Descartes’ Evil Demon
nThe last stage of the method of doubt involves Descartes imagining an evil demon. The evil demon’s goal is to make you believe things that are not true.
Descartes uses the Evil Demon Hypothesis as a way to test whether an idea is clear and
distinct. It is a quality control tool to determine if a belief is
certain. If a belief can be certain despite the
efforts of an evil demon trying
to confuse and confound us then
Descartes maintains that we can then build on this foundation of certainty. But if there is no belief that can pass this test perhaps we will be forced to accept Skepticism.