then conclude with

In Descartes’ First Meditation, Descartes’ overall intention is to present the idea that our perceptions and sensations are flawed and should not be trusted entirely. His purpose is to create the greatest possible doubt of our senses. To convey this thought, Descartes has three main arguments in the First Meditation: The dream argument, the deceiving God argument, and the evil demon “or evil genius”. Descartes’ dream argument argues that there is no definite transition from a dream to reality, and since dreams are so close to reality, one can never really determine whether they are dreaming

The topic of this essay is Descartes’ First Meditations and I will be discussing in detail the Dreaming argument and the Evil Demon argument.

This essay will attempt to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Descartes’ dreaming argument and evil demon argument. Through discussion, I will show why the evil demon argument is more plausible than the dreaming argument. The essay will give a brief definition of the two arguments and explain why these arguments are important. Then I will discuss the two arguments, considering both sides and referencing previous work by other philosophers. I will conclude with a short summary of the topics covered.

The cogito, “I think” is Descartes’ first certainty and his first step into knowledge. Descartes argues that there is one thing that he is most certain of and even the evil demon can manipulate and make him doubt. He cannot doubt that he thinks because even doubting of a form of thinking and that means that he will be thinking. Even if the demon made him doubt that he is thinking, he would be confident that he is thinking that the demon is making him doubt his thinking. He cannot also doubt that he exists and if he were to doubt of his existence, he would prove that he exists because of his thoughts, and thus his thinking means he exists and hence if he exists then he must be thinking of his existence. Therefore, Descartes extends his certainty

Descartes’ Evil Demon argument is the idea that instead of his God deceiving him- because he is too good to do so – that perhaps there is an evil being of a similar power to God who is in fact deceiving him to believe falsehoods as fact (Reason and Responsibility, Feinberg and Shafer-Landau, 2015, 242-244). The premises for this go like 1. If I am to be certain of anything I need to be certain I am not being deceived by a powerful evil demon, 2. I cannot be certain I am not being deceived by a powerful evil demon, therefore 3. I cannot be certain of anything. This is harder to argue against because there is no evidence for an evil demon existing- however this does not stop Descartes from believing in God. This is a valid argument because the premises do follow on from each other however, it is not a sound argument because premise 2 is

Descartes organised his ideas on knowledge and skepticism to establish two main arguments, the dreaming argument and the evil demon argument. The dreaming argument suggests that it is not possible to distinguish between having a waking experience and dreaming an experience. Whereas, the evil demon argument suggests that we are deceived in all areas of our experiences by an evil demon. This essay will investigate the validity of the arguments and to what extent the conclusion of these arguments is true. The soundness and the extent to which the premises are true will also be explored. After evaluating these arguments it will be concluded that the dreaming argument is valid, but is not sound. Whereas, the evil demon argument is both valid and sound.

At the beginning of Meditation three, Descartes has made substantial progress towards defeating skepticism. Using his methods of Doubt and Analysis he has systematically examined all his beliefs and set aside those which he could call into doubt until he reached three beliefs which he could not possibly doubt. First, that the evil genius seeking to deceive him could not deceive him into thinking that he did not exist when in fact he did exist. Second, that his essence is to be a thinking thing. Third, the essence of matter is to be flexible, changeable and extended.

As with almost all of Descartes inquiries the roots of his second argument for the existence of God begin with his desire to build a foundation of knowledge that he can clearly and distinctly perceive. At the beginning of the third meditation Descartes once again recollects the things that he knows with certainty. The problem arises when he attempts to clearly and distinctly understand truths of arithmetic and geometry. Descartes has enough evidence to believe these things, but one major doubt is still present; the possibility of God being a deceiver. Descartes worry is that all the knowledge that he possesses through intuition could potentially be false if God merely chooses to deceive him. So in order to have a clear and distinct perception of arithmetic truths (and other such intuitive truths) Descartes delves into the question of God’s existence (and whether this God could be a deceiver or not).

Descartes argues the existence through his argument of deception, pertaining to subjects like God and evil beings. He begins his argument that God had purposely deceived him, but God being the good guy he is, Descartes realized that God had wouldn't deceive him, and he formulated the evil demon hypothesis. Descartes writes, “I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement.” Here he is using his theory of doubt, but you can’t hep to question how rash this hypothesis seems to be. It’s a paradox while reading Descartes’s own philosophy; to doubt every knowledge, so therefore we must doubt Descartes. You almost get the impression that he is going crazy with the thought that everything once known could be squandered through the reveal of the deception of dreams. Are all of our experiences produced by a robust and evil demon that thrives on our deception, we being under the impression that we inhabit a physical world and experiences appear to represent it? My truth is probably not, and the concept that there is no eternal world because this evil demon deceives us is adequately

Along this process, Descartes invented the possibility of the Evil Demon. This demon could trick one into believing false ideas, turning what Descartes now thought of as fact into a false statement. Descartes has even begun to doubt the external world, his body and the basics of mathematics; it seems impossible to know if he is truly correct in his observations of the world if there is a possibility of deception lurking (Descartes 2-3). However, Descartes had found one solid belief; the Evil Demon could not deceive Descartes of the fact that Descartes exists. By the Evil Demon giving Descartes an idea or a thought, Descartes must exist in order to receive this thought therefore Descartes does exist (Descartes 4).

Just like his example of Archimedes, Descartes searches for that one position that can “shift the entire earth” (Descartes, 80). Descartes concludes that if he take his mediation in all seriousness, then his memories and senses are just lies and the “body, shape, extension, movement, and place” are just illusions he created. But when he digs deeper into his doubts about his existence, then he must exist. In his evil demon mediation, if an evil demon that has an equally amount of power as God himself, then the evil demon can play a trick in men’s head, creating a world and exist in this world but he is able to conjure these doubts, then he must exist, in which he has formulated the famous philosophical proposition, “cogito ergo sum” which means “I am thinking, therefore I

Rene Descartes was a brilliant man and led the way for modern philosophy. When it came to the role of skepticism, he doubted everything to find a basic truth, if any. He came to a conclusion for two beliefs, the dreaming world and the evil demon, the dreaming world was if anything, this could all be a dream, while the evil demon keeps you from the truth, by deceiving. God plays a big role for resolving his doubts because for a lesser being to have doubts, we must originate it from a greater being (god). Since god is good he would not allow the evil demon to have his way, clearing all doubt for Descartes.

In Descartes philosophy he splits up his train of thought into two portions.Both of the papers discuss his six mediations and his beliefs on existence of things/people. One of the most important highlight of his meditations is “ method of doubt”. In his first set meditations Descartes outlines the factors that determines doubt in a belief.This philosophy is not completely correct to me and not convincing that they are indubitable.

In the 1600s, René Descartes, through his written meditations, sought out to find what we can be certain of as humans. His plan was to find any belief that could be doubted, and throw it away. He would do this by weeding out all the beliefs that he was uncertain about, leaving him with the beliefs that he was certain about. Then, he wished to use those beliefs he considered certain as his foundation for further knowledge. He went through multiple steps to come to his final conclusion. Finally, after every phase of his mediation, he created what is called the dream hypothesis, the evil demon hypothesis, and the Cogito argument.