Descartes’ Deceiving God or “Evil Genius” Argument from the First Meditatio

Descartes’ Deceiving God or “Evil Genius” Argument from the First Meditation


How would you truly know if you are being deceived? If you found out that you were being deceived, would you then doubt all your beliefs and feel betrayed and start to believe what you once thought was false? But would God deceive me, or would it be an “Evil Genius” that would deceive me? These are the questions that Descartes tried to explain in his First Meditation in Meditations on the First Philosophy. With his views and opinions, Descartes’ views challenged the Aristotelian way of life in his day, such as the Aristotelian view of sensation and imagination can be explained mechanistically. To Aristotle, no, you can’t, because sensation and imagination are only faculties of the soul and to Descartes, yes, because sensation and imagination are explained in terms of motions in the brain and in the nerves. So Descartes’ views were quite controversial for his time, and I am going to look into his argument from his First Meditation, the argument of the Deceiving God or an “Evil Genius.”

To start out, I would like to try to explain what the argument for the Deceiving God/Evil Genius argument. Descartes wanted to go out and show that he could prove that God exists based solely on the contents of our own minds and the knowledge of God is more certain than our knowledge “of things of this world.” Descartes’ goal was to “find something firm and lasting in the sciences” of the world back then. Descartes wanted to find truth in what he knew was true and what he took as false.

Descartes’ premises for the Deceiving God/Evil Genius Argument are as follows:
(1) I can’t be certain that God or an evil genius is not deceiving me.
(2) If God/the Evil Genius is deceiving me, then everything I believe is false.
(3) If (1) and (2) are true, there is a reason for me to doubt everything I believe.
(4) If there is a reason for me to doubt everything I believe, then I can doubt all of my former beliefs.

(C) Therefore, I can doubt all of my former beliefs.

What premise one is talking about is Descartes couldn’t be certain if there was a God or an evil genius out there telling him lies about the world, himself, his life, everything. So Descartes would have to dig deeper into if God or an evil genius is deceiving him, which leads us into premise number two. Descartes states that if God or the Evil Genius is truly deceiving he, then everything that he once believed is false and everything he once believed to be false would be true. If the two premises were true, then there is a reason for Descartes to doubt everything that he once believed. Then to Descartes, if there is a reason for him to doubt everything he believes, then Descartes can doubt all of his former beliefs. With these premises that Descartes brought up, he drew the conclusion of that he can doubt all of his former beliefs. With these premises of the Deceiving God/Evil Genius argument, I will share my thoughts and opinions of the argument.

Descartes is trying to shed doubt on the beliefs of, if he believes if God or an “Evil Genius” is deceiving him, everything he once believed he will give up and doubt everything he once believed to be fact. My opinion of this argument is that this argument isn’t really that strong because in premise four, it is stated that if there is a reason for Descartes to doubt everything he believes in, then he will doubt all of his beliefs. If one of his beliefs is incorrect, that doesn’t mean that all of his beliefs are incorrect. But if he had a false belief that was the foundation of rest of his beliefs, let’s say like a certain religion, then yeah, I can see where he could doubt all of his beliefs. But if Descartes believed that Ric Flair (pro wrestling legend who is a record setting 16-time World Heavyweight Champion) is the current World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion, and he isn’t, that doesn’t mean the rest of what he once and currently believe is false. From trying to shed doubt that he is being deceived, Descartes explained his Cogito of “I think, therefore I exist.” I will explain Descartes’ reasoning thinking and existing.
Descartes explained his Cogito as “I think, therefore I exist.” What Descartes meant by this is that he is a thinking thing, which helped him to prove that he does exist before he went around on trying to decide if other things are true. It doesn’t make any sense to me to doubt that I exist, because I know every thought that goes thorough my head, every action I do, I hear every sound that I make, I am there for every experience I have, and I live through everything that I experience. It is one thing to doubt something that you haven’t seen, heard, tasted, felt, and so-on-and-so-forth, but to doubt yourself if you truly exist is just plan stupid, because you are there for everything that you do and you are the only person to know every thought that goes through your head. With the argument of the Deceiving God/Evil Genius, I will now give my thoughts on the argument.

My thoughts on this argument are: I think this argument is valid because all the premises are true, as well as the conclusion. I also think that the argument is sound. I can see where Descartes is coming from that if you believed in one thing, and were told that you were deceived, who might start to doubt your beliefs. In my eyes, I would do the same thing if that situation would ever happen to me, I am sure I would doubt my beliefs in it, whatever it might be. But I would not doubt my beliefs just because I have a reason to doubt and I would not give up on all of my beliefs if I found out that one of my beliefs came out to be false after believing that it was true. I would look into why I once believed it to be true and figure out why it isn’t anymore and get highly respected opinions from people who I hold high regard for.

As a result, Descartes’ argument for the Deceiving God/Evil Genius is based on the first premise, which is that he couldn’t be certain if God or an evil genius is deceiving him. If so, then everything that Descartes once believed would be false, which leads into if both are true, and then there would be a reason for Descartes to doubt everything he believes. And if Descartes had a reason to doubt the things he believed, then he can doubt all of his beliefs. With all these premises, Descartes could doubt all of his former beliefs if God or an Evil Genius was deceiving him. I really don’t agree with the argument because if you found out that you were being deceived by God, something must be wrong because religions with God in the center doesn’t believe that God would deceive them. But let’s say we were deceived, the argument could work. I can’t see someone reject all the things they once believed after finding out they were deceived. To conclude, I think Descartes’ Deceiving God/Evil Genius argument is a valid and sound argument, but I don’t agree with it.