The Cartesian evil demon and the impossibility of the monstrous lie

In this paper, I address the issue of whether the evil demon could have caused the idea of God. In order to determine the capabilities of the evil demon, I perform a thought experiment in which I reaffirm the conclusion that an imperfect being could have never caused an idea of perfection and infinitude, i.e., the idea of God. The article is divided into five sections and a conclusion. While the first section is introductory, the second looks at the problem of God and knowledge certainty. Elucidating how reality is gradual according to Descartes, in the third section I address the distinction between objective, formal and eminent reality. In turn, in the fourth section, I argue that if the objective reality of God exists, that is, an idea of perfection, the imperfect evil demon could have never caused it. The last section examines the reverse argument of the fourth section, viz, whether God could have caused the existence of evil and imperfection. Keywords: God, evil demon, imperfection.

Mythological Xullyukuns in Beliefs of Yakuts (Sakha) (Expedition Materials)

Information about the mysterious supernatural water creature “xullyukun” is summarized in the article. It is emphasized that it takes its place in the pantheon of deities among the Yakuts (Sakha) — one of the indigenous peoples in the North-East of the Russian Federation. It is noted that Russian and foreign travelers, political exiles, and research scientists wrote about the traditions, life and religion of the Yakuts (Sakha) at different times. The descriptions of the beliefs of the Yakuts (Sakha) are given, in which there are references to the water creatures “xullyukuns”. The author has reviewed the literature where the “xullyukuns” are mentioned. The version proposed by scientists is analyzed, that “xullyukun” is a blending of the ancient spirit-master of water and an evil demon, which became possible due to the fact that this image correlated with the idea of the migration of aquatic animals from water to land and back. The author of the article is critical of such judgments. The data collected by the author of the article during numerous expeditions to the north-east of Yakutia, where the old image of the creature of the pre-Christian period has been preserved, is presented. On the basis of research, the author comes to the conclusion that the image of “xullyukun” is incomparable with the devil. It has been proved that “xullyukun”, according to ancient beliefs, is a creature — the arbiter of human destinies, and the new image is associated with Christmas divination, where the influence of Christianity is seen. The author of the article shares the original sources. Information collected in the field during conversations with informants is introduced into scientific circulation.

Competence and Justification

Chapter 10 explains how the expanded view makes room for a sort of “epistemic justification” constitutive of knowledge. Critics have argued repeatedly that no externalist epistemology can account for epistemic justification. Their main argument repurposes the celebrated Cartesian evil demon thought experiment. The conclusion is now that the beliefs of the demon’s victim can be about as well justified as are many of our perceptual and other beliefs, although it is hard to see how any externalist epistemology could account for this fact. This chapter seeks a way out for the externalist virtue epistemologist.

Underdetermination and Perceptual Skepticism

This chapter motivates narrowing the book’s focus to a particular kind of argument for perceptual skepticism (the underdetermination argument) and to two main kinds of response to it (inferential anti-skepticism and noninferential anti-skepticism). The first half of the chapter sets aside skeptical arguments (e.g. closure-based arguments) and responses to them (e.g. contextualism, contrastivism, and closure-denial) that overestimate skepticism’s appeal by taking for granted that we don’t know that skeptical hypotheses are false. It also sets aside disjunctivist and “knowledge first” responses to skepticism, both of which underestimate skepticism’s appeal by rejecting the intuitions supporting the New Evil Demon Problem. The second half of the chapter highlights the relative strength of underdetermination arguments for perceptual skepticism, according to which our sensory evidence underdetermines the truth of our perceptual beliefs based on it. This underdetermination problem requires us to be able to infer the likely truth of our perceptual beliefs via good arguments from our sensory evidence, if our perceptual beliefs are to be justified. Given that we aren’t able to make such inferences, the underdetermination argument concludes that our perceptual beliefs aren’t justified. The inferential anti-skeptic’s response insists that we are able to make such inferences. The noninferential anti-skeptic’s response says that, despite the underdetermination problem, our perceptual beliefs can be justified even if we aren’t able to infer their likely truth via good arguments from our sensory evidence.

Epistemic Intuition and Underdetermination

After briefly considering (in Section 1) the self-undermining worry that arguments for skepticism about epistemic intuition themselves rely on epistemic intuition, this chapter responds to underdetermination-based arguments for skepticism about epistemic intuition. Section 2 lays out the rationale for underdetermination-based skepticism about epistemic intuition and presents the noninferential anti-skeptic’s response. Section 3 highlights the epistemic circularity that is so obvious in that response and explains why, instead of causing trouble for that response, it provides us with a paradigm case of unproblematic epistemic circularity. Section 4 identifies several worries about the possibility of our having duplicates who are victims of deceptive demons (worries connected with disjunctivism, the New Evil Demon Problem, and the positions defended in Sections 2 and 3), and responds to the alleged problems these worries cause for epistemic intuition.

Epistemology’s Prime Evils

This essay addresses what we can call epistemology’s Prime Evils. These are the three demons epistemologists have conjured that are the most troublesome and the most difficult to dispel: Descartes’ classic demon; Lehrer and Cohen’s New Evil Demon; and Schaffer’s Debasing Demon. These demons threaten the epistemic statuses of our beliefs—in particular, the statuses of knowledge and justification—and they present challenges for our theories of these epistemic statuses. This paper explains the key features of these three central demons, highlights their family resemblances and differences, and attempts to show that a certain kind of internalist view of justification provides the resources to handle these demons well.

The New Evil Devil Problem and Deontological Internalism

The article defends an internalist version of the virtue epistemology. This point contradicts many contemporary theories of epistemic virtues, as they are mostly externalistic. This is partly due to the fact that externalism is more consistent with cognitive science, situationism and the social epistemology. Another reason is that it was the externalists who revived interest in the aretic approach within the framework of modern epistemology. Nevertheless, the author shows that it is internalism that offers the best answer to the question about the essence of epistemic virtues. In the introductory part of the article, the classical definitions of internalism and externalism are given. It is explained that the author use an extended definition of internalism, which is characterized by the inclusion epistemic virtues in the structure of justification. The second part is devoted to critic of externalism. The New Evil Demon Problem is the instrument of analysis. The author shows that there are scenarios in which the function of justification as a reliable “guide” to truth cannot serve as a criterion for epistemic evaluation. Situations are possible in which the subject has a false but justified belief. Externalism cannot explain such scenarios, which motivates to abandon this approach. The third part of the article discusses internalism as a possible response to The New Evil Demon Problem. The author believes that justification should be considered as a deontological concept. The condition of reliability, which is an important element of externalism, must be replaced by the condition of correct motivation and epistemic debt. This means that the assessment of beliefs and subjects should be based on what motives they have and how they manifest them in cognition.

Reliabilists Should Still Fear the Demon

In its most basic form, Simple Reliabilism states that: a belief is justified iff it is formed as the result of a reliable belief-forming process. But so-called New Evil Demon (NED) cases have been given as counterexamples. A common response has been to complicate reliabilism from its simplest form to accommodate the basic reliabilist position, while at the same time granting the force of NED intuitions. But what if despite initial appearances, Simple Reliabilism, without qualification, is compatible with the NED intuition? What we can call the Dispositionalist Response to the New Evil Demon problem is fascinating because it contends just that: Simple Reliabilism is fully compatible with the NED intuition. It is claimed that all we need to do to recognize their compatibility is appreciate that reliability is a dispositional property. In this paper I shall critically evaluate the Dispositionalist proposal.