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Rene Descartes Demon Doubt Analysis

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The René Descartes’ main purpose was finding whether some truths really existed or not. It does not have to be forgot, indeed, that he came from a period of time when sciences did still not have a framed system of values, therefore he wanted to find a truth, between a lot of possible illusions: namely, tidiness among chaos. In this essay, I will explore Descartes’ meeting with the sceptical challenge of what he calls Demon Doubt, by providing evidence of this, as well as an explanation of what could have been his reasons for the engagement of such a position.

Firstly, Descartes met the challenge of the scepticism. However, his position could rather be seen as an anti-sceptical one, because, instead of believing that everything was merely false and that nothing existed, he just held nothing to be true and inspected the potential existence of something. The philosopher provided an evidence of this willed approach when he stated: “I will follow this strategy until I discover something that is certain or, at least, until I discover that it is certain only that nothing is certain” (Descartes. II Meditation. Pag. 23). With this desire, Descartes inspected possible reasons for doubting, before reaching the goal of finding a fundamental truth. …show more content…
This was also called ‘evil genius’, or “deceiving demon’ or, as Descartes specifically mentioned, it was: “some evil mind, who is all powerful and cunning, has devoted all their energies to deceiving me” (Descartes. I Meditation. Pag.22). This ‘evil mind’, occurred because even the most evident and basic knowledge urged to be doubted, if the aim was to find a real truth, with the belief that everything could have been doubtful. Thus, the Meditator destroyed every previous belief on mathematical truths or any other truth about ‘general things’, even the most elementary and observable

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