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Descartes Demon - Can he get past it?
By: Krossie

"I shall suppose, therefore, that there is, not a true God, who is the sovereign source of truth, but some evil demon, no less cunning and deceiving than powerful, who has used all his artifice to deceive me."
(Descartes 1641)

In this essay I propose to firstly explain how very Descartes arrives at the demon argument in the First Meditation. Then I’ll explain how it works, the originality of the idea and potentially disastrous consequences of it for any theory of knowledge. Finally I wish to see if Descartes himself can legitimately get past his demon and move on in The Meditations.

In the beginning of The Mediations, Descartes informs us that he is setting out to free his mind of all preconceived “opinions” in order to establish a stable foundation for science and knowledge. He reasons that if even one opinion can be doubted then they all can. This is expressed rather nicely in his reply to the seventh objector to Meditation One where he explains that if his critic had a barrel of rotten apples would he not simply tip them all out to find out the rotten ones and then put the sound ones back in.

His procedure to “overthrow” his opinions is to cast doubt on what he has always perceived as true. At this point anyway the meditator seems to regard perceptions of the outside world as the only source of all his opinions and beliefs. He employs increasing levels of doubt to see what can survive after each “assault”.

Firstly, in the normal run of events, the senses deceive: far away objects look different, a pencil in a glass of water may appear to be broken in two and so on. But this could surely be overcome by careful observation in the best possible set of conditions. He then introduces a new level of doubt in the dreaming argument. How do I know for sure that I’m not dreaming? There is no sure way. However even if we take it that we are asleep certain things survive. These are colours, basic shapes mathematical relations and so on.

These “simples” seem fairly fundamental and occur in dreaming and waking states. So can we be certain, at least, of these?

It is at this point that Descartes goes for the final level of doubt and this is the demon. Firstly he muses that God might be a deceiver. Even if he is supremely good it is certain that he does allow us to commit error, and even if he doesn’t exist then we arise by chance and we must be imperfect so imperfection and error exist regardless of whether God does or not. He then introduces the demon. This guy is described as malicious or evil (depending on translation) is also cunning and supremely powerful. His (or her!) purpose is to continuously supply completely false perceptions to the mediator. As he puts it:

"I shall think that the sky, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely delusions of dreams, which he has devised to ensnare my judgment."

This is a powerful and original idea. Versions of doubting and skepticism had existed since the Greeks. Perhaps there were even some who doubted external reality. But I think this is probably the first time some one proposed that all reality might be fed to one like a brain in vat or a computer, which has no organs of perception and relies on an outsider for all inputs. It’s a radical proposal that immediately raises huge problems. Descartes intended this as a means to an end – indeed he is quite explicit about this just before he unveils the demon:

"I know no danger or error will result from my plan, and that I cannot go too far in my distrustful attitude. This is because the task in hand does not involve action but merely the acquisition of knowledge."

But other philosophers have seen it as a hand grenade lobbed bang into the centre of the study of knowledge. The big problem is: how far does the doubt go? If you throw out all the apples what do you have left? Specifically if you no beliefs or opinions left what is there to doubt? If the demon controls all your thoughts have you any reason, any basis on which to build a rational argument. If the demon knows their stuff can they not just pull the rug completely out from under your feet and leave you with nothing?

This deep skepticism has worried epistemologists right up to the present day. For just one example see the article on deep skepticism from the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Prichard 2004). In this article you can see the agonizing contortions that philosophers have tried to avoid Brain in a Vat (BIV) style skepticism using theories such as Relevant Alternatives, Infallibilism, Semantic Contextualisation, hinge proposals and Closure.

I won’t dwell on these or even purport to understand them. They all try to answer a question roughly formulated as:

“I think I know things about the world. But I don’t even know I’m a brain being fed all my impulses from outside. Therefore I know very little”

Again the crux is the power of the demon. If all your thoughts are fed to you by it then you can’t really reason at all. Is Descartes’ demon of this nature? I think not.

Let’s look at it closely. Although initially he claims he wants to “overthrow” all his former opinions, when he introduces the demon, I believe he hedges his bets. In reference to an all powerful god before introducing the demon he says
“how do I know that God has not bought it about that I go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square”

Is he not now questioning basic logic and reasoning itself?

But when he brings in the demon he refers very specifically to all external things and he mentions the sky, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds (see quote above). He doesn’t refer to reason, belief or opinion.

He does though; in fairness refer to some abstract ideas e.g. colour and shape. Does this also mean mathematical relations and therefore extend to thought and reason to – is it a slippery slope?

It seems he still believes that he retains some sense of self that struggles over the shaky footbridge to emerge in Meditation 2.
Certain structures are left in the mind to cross over.

In the Sutcliffe version he says “I shall take great care not to accept into my belief anything false….” So he has managed to leave himself a system of belief and judgment that the demon can’t get at!

Another interesting argument in defence of Descartes is put forward by Frankfurt (1970) His claim is that the meditator is not M. Descartes the philosopher but simply an ordinary, reasonable person “first beginning to philosophise”.

This intelligent but naïve thinker sees all basic maths and logic as having come to them from external perception e.g. you can’t add 2 and 2 without first thinking 2 apples plus 2 apples equals four apples and not being innate (as Descartes believes).

They must doubt the external world in order to later discover that these abstract thoughts and relations are actually generated from within the mind. So total and universal doubt aren’t yet at issue at this stage because this person hasn’t yet come to clear and distinct perception and the use of philosophical reasoning.
So its unfair the apply a full version of the demon to them at this juncture.

At any rate Descartes’ demon is a fantastically original formulation of a strategy of extreme, universal doubt. If consistently applied to all the ideas in the mind it could potentially “put the skids” on any attempt to know anything.

Descartes himself, though, escapes his demon in my view.
This he does by narrowing it’s effect to just the perception of objects and relations drawn from the external world and (possibly) reasoning as a philosophical ingénue in Meditations 1 (this latter view from Frankfurt 1970).

How ever its an extremely close run thing and many, like Wittgenstein, would reason that even this demon is already too powerful and all encompassing and that it would lose him the very capacity to doubt itself and hence he has no justification to move on to Meditation 2 and his discovery of Clear and distinct perception, the existence of God and so on.

Bibliography

Descartes, R. Discourse on Method and the Meditations, London: Pengiun Book limited, 1968 (trans F. E. Scutcliffe)

Descartes, R. Meditaions on First Philosophy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996 (trans john Cottingham)

Frankfurt, H. Demons, Dreamers and Madmen Indianapolis: The Bob Merills Company (1970)

Pritchard, Duncan. Contemporary Skepticism, Stirling http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/skepcont.htm(accessedNovember 1st 2005)

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. On Certainty (Uber Gewissheit) ed. G.E.M.Anscombe and G.H.von Wright. Translated by Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969-1975

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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