Evil Demon Hypothesis and Its Position in  Descartes' System of Thought

Shahraeini, Mustafa; Zirak Barugi, Azizeh

Evil Demon Hypothesis and Its Position in Descartes' System of Thought

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Department, University of Tabriz

Abstract

In the First Meditation, Descartes declares some doubts about everything that can be called into doubt. And in the other five meditations, he, by removing all of these doubts, tries to show, in spite of excessive doubts, that it is possible to reach certain knowledge. In other words, Descartes here decides to overcome completely doubt by doubt itself. The main question, to which the authors of this article are going to reply, is that whether or not, this decision has been carried out in the remainder of Meditations. A chain of doubts has been put forward in First Meditation of which the last is evil demon hypothesis. The writers believe that this last and actually the most hyperbolical doubt has not been removed nowhere by Descartes, either in Meditations or in his Replies to Objections, or in other writings. Although it is through this doubt that the project of calling everything (even the external world) into doubt can be worked out, it seems, after First Meditation, that the position and role of evil demon hypothesis has been forgotten or wittingly neglected, in Descartes' philosophy.

Keywords

References

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