In contrast, as our intellect is finite, our decisions and choices are affected due to not being able to clearly and distinctly understand things, resulting in choices that can be deemed as “Bad”. Concluding that God is not as fault for our defects as we are not clearly and distinctly perceiving things, Descartes illustrates how he can avoid error by suspending judgements when uncertain, or only passing judgment when certain of clear and distinct
“Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” (Descartes). By this, he means that our perceptions are deceptions created by our senses to trick us into believing that we are awake and going about our day when in actuality, we are dreaming and the world around us is an illusion. Hence, we shouldn’t trust our senses to give us any true knowledge of the world because it may always be deceiving us. It is true that senses can deceive, however, for us to know that our senses are deceiving us, we must differentiate between reality and what is deception.
He argues that "[He] now seems to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever [he] perceives very clearly and distinctly is true" (Descartes 35). The reason, he explains, that his clear and distinct perceptions are so reliable is because of God’s existence; particularly, because of God’s existence as a beneficent God. According to Descartes, God simply cannot be a deceiver; God is perfect. Perfection can only include positive traits such as beneficence, unconditional love, justice, and wisdom. Therefore, God cannot, and would never deceive us.
Moving onwards to stage two, where Descartes now questions the aspect of dreaming. For the duration of this argument Descartes faces extreme philosophical scepticism, as he is in use of the skeptical voice, where he now doubts whether he is awake or is being deceived and is yet asleep in a dream. Over the course of stage three, Descartes' skeptical voice progresses, and in the third stage he begins to suspect that there is now an ‘evil demon’. This evil demon is now determined to trick Descartes and mess with his powers of
In talking to the Fool, Descartes must account for the Fool’s insistence that an infinitely perfect being is incomprehensible. Descartes characterizes everyone as having concepts of “perfections” (infinite quantities of goodness, knowledge, self-existence) all of which God must possess (Descartes 59). To use this premise, Descartes needs the Fool to admit that his mind contains the idea of infinity which is needed to understand perfection. However, the Fool should not have to admit to understanding the infinite and even if he did, there is no way to assure that the concept of the infinite is truly
If demons exist, so must God. Descartes believed God will not allow any evil demons to deceive anybody. We can not be for certain if God had a reason to teach humanity a lesson or allow an evil demon to do that
However since we already have an idea of God as this perfect and infinite being, he must exist. Furthermore, since the natural light clears deception as an imperfection as well as not existing, God is a non-deceiver, he exist and is perfect. After the cogito argument and natural light examination of the deceptive God, Descartes discards the hypothesis that God is a deceiver. Since God is all-good, he would not deceive us. For that reason, Descartes introduces the evil demon/genius instead.
However, Descartes does not provide enough proof for his claim of its possibility. This shows that Descartes’ evil demon argument fails to prove absolute doubt, which he
Descartes makes the Evil Demon argument to neither prove the existence of such a demon or construct a better understanding of this source of deceit. But rather to destroy the foundations in which he has built all his bias on and rebuild his knowledge from scratch. It works to make us speculate everything while doubting the beliefs and senses we hold so true. This never-ending doubt gives rise to a new question, how do I know that
For how he can be certain that 2+2= 4 and not 5, how can he know for sure that he is not being deceived into believing the answer to be 5 due to a demon. But even if an evil demon did indeed exist, in order to be misled, Descartes himself must exist. As there must be an “I”, that can be deceived. Conclusively, upon Descartes’ interpretations we can come to decipher that in order for someone to exist they must indeed be able to think, to exist as a thinking thing.
However Descartes believed that if Evil Genius existed, that we would have definitely have to exist for it to fool us. And if we are doubting our own existence, we must exist in order to doubt it! “Cogito Ergo
In the Discourse on Method, the challenge for Descartes is especially to present his method and to fight against skepticism. Descartes realizes that sometimes he is in error with his way of perceiving things. Descartes is sure that the mind and the body exist independently and assert that it is hard to tell if it is “me” or “god” or an “evil demon” who is responsible for your thoughts.” His last meditation on this passage provokes a feeling of hesitation. Descartes decides voluntarily to question all his knowledge and opinion.
5. Why can’t an evil deceiver deceive Descartes about his belief that he thinks? He sees that he can be certain that he exists and that he thinks because even if an evil genius is doing everything possible to deceive Descartes, it can 't deceive him into believing he doesn 't exist. In order for something to be deceived, it must at least exist. Then, Descartes comes up with a rule which allows him 6.
In order to be right about claiming that the senses do deceive, a person should have recognized that an error has actually occurred. So the person distinguished between being mistaken and being correct. (For example knowing that heat mirages on the roads are deceptions, one has successfully classed them as optical illusion). Thus one is able to see through the deception and thus avoid being deceived. Oddly, it must be concluded that in presenting examples of how the senses deceive, one is also presenting examples of how we are able to see through deceptions.
Descartes most famous phrase “I think, therefore I am” shows that we cannot be deceived of our own existence as we cannot think if we exist if we do not in fact exist. Descartes’ second part of the hypothesis for the Evil Demon argument refutes the idea of there being such a being with the assumption of a God. With the assumption of a God who is merciful and kind the chance of an evil being deceiving and tricking us would be highly unlikely to happen. Therefore, we can be very sure that we are not being deceived by an evil demon, only for those who believe in God. Other people who do not would rather not believe in the existence of God than believe the uncertainty of everything else (Descartes first mediation, page 202).
