Abigail Hopkins

Intro To Philosophy

Paper 1

Descartes began by doubting everything he believed such as his senses, his belief in God

and his existence in the world. He doubts first his set of human senses in that it is possible that

our senses could deceive us. He then moves to the idea that is could be possible for someone to

in fact be dreaming all of their experiences even if they seem very real. Finally, Descartes

examines his own belief in God and asks the question of whether or not God is deceiving him.

This is where Descartes “Evil Demon” argument derives.

Descartes first examines the idea of God being the one who is doing the deceiving. He

states that God is said to be good and thus God may not wish for him to be deceived. However,

Descartes also recognizes the possibility in which God allows this to happen. In the end

Descartes reaches a conclusion in which it is not a good God who is doing the deceiving but an

evil genius or an evil demon. “I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the

fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole

energies in deceiving me… (194)”. Descartes considers himself as having no flesh or senses and

can only rely on the principle that in order to doubt he must exist. Descartes introduced this

argument because of his belief in God and the idea that God is a supreme good being.

Descartes argument was not fully convincing as his critic John Locke was quick to call

attention to. One of the problems being that by Descartes introducing the evil demon, he then has

no way to get rid of him. Locke argues that humans are not just born with innate ideas rather we
begin as a blank tablet. He disputes that to distrust one’s own senses and to believe that

everything is deceiving cannot be true. For one to state that there is no reality, only a series of

deceiving dreams and senses, means that the question of reality itself is only a dream. Locke

trusts his senses in that if one sees a candle burning and puts his finger in it he will get burned

and states that he believes God has assured him of the existence of things that are not him in that

he can feel pain and pleasure. “I must desire him to consider, that, if all be a dream, then he doth

but dream that he makes the question, and so it is not much matter that a waking man should

answer him (211).” For Descartes to propose that the we are constantly being deceived by an

evil genius means that we cannot trust anything except the existence of ourselves. However,

Locke examines the senses and states that ,“when our senses do actually convey into our

understanding any idea, we cannot but be satisfied that there doth something at that time really

exist without us, which doth affect our senses, and by them give notice of itself to our

apprehensive faculties, and actually produce that idea which we perceive” (211).

If it were true that we were merely dreaming and our sense of reality was actually just the

doings of some evil demon then why would one be able to produce the idea of an evil demon in

the first place? If this malicious being were out to distort our sense of reality then why would he

allow the capacity for one to create the idea of him? Locke explains that knowledge is not

independent of experience and that our senses should be trusted. I agree with this in the fact that

I would not put my hand in a fire place nor would I jump out of window because I know this

would cause my pain or death. I believe that Locke’s argument is more sound then the extreme

argument coming from Descartes.