1

Richard Kennington. "Finitude of Descartes' Evil Genius". Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 441-46, 1971.

2

THE FIN ITU DE OK DESCARTES 1 EVIL G E N I U S

Ev R i c h a r d Kknninoton

At the present st age of C a r t s ti)n studies, Inquiry into the nature of Carte-sian doubt remains impeded by the familiar ticw that it is intended by Descartes to he "universal dyubl.1 ' The conclusive evidence that duubt is intended to be universal is eu s tu mari! y found in the omnipotence of the being who is the ultimate ratio dubiltatdi. In the well-known argument of Cartesian doubt in Meditations I-I, Cud, who may possibly M evil, is replaced by the supposition of mi Evil Genius. Yet God and the Evil Genius are both omnipotent; this view is unanimously held, so far as we have been able to ascertain, by the distinguished Cartesian scholars of recent decades. No issue has been raised about the equivalence of the powers of God and the Evil Genius, and hence no distinction drawn concerning what is rendered dubitable by the one and the other. The equivalence thesis is found in the two r tcent English studies of L. J. Heck and Anthony Kenny; it is held by Gouhier, Al^uic and Gueroult; il is that of leading German and American interpretations, including the mosl recent one by Harry G. Frankfurt .1 It is essential not only for the prevalent interpretations of the cogito and the doctrine of consciousness, but for the entire litter course of he Mditations as well. On this view, it be com c s inevi-table lo hold that Cartesian doubt seeks, as its general intention, to establish by universal doubt a presupposi!ion!ess first principle.

In this note we seek to establish three points. First, mathematics is not doubted in Cartesian doubt. Some evidence for this exemption is that no form of mathematics is even mentioned after the introduction of the Evil Genius in Medii, I and prior to the cogito in Medit. LI. Second, the texts of the Meditations by no means establish that the Evil Genius is omnipotent, but imply rather his linitudc. The parallel account of doubt in Principles 1 corrob-orates these points. Finally, the iinitude of the power of the Evil Genius is demanded by the argument: if the Evil Genius were omnipotent, the law of

'The equivalence thesis is usually held explicitly: it is maintained implicitly by those whu fail to discuss the issue, but say thai mat h cm a lies is doghu-d pri^r iq the cogitai See H, Guuhic, 1-o pan.te mtaphysique de Descartes (Paris, 1962). 113; F. Alt|ui. La dcouvert? mwphytique de J'tomme chez Descarten (Paris, I95Q), 176; M, Guerault, Descanes selon l'ordre des raisons (Paris., 19 5 31, 4 Iff.; E. Gilson, Pisctiurt de la rthotie, texte et commentaire (Parii, 19621, 290; L. J. Beck. The Metaphysics o) Descartes (Onford, 1965), 72, 77; Anthony Kenny, Descartes (New York, 196$) 35-6; Harry fi. Frankfurt, Demoni, Dreamers, and M admen. The Defense of Reason in Descartes' Meditations (New York, 1970). 86, 92. W. H is contained In I he influential study of J. Hinlikka. -LC'of'to. ergo sum'. Inferente or Performance'.'", The Philosoph-ical Review. LXXI (1962), 9 CI Krifger identifies God and Uni Evil Genius ("Goti ali ein 'genius malignas' , , , ."). Die Hetkurtft des phiiosophischen Seibstbe Wits s titi tis (Darmstadt, 1962). 23. 32, Sec. however. G. W, Leibniz, Thfodice, Para. IS6. and lelter (tu- Malebranche?) in Malebranche et Leibniz, relations personnelles, ed. A. Robinet ( Paris, 1937), 246.

3

noncont radici ion would be suspended, arid all fu r the r reasoning would have to cease. Hence Lhe conclusion cap be established tha i Car tes ian doubt was never meant to be universal, atid t h e endless cavils aboui Descar tes ' proce-dure which arc based on that assumption can t e laid aside, The way is opened for the presupposit ions of Car tes ian doubt to be com e a possible and necessary region of inquiry, precisely f rom Descar tes ' own standpoint .

. God, "who can du everything," en ters M edit. 1 a s a reason for doubting ilE things, especially ar i thmet ic and geomet ry ; towards the end of Mdit. 1 he is withdrawn as a ratio dubitandi and replaced by the Evil Genius, Since God s omnipotent , it is plausible and cus tomary to assume that his replacement is also omnipotent yet precisely this assumpt ion is at issue, [f t h e range of what is made dubi tab le by the Evil Genius is not universal, his omnipotence is que s lion a ble. This range is indicated by Descar tes in two ways: 1) by the specific list of dubi tables i temized immediately a f t e r the entry of the Evii Genius in M edit. I; and 2) by the general review of the dubi table that precedes Lhecogd'fi) in M edit. H. T h e specific list divides into two par ts . First , Descar tes a s se r t s that " t h e heaven, air, ea r th , colors, figures, sounds, and all external things" a r e only " t h e mocker ies of d r e a m s . " Secondly, he says that he will consider himself as having " n o hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, no senses . " 1

Mai hem at ics is absent ; the dubi tab le is exclusively the ex terna l , or more precisely, the bodily, including one 1 ; own body. The summary review 3) of the dubitable in M edit. 1 is also silent regarding mathemat ics , a r i thmet ic , or geometry; the Evil Genius is again ment ioned, but not ma themat i c s . Desca r t e s does not say that the Evil Genius renders all things dubi table , but only that " h e employs all his effort to deceive me always "*

[L Our first point, that the doubt exempts mathemat ics , would remain problemat ic without the second, that the Evil Genius is not omnipotent . For if evil and omnipotent , the Genius would cas t everything, including mathe-matics, into dubiety. Since God is unmistakably omnipotent , it is necessary to compare the several descr ipt ions of the power of God and the Evil Genius, in the Latin and French versions, to establish their sameness or difference, Ln the Latin original, l h e power of God is described in t h r ee ways: I) as a being qui potest omnia; 2) as omnipejtens; 3) as tutnme patens-1' The power of the Evil Genius, thr ice mentioned in t h e Meditations, is rendered only by the third of these way$, by summe patens on two occasions, and potentissimus on the t h i r d / Thus I) and 2], which lack evident ambiguity, a rc used only to designate God and never t h e Evil Genius. On the o the r hand, employs the superlat ive of the adverb or adject ive which is notably ambiguous: it may mean

*Oettvra de etcarta, eds. C. Adam and P, Tannery (Paris, 1697-1913), V[I , 22-23; The Phtioaophitti Works of Descartes, trans, E. S. H aidant and G. R. T. Ross (London, 193t>, L 14. The former will he referred to as AT; the latter hy MR, and U corrected when required.

*T VII, 24-25; HR 1,149-50. *AT VII, 21, 40, 45, With 3) should be classed haec praeconeepia de tumma Dei

poten tia opinio. M edit. [It; AT VII, 36. ^ T VI I , 23,25,36,

4

either a very high degree of power, or lhe highest. IF Descartes had sought to present the Lvii Genius as omnipotent, he could have employed one of the unambiguous Locutions of I) ur 2), The limitili ion of the vil Genius becomes clearer ir lhe French version. We may legitimately appeal lo the first f-'rench translation of the Meditations as an authoritative version si ne t it was read, approved, arid, or occas ion "re touch e par Desear es."" For ih is version ir ito case liSCS the s uni e phrases to describe lhe power of the Lvil Gcmus a id of God, and in no i ristante does il imply the omnipotence of the Evil Genius- The Evi] Genius is "non moins rus ci trompeur que puissant," " t rs puissant ," and "extrmement puissant";7 while God, "qui peuL tout." is " l i souveraine puissance/ ' and "lout puissant11;* these phrases exhaust the cases in which

The non un versali ly of Cartesian do ubi may be est a Wished in twu e lose! y related wayseither by specific exemptions, e.g., mathematics, or the linilude of the power of the ultimate ratio dubitandi. We now consider the compressed treatment of doubt in Principles I, 5-7", parallel to that f Mdit. [-II. In Princ. 1, 5 mathematics may be doubted because "God who created us can do all that he desires," In Princ. I, 6 "he who lus created us" may be "ali-powerfu|" and seek lo deceive usr This being must be understood to be God, for the Evil Genius is never mentioned in the Principles* moreover, the power of creation is never impulcd lo the Evil Genius in the descriptions of the Mditations, in Pnne. I, 7 God is removed from the argument of doubt, just as in M edit. 1, but he is noi replaced and the Evil Genius is wholly absent. In contrast to the Meditations, the doubt proceeds on explicitly atheist prem-ises: "we easily suppose ihul there is no God," In Princ, I, 7 we lin d a brief summary of lhe total range of the dubitable, but it does not mention or imply mathematics as dubitable. By no sentence or phrase does Prtni. L 7 suggest thai doubt is universal- As in M edit, [-11 the sphere of lhe dubitable is restric-ted to the external in general, and in particular the bodily, including the body of the doubter It may be objected, however, that Descartes in Princ. h 7 says "I h is conclusion. / think, there/ore I am, is the first and most certain of all that occurs to one who philosophizes in an orderly way." But in Princ, 1, 10 he repeats this same sentence and qualifies il: " I did not for ail [hat deny that we must first of all know what is knowledge, what is existente, and what i,s certainty, and thai in order io think we must he, and such like." He did not think these exemptions from the doubt "worthy of being put on record" because "these are notions of the simplest possible kind, which of themselves give us no knowledge (if anything thai exists."LD The cogito, then, is the

nG. Rwdis-Lewift. ed-, hUdittftOtU da prima phiOSOphB, Mi-dillion.t mta'

"AT ]X, 16, 32. 36. Re fe rences to an "au thor of my beirtg" vt'ho may decisive, a s in M edit. VI ( A T v i . 77; IX 61), can hot refer lit rhe Evil Genius since this ph rase i i never applied to him when he is explicitly ment ioned, in. e i ther Latin or French versions.

5

first and most certain amone propositions that assert existence. We may there-fore include among the exemptions from Cartesian doubt all o ther proposi-tions that do not assert existence, a class which must include the '"common notions" of Fritte. T, 13, and what Descar tes calls "eternal t ru ths ," "common notions," ut " ax ioms" in Princ. [ .49 . This procedure i$ also legitimated by the fact that the one proposition explicitly exempted f rom doubt in F r in . I, 10 is listed as an "eterna! t r u t h " in Princ. I, 49'1: that **in order to thinfc we must be1' is the same assertion as " that he who thinks must exist while he thinks." Moreover, Prittet I, 49 lists the law of noncontradiction ("it is im-possible that the same thing can be and not be at the same t ime"}as an eternal truth; its exemption f rom the dubitable is confirmed by the 2d Replies.1"

On the basis of these more authoritative versions of the Cartesian meta-physics in the Meditations and Principies, we may safely discount Discourse TV, in which mathemat ics is apparently doubted. Whereas in the former writings, only an omnipotent being can be a ratio dubitandi for mathematics , in the latter Descartes a rgu t s . with evident irony, that if some men sometimes malte mistakes even in the simplest mat te rs of geometry, he, being also a man, should reject all that he had ever accepted as demonstration,1 1 In summary, wc find this general result in the Principies and the Meditations (Including the Replies of Descartes to Objections i and even all Lhe Objections of Descartes ' critics except those of Bo urdir1*): if the omnipotent God is a ratio dubitandi, mathematics is dubitable; and if mathematics is dubitable, the Evil Genius is not the ratio dubitandi- God, however, is removed from both the Meditations and Principles a s a ratio dubitandi prior to the cogito. Hence mathemat ics i not doubled because only an omnipotent being could make its certainties dubitable. Moreover, as we have seen, what is exempt from doubt is not limited to mathematics, but includes the entire class of eternal t ruths and therefore the Lav of noncontradiction.

LAT VU], 9-10, B, 23-24. "AT VU, 45-46. Descartei here assigns the same status to both the cogito and

lhe law f noncontradiction, Of t ego. dum cagiio. exiftam" and "quae semel facta imi!. Infecta esse non possimi See M, Heidegger, Die F rage nach d e m Ding (Tilhngen, 1962), S3,

"AT VL 33. In 2d Replies (AT Vt[, 146) "no difficulty arises by the objection that we have often found that others have been deceived in matters in which they believed they had ltnowledge as plain as daylight." For such deception occurs only if knowledge is drawn from the senses and not "the intellect alone."

|JlH the 4th Objections AauLd quotes Descartes1 description of the Evil Genius as surnme potens (AT VU, 19S) which is rendered in the translation as "tres puissant" (AT IX, 154), although ill the English mistranslated as "ali powerful" (Hit II. BO). In 4 th Replies Descartes mentions the hyperbolic doubts of M edit, I as inclusive of mathematics, but refers the basis of the doubts to "the author of my origin," know!-edge of which is as yet not available. Bourdin in 7th Objections refers the doubt of mathematics to the Evil enius{AT VII, 471), but Descartes docs not acknowledge this basis (AT VII, 474-76), In Recherche de ta vrit, prior to the cogito there is no doubt of mathematics, confirming ogr general thesis, although Ood is mentioned as ratio dubitandi: the Evil Genius is absent.

6

I lL Finally, if the Evil Genius were omnipotent, tie would presumably have the same capacity as the omnipotent God. Ur if this is alleged not to be the case, some Cartesian text or consideration would have to be adduced to establish thai ihc meaning of omnipotence differs i n the two cases. What then would be the consequence of an omnipotent Evil Genius as a ratio dubitarteli within the structure of Cartesian doubt? The om ni polen ce of God implies his capacity to dcccivc as regards the sum of two plus three, in M edit. I14; the sum could he other than five. Omnipotence thus implies the power to make true what is self-contradictory to human reason, or to suspend the law of noncontradiction, as Descartes makes evident in At edit. Il I .'* In the Mdita-tions. as distinct from other Cartesian texts, this extraordinary capacity belongs to God in virtue of one of his attributes taken by itself, i.e., the divine power, will, or freedom; it does not belong to the nature of God in its entirety, or as regards all his attributes taken together. For En the MedittiOtiS, in con-trast with the 6th Replies and other texts,17 the omnipotent power or freedom of God is exercised only in accordance with the divine goodness. Because Descartes claims to demonstrate the goodness of God in M edit. I l l IV he can assert , at the beginning of M edit, VI, " I have never judged that anything was impossible for God to do, unless 1 found a contradiction in being able to conceive it clearly."1* In sum. whereas an omnipotent being, in virtue of his power alone, could suspend the law of noncontradiction, only an omnipotent being w h o i s evi I would do so. H en cc. as rega rds th e co n tx I o f C a rl esian doub t, God may be re placed, as a ratio d ubi tondi, by a Genius who is evil, but noi by one who is omnipotent. Otherwise, the further course of Cartesian doubt, as a reasoning inquiry, would be impossible. Only if the Evil Genius is of finite power can the doubt or the cogito be any sort of argument whatever, ll is therefore inconsistent for interpreters to maintain as all do explicitly or implicitly- -that the Evil Genius is omnipotent, but also to proceed to inquire what species of argument the cogit might be, whether syllogism, immediate inference, or whatever as most indeed do. The fmitudc of the Evil Genius is thus Descartes" acknowledgement that the founding argument of Cartesian doubt prior to the ro/ro is not meant to be universal. It is the premise on which the set of presuppositions of doubt, as Descartes understood it, becomes a region for inquiry.

The finitudc of the Evil Genius enables us to remove a problem that has frequently clouded the structure of the Meditations. If, on the common as-sumption, the COgitO triumphs over an omnipotent ratio dubitandi in Medir. 11. why does Descartes reassert an omnipotent ratio dubitandi near the beginning of M edit. III? Neither the first, the Evil Genius, nor ihc second, God, is known to be good: is not the jeopardy to knowledge the same1* This

^AT Vii. 2]; MR i, 147. 10AT VII, Si; HR J, 158 59. "6th Replies {AT V[l, 431-33, HR 1IL 248 49}; letters to M^rsenne. 15 April, 6

and 27 May, 1630 {AT t, 145-46; 149-50; 151-53; letter Lo M est and, 2 May 1644 (AT IV,LIE 191

" A t VII TI; HR 85.

7

difficulty has led interpreters lu at tempt distinctions14 that reduce the scope of what the Evil Genius makes dubious, as contrasted with what God makes dubious, when God reenters the argument as a raiio dubitarteli in M edit. I l l , But if the cogito had vanquished an omnipotent and actually Evil Genius in M edit, II, it surely need fear no threat from an omnipotent and possibly evil God in M edit. Ill,

In conclusion we may remark that the above is only the Itsi preliminary to an analysis of the profound weaning of the Evjj Genius who begins his career in the Ofympica dream manuscript.30 In the Meditations he reappears almost immediately after the cogito, ari event often neglected, but explicable on our vie* that he renders dubitable only the bodily sphere.

Pennsylvania Stale University.

Kenny maintains that both God and the Evil Genius arc omnipotent and hence "the two hypotheses do not dilTcr in any respect of epistemologica! significance." yet attempts a distinction between a ''lirsHjrder doubt" in M edit. 1 II and a 11 second-tirdcr doubt" in Medit. HI (o/?, cit,, 35, 13-4), Similarly, A. Gewiriti's distinc-tion between a "methodological doubt1" and a "metaphysical doubt1' has the difficulty that both are based on an omnipotent rado dubitndi that is not known to be goud and henee both must include deception in every possible respect (fhitos. Rrvttw, L (I9JI), 368 95, csp. 37 J); cf. L- . Btcfc, I6>.

"Se my "Descartes' OiympiC," Sodai ReiWifl (Summer I96IJ, 176-77, NT 204.