Rene Descartes Deception

Leaving all religions aside, it is a commonly held belief that God is omnibenevolent, or all-good. People believe that God serves no power in the negativity brought into our daily lives and is not God who deceives us. The French philosopher René Descartes believes that it is true that God is not our source of deception, but rather an evil demon. This demon arises reasonable doubt in trusting the information we obtain from our senses.
Descartes began it all with a revolution in modern philosophy, but he limited himself and he was careful to phrase his works in such a way that it rarely challenged or contradicted the church's doctrines directly. Although he attempted to avoid conflict with the church, Descartes did challenge the church’s authority

when he states that the only authority that someone should have is their own reasoning power. Descartes stressed that everyone should think for themselves rather than accept what has been handed down by tradition. He believes that previous generations have used the things that were handed down to them to build a house of knowledge. Descartes is not satisfied with the house of knowledge and he doubts that it has a firm foundation. In his metaphor, Descartes aims to demolish the existing house of knowledge and build a new one on a firm foundation that is not based on observation and experience, but rather truths gained through an individual's reasoning power (Solomon 187). Descartes explains that reason, if used properly, can bring an individual to absolute truths or unalterable facts. He stresses that an individual should call everything they have learned to doubt and they should come up with their own idea of reality through rethought and reevaluation.
Descartes also established his metaphysics or “the study of ultimate reality” (Solomon 181), where he believed there were two different type substances or beings. The first is material substance or material being which take up space and endure through time in a finite way. Descartes then contemplates that there are thinking substances or thinking beings which endure through time infinitely. Since thinking beings do not take up space, you can not perceive them with your senses. In order to establish the idea of a thinking substance, Descartes compares the thinking substances existence to human existence. He explains that both came into existence at a certain point in time and from that point on they will endure forever. Although this idea cannot be proven, it resonates with people because it seems legitimate and true.
Descartes argues that we possess the self-awareness to have insight into the nature of thinking substance and he takes this position further through the development of epistemology, or “the study of human knowledge” (Solomon 181).

Descartes establishes the idea that you can prove things are true in reality if they exist in the real world outside of the mind and if they can somehow be verified. Descartes says that we cannot trust our senses when we attempt to verify something because we could be seeing or perceiving things at that are presented to us by an evil genius; this evil genius has the motive to deceive us (Solomon 192). Descartes explains that the you can only be certain that “I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it” (Solomon 192). According to Descartes, the evil genius is limited in the things that he can do and as long as a being has self-aware and consciousness, they can be sure that they exist even if an evil genius existed (Solomon

192).
Descartes branches off of this idea stating that in order for doubt to happen, the being reflecting on their own thoughts must be there. This also includes dreams with the idea that in order for a dream to happen, the dreamer must exist. He continues to explain that there are brief periods of time where you lose your sense of awareness and it is during those times that you are not certain of your own being. When you fall asleep there is a brief period before you start dreaming that you do not have this sense of awareness and you can be deceived during this time. Descartes explains that freedom of mind could only come when he is sleeping because he is being deceived when he is awake or in that brief period of time prior to dreaming.
I agree with Descartes’ idea that we can not only be certain of only our own existence through self-awareness, but also doubt someone else's existence because their consciousness is separate from our own.

We must resist the urge to accept the things society has imposed on us and call these things to doubt. Through our own reasoning we should decide for ourselves whether we agree or disagree with what we have been told. I agree that all the knowledge we have gained outside of things passed down has been discovered through the use of our senses. I do not believe that it is necessary or even possible to call absolutely everything to doubt and I believe that we must carefully reflect on things instead. Descartes claims to call everything to doubt, but Descartes did not do such because this is an impossible task. I do agree that we possess the ability to find truths in reality, but unlike Descartes, I believe we can do such through the careful use of our senses. We can not depend entirely on our senses because they fail us at times, but our senses can aid in discovering the truth if they are used correctly. Through the use of both our mid and our senses, we possess the ability to understand the world that we live in. Although Descartes’ idea of an evil genius seems like a paranoid fantasy, it clearly propose some valuable and revolutionary

ideas.