54
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PEIRCE
all those that are operative. Our ignorance of small things and great,
of distant times and of very slow operations. We are equally ignorant of very rapid performances which nevertheless we know to take
place. Our science is altogether middle-sized and mediocre. Its
insignificance compared with the universe cannot be exaggerated.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the mind ofthe active scientist
is filled with propositions which, if not proved beyond all reasonable
cavil, are at least extremely probable. On the contrary, he entertains hypotheses which are almost wildly incredible, and treats
them with respect for the time being. Why does he do this? Simply
because any scientific proposition whatever is always liable to be
refuted and dropped at short notice. A hypothesis is something
which looks as if it might be true and were true, and which is capable
of verification or refutation by comparison with facts. The best
hypothesis, in the sense of the one most recommending itself to the
inquirer, is the one which can be the most readily refuted if it is
false. This far outweighs the trifling merit of being likely. For
after all, what is a likely hypothesis? It is one which falls in with
our preconceived ideas. But these may be wrong. Their errors
are just what the scientific man is out gunning for more particularly.
But if a hypothesis can quickly and easily be cleared away so as to
go toward leaving the field free for the main struggle, this is an
immense advantage.
II
Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in
order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be
satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one
corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of
the city of philosophy:
Do not block the way of inquiry.
Although it is better to be methodical in our investigations, and
to consider the economics of research, yet there is no positive sin
against logic in trying any theory which may come into our heads,
so long as it is adopted in such a sense as to permit the investigation
to go on unimpeded and undiscouraged. On the other hand, to set
up a philosophy which barricades the road of further advance toward
the truth is the one unpardonable offence in reasoning, as it is
also the one to which metaphysicians have in all ages shown themselves the most addicted.
THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE AND FALLIBILISM
55
Let me call your attention to four familiar shapes in which this
venomous error assails our knowledge.
The first is the shape of absolute assertion. That we can be sure
of nothing in science is an ancient truth. The Academy taught it.
Yet science has been infested with overconfident assertion, especially
on the part of the third-rate and fourth-rate men, who have been
•Lore concerned with teaching than with learning, at all times. No
doubt some of the geometries still teach as a self-evident truth the
proposition that if two straight lines in one plane meet a third
straight line so as to make the sum of the internal angles on one
side less than two right angles those two lines will meet on that
side if sufficiently prolonged. Euclid, whose logic was more careful,
only reckoned this proposition as a Postulate, or arbitrary Hypothesis. Yet even he places among his axioms the proposition that
a part is less than its whole, and falls into several conilicts with
our most modern geometry in consequence. But why need we stop
to consider cases where some subtilty of thought is required to see
that the assertion is not warranted when every book which applies
philosophy to the conduct of life lays down as positive certainty
propositions which it is quite as easy to doubt as to believe?
The second bar which philosophers often set up across the roadway of inquiry lies in maintaining that this, that, and the other
never can be known. When Auguste Comte was pressed to specify
any matter of positive fact to the knowledge of which no man could
by any possibility attain, he instanced the knowledge of the chemical
composition of the fixed stars; and you may see his answer set
down in the Philosophie positive. But the ink was scarcely dry
upon the printed page before the spectroscope was discovered and
that which he had deemed absolutely unknowable was well on the
way of getting ascertained. It is easy enough to mention a question
the answer to which is not known to me today. But to aver that
that answer will not be known tomorrow is somewhat risky; for
oftentimes it is precisely the least expected truth which is turned
up under the ploughshare of research. And when it comes to
positive assertion that the truth never will be found out, that, in
the light of the history of our time, seems to me more hazardous
than the venture of Andree.
The third philosophical stratagem for cutting off inquiry consists
in maintaining that this, that, or the other element of science is
basic, ultimate, independent of aught else, and utterly inexplicable
-not so much from any defect in our knowing as because there is
nothing beneath it to know. The only type of reasoning by which
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PEIRCE
such a conclusion could possibly be reached is retroduction. 4 Now
nothing justifies a retroductive inference except its affording an
explanation of the facts. It is, however, no explanation at all of
a fact to pronounce it inexplicable. That, therefore, is a conclusion
which no reasoning can ever justify or excuse.
The last philosophical obstacle to the advance of knowledge
which I intend to mention is the holding that this or that law or
truth has found its last and perfect formulation-and especially
that the ordinary and usual course of nature never can be broken
through. "Stones do not fall from heaven," said Laplace, although
they had been falling upon inhabited ground every day from the
earliest times. But there is no kind of inference which can lend the
slightest probability to any such absolute denial of an unusual
phenomenon.
All positive reasoning is of the nature of judging the proportion
of something in a whole collection by the proportion found in a
sample. Accordingly, there are three things to which we can never
hope to attain by reasoning, namely, absolute certainty, absolute
exactitude, absolute universality. We cannot be absolutely certain
that our conclusions are even approximately true; fOr the sample
may be utterly unlike the unsampled part of the collection. We
cannot pretend to be even probably exact; because the sample
consists of but a finite number of instances and only admits special
values of the proportion sought. Finally, even if we could ascertain
with absolute certainty and exactness that the ratio of sinful men
to all men was as I to I; still among the infinite generations of men
there would be room for any finite number of sinless men without
violating the proportion. The case is the same with a seven-legged
calf.
Now if exactitude, certitude, and universality are not to be
attained by reasoning, there is certainly no other means by which
they can be reached.
Somebody will suggest revelation. There are scientists and
people influenced by science who laugh at revelation; and certainly
science has taught us to look at testimony in such a light that the
whole theological doctrine of the "Evidences" seems pretty weak.
However, I do not think it is philosophical to reject the possibility
of a revelation. Still, granting that, I declare as a logician that
revealed truths-that is, truths which have nothing in their favour
but revelations made to a few inclividuals--constitute by far the
most uncertain class of truths there are. There is here no question
THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE AND FALLIBILISM
57
of universality; for revelation is itself sporadic and miraculous.
There is no question of mathematical exactitude; for no revelation
makes any pretension to that character. But it does pretend to
be certain; and against that there are three conclusive objections.
First, we never can be absolutely certain that any given deliverance
really is inspired; for that can only be established by reasoning.
We cannot even prove it with any very high degree of probability.
Second, even if it is inspired, we cannot be sure, or nearly sure,
that the statement is true. We know that one of the commandments was in one of the Bibles printed with[out] a not in it. All
inspired matter has been subject to human distortion or colouring.
Besides we cannot penetrate the counsels of the most High, or lay
down anything as a principle that would govern his conduct. We
do not know his inscrutable purposes, nor can we comprehend his
plans. We cannot tell but he might see fit to inspire his servants
with errors. In the third place, a truth which rests on the authority
of inspiration only is of a somewhat incomprehensible nature; and
we never can be sure that we rightly comprehend it. As there is
no way of evading these difficulties, I say that revelation, far from
affording us any certainty, gives results less certain than other
sources of information. This would be so even if revelation were
much plainer than it is.
But, it will be said, you forget the Jaws which are known to us
a priori, the axioms of geometry, the principles of logic, the maxims
of causality, and the like. Those are absolutely certain, without
exception and exact. To this I reply that it seems to me there is
the most positive historic proof that innate truths are particularly
uncertain and mixed up with error, and therefore a fortiori not
without exception. This historical proof is, of course, not infallible;
but it is very strong. Therefore, I ask how do you know that a
priori truth is certain, exceptionless, and exact? You cannot know
it by reasoning. For that would be subject to uncertainty and
inexactitude. Then, it must amount to this that you know it
a priori; that is, you take a priori judgments at their own valuation,
without criticism or credentials. That is barring the gate of inquiry.
Ah! but it will be said, you forget direct experience. Direct
experience is neither certain nor uncertain, because it affirms
nothing-it just is. There are delusions, hallucinations, dreams.
But there is no mistake that such things really do appear, and
direct experience means simply the appearance. It involves no
error, because it testifies to nothing but its own appearance. For
the same reason, it affords no certainty. It is not exact, because it
ss
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PEIRCE
THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE AND FALLIBILISM
leaves much vague; though it is not inexact either; that is, it has
no false exactitude.
All this is true of direct experience at its first presentation. But
when it comes up to be criticized it is past, itself, and is represented
by memory. Now the deceptions and inexactitude of memory are
proverbial.
. . . On the whole, then, we cannot in any way reach perfect
certitude nor exactitude. We never can be absolutely sure of anything, nor can we with any probability ascertain the exact value
of any measure or general ratio.
This is my conclusion, after many years study of the logic of
science· and it is the conclusion which others, of very different
cast of 'mind, have come to, likewise. I believe I may say there is
no tenable opinion regarding human knowledge which does not
legitimately lead to this corollary. Certainly there is nothing new
in it; and many of the greatest minds of all time have held it for
true.
Indeed, most everybody will admit it until he begins to see what
is involved in the admission-and then most people will draw back.
It will not be admitted by persons utterly incapable of philosophical
reflection. It will not be fully admitted by masterful minds
developed exclusively in the direction of action and accustomed ~o
claim practical infallibility in matters of busmess. These men w1ll
admit the incurable fallibility of all opinions readily enough; only,
they will always make exception of their own. The doctrine of
fallibilism will also be denied by those who fear its consequences
for science, for religion, and for morality. But I will take leave to
say to these highly conservative gentlemen that however competent
they may be to direct the affairs of a church or other corporation,
they had better not try to manage science in that. way. Conservatism-in the sense of a dread of consequences-Is altogether
out of place in science-which has on the contrary always been
forwarded by radicals and radicalism, in the sense of the eagerness
to carry consequences to their extremes. Not the radicalism that
is cocksure, however, but the radicalism that tries experiments.
Indeed, it is precisely among men animated by the spirit of science
that the doctrine of fallibilism will find supporters.
Still, even such a man as that may well ask whether I propose
to say that it is not quite certain that twice ~wo are four-":"d that
it is even not probably quite exact! But 1t would be qmte misunderstanding the doctrine of fallibilism to suppose that 1t means
that twice two is probably not exactly four. As I have already
remarked, it is not my purpose to doubt that people can usually
count with accuracy. Nor does fallibilism say that men cannot
attain a sure knowledge of the creations of their own minds. It
neither affirms nor denies that. It ouly says that people cannot
attain absolute certainty concerning questions of fact. Numbers
are merely a system of names devised by men for the purpose of
counting. It is a matter of real fact to say that in a certain room
there are two persons. It is a matter of fact to say that each
person has two eyes. It is a matter of fact to say that there are
four eyes in the room. But to say that if there are two persons
and each person has two eyes there will be four eyes is not a statement of fact, but a statement about the system of numbers which
is our own creation.
59
Hsu
Philosophy 21
Winter 2022
Midterm
General instructions:
(a) Please answer two of the following three questions. Your essays should be typewritten and
labelled with the number of the questions you are answering. Please do not re-write prompts.
(b) You may hand in a total of up to 1500 words (excluding title page and list of sources, if any)
for this exam. Your essays will count equally towards your grade on this exam, but they do not
have to be of the same length.
(c) To facilitate blind grading, please do not write your name anywhere in your paper or the
document title. Put your student ID number on the first page.
(d) Spell and grammar check your essays before uploading. Gross grammatical, spelling and
typographical errors will be severely penalized.
(e) You may use any sources you wish, but all sources must be properly acknowledged. Ask
your TA if you are uncertain about what is required. University policy on academic integrity will
be vigorously enforced. 1 Note: all submissions will automatically be screened by turnitin.
Upload your exam to your TA’s website. The window for submission is
9:00 AM Friday 11 February to 11:59 PM Monday 14 February
Papers received after the window closes will be penalized 1/3 letter grade per day.
***
1. Consider the following argument about dreaming:
1.
I have sometimes been tricked into thinking that my eyes are open, that my limbs
are not asleep, that I act deliberately and know what I am doing—i.e., that I’m awake—
when I’m not awake
2.
If I have been tricked into thinking that I’m awake when I’m not, then I can never
be certain that I am awake
3.
So, I can never be certain that I am awake (“I may be asleep”) 2
See the Dean of Students website for information on university policy about academic integrity:
https://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/Academic-Integrity
1
2
This argument comes very close to what Descartes writes in the famous passage about
dreaming in the First Meditation:
...right now my eyes are certainly wide open when I look at this piece of paper; I shake
my head and it isn’t asleep; when I rub one hand against the other, I do it deliberately
and know what I am doing. This wouldn’t all happen with such clarity to someone
asleep. Indeed! As if I didn’t remember other occasions when I have been tricked by
exactly similar thoughts while asleep! As I think about this more carefully, I realize that
there is never any reliable way of distinguishing being awake from being asleep. This
Page 1 of 2
Hsu
Philosophy 21
Winter 2022
(a) Lay out the Argument from Illusion explicitly and explain the most serious problems with it.
(b) Do the problems with the Argument from Illusion also apply to the argument above or does
the argument about dreaming avoid those problems? Explain. (c) Is the argument about
dreaming a good argument?
2. (a) What does Peirce mean by “positive reasoning”? Peirce says that we cannot attain
“absolute certainty” or “absolute exactitude” by positive reasoning. Why does Peirce say this?
(b) Peirce mentions what he calls “retroductive inference”--what is nowadays known as
“inference to the best explanation.” What is that? Can it attain “absolute certainty”? What about
“absolute exactitude”? (c) Positive reasoning and inference to the best explanation are common,
indeed ubiquitous, in the sciences (and elsewhere!). Do the facts about positive reasoning and
retroduction provide a good argument for a form of radical skepticism about science? Explain.
3. Suppose that you are a ‘malicious, powerful, and cunning demon” and that your job is to
deceive some group of humans by using illusions. (a) What sorts of facts do you have to take
into account when plotting your deceptions? What sorts of facts make your task difficult? (b)
According to Bouwsma, there may be limits on how far your deceptions can go. Explain
Bouwsma’s view about the limits of illusion. (c) Suppose your powers include abilities to
perceive features of things that are inaccessible to humans. E.g., suppose you can tell at a
“glance” that some of the particles that make up the particles that make up the particles…that
make up matter have the property of being “up”, a fact about which humans have no inkling.
Does your power give you any advantage when you try to deceive humans into thinking a salt
shaker contains salt?
discovery makes me feel dizzy, which itself reinforces the notion that I may be asleep!
[pp. 1f]
Page 2 of 2
Descartes' Evil Genius
Author(s): O. K. Bouwsma
Source: The Philosophical Review , Mar., 1949, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Mar., 1949), pp. 141-151
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review
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DESCARTES' EVIL GENIUS
T HERE WAS ONCE an evil genius who promised the mother
of us all that if she ate of the fruit of the tree, she would be like
God, knowing good and evil. He promised knowledge. She did eat
and she learned, but she was disappointed, for to know good and evil
and not to be God is awful. Many an Eve later, there was rumor of
another evil genius. This evil genius promised no good, promised no
knowledge. He made a boast, a boast so wild and so deep and so dark
that those who heard it cringed in hearing it. And what was that
boast? Well, that apart from a few, four or five, clear and distinct
ideas, he could deceive any son of Adam about anything. So he
boasted. And with some result? Some indeed! Men going about in
the brightest noonday would look and exclaim: "How obscure !" and
if some careless merchant counting his apples was heard to say: "Two
and three are five," a hearer of the boast would rub his eyes and run
away. This evil genius still whispers, thundering, among the leaves of
books, frightening people, whispering: "I can. Maybe I will. Maybe
so, maybe not." The tantalizer! In what follows I should like to examine the boast of this evil genius.
I am referring, of course, to that evil genius of whom Descartes
writes:
I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain
of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his
whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth,
the colors, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but illusions
and dreams of which this evil genius has availed himself, in order to lay traps
for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh,
no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things.'
This then is the evil genius whom I have represented as boasting
that he can deceive us about all these things. I intend now to examine
this boast, and to understand how this deceiving and being deceived
osothical Works of Descartes, I, I47.
'4'
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
are to take place. I expect to discover that the evil genius may very well
deceive us, but that if we are wary, we need not be deceived. He will
deceive us, if he does, by bathing the word "illusion" in a fog. This
then will be the word to keep our minds on. In order to accomplish all
this, I intend to describe the evil genius carrying out his boast in two
adventures. The first of these I shall consider a thoroughly transparent
case of deception. The word "illusion" will find a clear and familiar
application. Nevertheless in this instance the evil genius will not have
exhausted "his whole energies in deceiving us." Hence we must aim
to imagine a further trial of the boast, in which the "whole energies" of
the evil genius are exhausted. In this instance I intend to show that
the evil genius is himself befuddled, and that if we too exhaust some
of our energies in sleuthing after the peculiarities in his diction, then
we need not be deceived either.
Let us imagine the evil genius then at his ease meditating that very
bad is good enough for him, and that he would let bad enough alone.
All the old pseudos, pseudo names and pseudo statements, are doing
very well. But today it was different. He took no delight in common
lies, everyday fibs, little ones, old ones. He wanted something new
and something big. He scratched his genius; he uncovered an idea.
And he scribbled on the inside of his tattered halo, "Tomorrow, I will
deceive," and he smiled, and his words were thin and like fine wire.
"Tomorrow I will change everything, everything, everything. I will
change flowers, human beings, trees, hills, sky, the sun, and everything else into paper. Paper alone I will not change. There will be
paper flowers, paper human beings, paper trees. And human beings
will be deceived. They will think that there are flowers, human beings,
and trees, and there will be nothing but paper. It will be gigantic. And
it ought to work. After all men have been deceived with much less
trouble. There was a sailor, a Baptist I believe, who said that all was
water. And there was no more water then than there is now. And
there was a pool-hall keeper who said that all was billiard balls. That's
a long time ago of course, a long time before they opened one, and
listening, heard that it was full of the sound of a trumpet. My prospects are good. I'll try it."
And the evil genius followed his own directions and did according
to his words. And this is what happened.
Imagine a young man, Tom, bright today as he was yesterday,
I42
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DESCARTES' EVIL GENIUS
approaching a table where yesterday he had seen a bow
Today it suddenly strikes him that they are not flowe
them troubled, looks away, and looks again. Are they
shakes his head. He chuckles to himself. "Huh! that's f
trick? Yesterday there certainly were flowers in that bow
suspiciously, hopefully, but smells nothing. His nose g
ance. He thinks of the birds that flew down to peck a
the picture and of the mare that whinnied at the liken
der's horse. Illusions! The picture oozed no juice, and t
still. He walked slowly to the bowl of flowers. He looked, and he
sniffed, and he raised his hand. He stroked a petal lightly, lover of
flowers, and he drew back. He could scarcely believe his fingers.
They were not flowers. They were paper.
As he stands, perplexed, Milly, friend and dear, enters the room.
Seeing him occupied with the flowers, she is about to take up the
bowl and offer them to him, when once again he is overcome with
feelings of strangeness. She looks just like a great big doll. He looks
more closely, closely as he dares, seeing this may be Milly after all.
Milly, are you Milly? -that wouldn't do. Her mouth clicks as she
opens it, speaking, and it shuts precisely. Her forehead shines, and he
shudders at the thought of Mine Tussaud's. Her hair is plaited, evenly,
perfectly, like Milly's but as she raises one hand to guard its order,
touching it, preening, it whispers like a newspaper. Her teeth are
white as a genteel monthly. Her gums are pink, and there is a clapper
in her mouth. He thinks of mama dolls, and of the rubber doll he used
to pinch; it had a misplaced navel right in the pit of the back, that
whistled. Galatea in paper! Illusions!
He noted all these details, flash by flash by flash. He reaches for a
chair to steady himself and just in time. She approaches with the bowl
of flowers, and, as the bowl is extended towards him, her arms jerk.
The suppleness, the smoothness, the roundness of life is gone.
Twitches of a smile mislight up her face. He extends his hand to take
up the bowl and his own arms jerk as hers did before. He takes the
bowl, and as he does so sees his hand. It is pale, fresh, snowy. Trembling, he drops the bowl, but it does not break, and the water does
not run. What a mockery!
He rushes to the window, hoping to see the real world. The scene
is like a theatre-set. Even the pane in the window is drawn very thin,
I43
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
like cellophane. In the distance are the forms of men walking about
and tossing trees and houses and boulders and hills upon the thin
cross section of a truck that echoes only echoes of chugs as it moves.
He looks into the sky upward, and it is low. There is a patch straight
above him, and one seam is loose. The sun shines out of the blue like
a drop of German silver. He reaches out with his pale hand, crackling
the cellophane, and his hand touches the sky. The sky shakes and tiny
bits of it fall, flaking his white hand with confetti.
Make-believe!
He retreats, crinkling, creaking, hiding his sight. As he moves he
misquotes a line of poetry: "Those are perils that were his eyes," and
he mutters, "Hypocritical pulp !" He goes on: "I see that the heavens,
the earth, colors, figures, sound, and all other external things, flowers,
Milly, trees and rocks and hills are paper, paper laid as traps for my
credulity. Paper flowers, paper Milly, paper sky!" Then he paused,
and in sudden fright he asked "And what about me?" He reaches to
his lip and with two fingers tears the skin and peels off a strip of
newsprint. He looks at it closely, grim. "I shall consider myself as
having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, or any senses." He lids
his paper eyes and stands dejected. Suddenly he is cheered. He ex-
claims: "Cogito me papyrum esse, ergo sum." He has triumphed
over paperdom.
I have indulged in this phantasy in order to illustrate the sort of
situation which Descartes' words might be expected to describe. The
evil genius attempts to deceive. He tries to mislead Tom into thinking
what is not. Tom is to think that these are flowers, that this is the
Milly that was, that those are trees, hills, the heavens, etc. And he
does this by creating illusions, that is, by making something that looks
like flowers, artificial flowers; by making something that looks like
and sounds like and moves like Milly, an artificial Milly. An illusion
is something that looks like or sounds like, so much like, something
else that you either mistake it for something else, or you can easily
understand how someone might come to do this. So when the evil
genius creates illusions intending to deceive he makes things which
might quite easily be mistaken for what they are not. Now in the
phantasy as I discovered it Tom is not deceived. He does experience
the illusion, however. The intention of this is not to cast any reflection
upon the deceptive powers of the evil genius. With such refinements
I44
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DESCARTES' EVIL GENIUS
in the paper art as we now know, the evil genius might very well have
been less unsuccessful. And that in spite of his rumored lament: "And
I made her of the best paper !" No, that Tom is not deceived, that he
detects the illusion, is introduced in order to remind ourselves how
illusions are detected. That the paper flowers are illusory is revealed
by the recognition that they are paper. As soon as Tom realizes that
though they look like flowers but are paper, he is acquainted with,
sees through the illusion, and is not deceived. What is required, of
course, is that he know the difference between flowers and paper, and
that when presented with one or the other he can tell the difference.
The attempt of the evil genius also presupposes this. What he intends
is that though Tom knows this difference, the paper will look so
much like flowers that Tom will not notice the respect in which the
paper is different from the flowers. And even though Tom had actually been deceived and had not recognized the illusion, the evil genius
himself must have been aware of the difference, for this is involved
in his design. This is crucial, as we shall see when we come to consider
the second adventure of the evil genius.
'"As you will remember I have represented the foregoing as an illustration of the sort of situation which Descartes' words might be ex-
pected to describe. Now, however, I think that this is misleading. For
though I have described a situation in which there are many things,
nearly all of which are calculated to serve as illusions, this question
may still arise. Would this paper world still be properly described as
a world of illusions? If Tom says: "These are flowers," or "These
look like flowers" (uncertainly), then the illusion is operative. But if
Tom says: "These are paper," then the illusion has been destroyed.
Descartes uses the words: "And all other external things are nought
but illusions." This means that the situation which Descartes has in
mind is such that if Tom says: "These are flowers," he will be
wrong, but he will be wrong also if he says: "These are paper," and
it won't matter what sentence of that type he uses. If he says: "These
are rock" - or cotton or cloud or wood - he is wrong by the plan.
He will be right only if he says: "These are illusions." But the
proj ect is to keep him from recognizing the illusions. This means that
the illusions are to be brought about not by anything so crude as paper
or even cloud. They must be made of the stuff that dreams are made
of.
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
Now let us consider this second adventure.
The design then is this. The evil genius is to create a world of
illusions. There are to be no flowers, no Milly, no paper. There is to
be nothing at all, but Tom is every moment to go on mistaking nothing
for something, nothing at all for flowers, nothing at all for Milly, etc.
This is, of course, quite different from mistaking paper for flowers,
paper for Milly. And yet all is to be arranged in such a way that
Tom will go on just as we now do, and just as Tom did before the
paper age, to see, hear, smell the world. He will love the flowers, he
will kiss Milly, he will blink at the sun. So he thinks. And in thinking
about these things he will talk and argue just as we do. But all the
time he will be mistaken. There are no flowers, there is no kiss, there
is no sun. Illusions all. This then is the end at which the evil genius
aims.
How now is the evil genius to attain this end ? Well, it is clear that
a part of what he aims at will be realized if he destroys everything.
Then there will be no flowers, and if Tom thinks that there are flowers
he will be wrong. There will be no face that is Milly's and no tumbled
beauty on her head, and if Tom thinks that there is Milly's face and
Milly's hair, he will be wrong. It is necessary then to see to it that
there are none of these things. So the evil genius, having failed with
paper, destroys even all paper. Now there is nothing to see, nothing to
hear, nothing to smell, etc. But this is not enough to deceive. For
though Tom sees nothing, and neither hears nor smells anything, he
may also think that he sees nothing. He must also be misled into
thinking that he does see something, that there are flowers and Milly,
and hands, eyes, flesh, blood, and all other senses. Accordingly the
evil genius restores to Tom his old life. Even the memory of that paper
day is blotted out, not a scrap remains. Witless Tom lives on, thinking, hoping, loving as he used to, unwitted by the great destroyer.
All that seems so solid, so touchable to seeming hands, so biteable to
apparent teeth, is so flimsy that were the evil genius to poke his index
at it, it would curl away save for one tiny trace, the smirch of that
index. So once more the evil genius has done according to his word.
And now let us examine the result.
I should like first of all to describe a passage of Tom's life. Tom is
all alone, but he doesn't know it. What an opportunity for methodologico-metaphysico-solipsimo! I intend, in any case, to disregard the
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DESCARTES' EVIL GENIUS
niceties of his being so alone and to borrow his own words, with the
warning that the evil genius smiles as he reads them. Tom writes:
Today, as usual, I came into the room and there was the bowl of flowers on
the table. I went up to them, caressed them, and smelled over them. I thank God
for flowers! There's nothing so real to me as flowers. Here the genuine essence
of the world's substance, at its gayest and most hilarious speaks to me. It seems
unworthy even to think of them as erect, and waving on pillars of sap. Sap! Sap!
There was more in the same vein, which we need not bother to
record. I might say that the evil genius was a bit amused, snickered in
fact, as he read the words "so real," "essence," "substance," etc., but
later he frowned and seemed puzzled. Tom went on to describe how
Milly came into the room, and how glad he was to see her. They talked
about the flowers. Later he walked to the window and watched the
gardener clearing a space a short distance away. The sun was shining,
but there were a few heavy clouds. He raised the window, extended
his hand and four large drops of rain wetted his hand. He returned to
the room and quoted to Milly a song from The Tempest. He got all
the words right, and was well pleased with himself. There was more
he wrote, but this enough to show how quite normal everything seems.
And, too, how successful the evil genius is.
And the evil genius said to himself, not quite in solipsimo, "Not so,
not so, not at all so."
The evil genius was, however, all too human. Admiring himself but
unadmired, he yearned for admiration. To deceive but to be un-
suspected is too little glory. The evil genius set about then to plant
the seeds of suspicion. But how to do this? Clearly there was no sug-
gestive paper to tempt Tom's confidence. There was nothing but
Tom's mind, a stream of seemings and of words to make the seemings
seem no seemings. The evil genius must have words with Tom and
must engage the same seemings with him. To have words with Tom is
to have the words together, to use them in the same way, and to
engage the same seemings is to see and to hear and to point to the
same. And so the evil genius, free spirit, entered in at the door of
Tom's pineal gland and lodged there. He floated in the humors that
flow, glandwise and sensewise, everywhere being as much one with
Tom as difference will allow. He looked out of the same eyes, and
when Tom pointed with his finger, the evil genius said "This" and
meant what Tom, hearing, also meant, seeing. Each heard with the
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
same ear what the other heard. For every sniffing of the one nose
there were two identical smells, and there were two tactualities for
every touch. If Tom had had a toothache, together they would have
pulled the same face. The twinsomeness of two monads finds here the
limit of identity. Nevertheless there was otherness looking out of
those eyes as we shall see.
It seems then that on the next day, the evil genius "going to and fro"
in Tom's mind and "walking up and down in it," Tom once again, as
his custom was, entered the room where the flowers stood on the
table. He stopped, looked admiringly, and in a caressing voice said:
"Flowers! Flowers !" And he lingered. The evil genius, more subtle
"than all the beasts of the field," whispered "Flowers? Flowers?"
For the first time Tom has an intimation of company, of some intimate
partner in perception. Momentarily he is checked. He looks again at
the flowers. "Flowers? Why, of course, flowers." Together they look
out of the same eyes. Again the evil genius whispers, "Flowers ?" The
seed of suspicion is to be the question. But Tom now raises the flowers
nearer to his eyes almost violently as though his eyes were not his
own. He is, however, not perturbed. The evil genius only shakes their
head. "Did you ever hear of illusions ?" says he.
Tom, still surprisingly good-natured, responds: "But you saw them,
didn't you? Surely you can see through my eyes. Come, let us bury
my nose deep in these blossoms, and take one long breath together.
Then tell whether you can recognize these as flowers."
So they dunked the one nose. But the evil genius said "Huh !" as
much as to say: What has all this seeming and smelling to do with it?
Still he explained nothing. And Tom remained as confident of the
flowers as he had been at the first. The little seeds of doubt, "Flowers?
Flowers ?" and again "Flowers ?" and "Illusions ?" and now this stick
in the spokes, "Huh !" made Tom uneasy. He went on: "Oh, so you
are one of these seers that has to touch everything. You're a tangibilite. Very well, here's my hand, let's finger these flowers. Careful!
They're tender."
The evil genius was amused. He smiled inwardly and rippled in a
shallow humor. To be taken for a materialist! As though the grand
illusionist was not a spirit! Nevertheless, he realized that though
deception is easy where the lies are big enough (where had he heard
that before?), a few scattered, questioning words are not enough to
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DESCARTES' EVIL GENIUS
make guile grow. He was tempted to make a statement, and he did.
He said, "Your flowers are nothing but illusions."
"My flowers illusions?" exclaimed Tom, and he took up the bowl
and placed it before a mirror. "See," said he, "here are the flowers
and here, in the mirror, is an illusion. There's a difference surely.
And you with my eyes, my nose, and my fingers can tell what that
difference is. Pollen on your fingers touching the illusion? Send Milly
the flowers in the mirror? Set a bee to suck honey out of this glass ?
You know all this as well as I do. I can tell flowers from illusions, and
my flowers, as you now plainly see, are not illusions."
The evil genius was now sorely tried. He had his make-believe, but
he also had his pride. Would he now risk the make-believe to save his
pride? Would he explain? He explained.
"Tom," he said, "notice. The flowers in the mirror look like flowers
but they only look like flowers. We agree about that. The flowers
before the mirror also look like flowers. But they, you say, are flowers
because they also smell like flowers and they feel like flowers, as
though they would be any more flowers because they also like flowers
multiply. Imagine a mirror such that it reflected not only the looks of
flowers, but also their fragrance and their petal surfaces, and then
you smelled and touched, and the flowers before the mirror would
be just like the flowers in the mirror. Then you could see immediately
that the flowers before the mirror are illusions just as those in the
mirror are illusions. As it is now, it is clear that the flowers in the
mirror are thin illusions, and the flowers before the mirror are thick.
Thick illusions are the best for deception. And they may be as thick
as you like. From them you may gather pollen, send them to Milly,
and foolish bees may sleep in them."
But Tom was not asleep. "I see that what you mean by thin illus-
ions is what I mean by illusions, and what you mean by thick illusions
is what I mean by flowers. So when you say that my flowers are your
thick illusions this doesn't bother me. And as for your mirror that
mirrors all layers of your thick illusions, I shouldn't call that a mirror
at all. It's a duplicator, and much more useful than a mirror, provided
you can control it. But I do suppose that when you speak of thick
illusions you do mean that thick illusions are related to something you
call flowers in much the same way that the thin illusions are related
to the thick ones. Is that true ?"
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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
The evil genius was now diction-deep in explanations and went on.
"In the first place let me assure you that these are not flowers. I
destroyed all flowers. There are no flowers at all. There are only thin
and thick illusions of flowers. I can see your flowers in the mirror,
and I can smell and touch the flowers before the mirror. What I cannot smell and touch, having seen as in the mirror, is not even thick
illusion. But if I cannot also cerpicio' what I see, smell, touch, etc.,
what I have then seen is not anything real. Esse est cerpici. I just now
tried to cerpicio' your flowers, but there was nothing there. Man is
after all a four- or five- or six-sense creature and you cannot expect
much from so little."
Tom rubbed his eyes and his ears tingled with an eighteenthcentury disturbance. Then he stared at the flowers. "I see," he said,
"that this added sense of yours has done wickedly with our language.
You do not mean by illusion what we mean, and neither do you mean
by flowers what we mean. As for cerpicio I wouldn't be surprised if
you'd made up that word just to puzzle us. In any case what you
destroyed is what, according to you, you used to cerpicio. So there is
nothing for you to cerpicio any more. But there still are what we mean
by flowers. If your intention was to deceive, you must learn the lan-
guage of those you are to deceive. I should say that you are like the
doctor who prescribes for his patients what is so bad for himself and
is then surprised at the health of his patients." And he pinned a flower
near their nose.
The evil genius, discomfited, rode off on a corpuscle. He had failed.
He took to an artery, made haste to the pineal exit, and was gone.
Then "sun by sun" he fell. And he regretted his mischief.
I have tried in this essay to understand the boast of the evil genius.
His boast was that he could deceive, deceive about "the heavens, the
earth, the colors, figures, sound, and all other external things." In
order to do this I have tried to bring clearly to mind what deception
and such deceiving would be like. Such deception involves illusions
and such deceiving involves the creation of illusions. Accordingly I
have tried to imagine the evil genius engaged in the practice of de-
ception, busy in the creation of illusions. In the first adventure everything is plain. The evil genius employs paper, paper making believe
it's many other things. The effort to deceive, ingenuity in deception,
being deceived by paper, detecting the illusion - all these are clearly
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DESCARTES' EVIL GENIUS
understood. It is the second adventure, however, which is more
crucial. For in this instance it is assumed that the illusion is of such
a kind that no seeing, no touching, no smelling, are relevant to detecting the illusion. Nevertheless the evil genius sees, touches, smells, and
does detect the illusion. He made the illusion; so, of course, he must
know it. How then does he know it? The evil genius has a sense denied
to men. He senses the flower-in-itself, Milly-in-herself, etc. So he
creates illusions made up of what can be seen, heard, smelled, etc.,
illusions all because when seeing, hearing, and smelling have seen,
heard, and smelled all, the special sense senses nothing. So what poor
human beings sense is the illusion of what only the evil genius can
sense. This is formidable. Nevertheless, once again everything is
clear. If we admit the special sense, then we can readily see how it is
that the evil genius should have been so confident. He has certainly
created his own illusions, though he has not himself been deceived.
But neither has anyone else been deceived. For human beings do not
use the word "illusion" by relation to a sense with which only the
evil genius is blessed.
I said that the evil genius had not been deceived, and it is true that
he has not been deceived by his own illusions. Nevertheless he was
deceived in boasting that he could deceive, for his confidence in this is
based upon an ignorance of the difference between our uses of the
words, "heavens," "earth,"Y "flowers," "Milly," and "illusions" of
these things, and his own uses of these words. For though there certainly is an analogy between our own uses and his, the difference is
quite sufficient to explain his failure at grand deception. We can also
understand how easily Tom might have been taken in. The dog over
the water dropped his meaty bone for a picture on the water. Tom,
however, dropped nothing at all. But the word "illusion" is a trap.
I began this essay uneasily, looking at my hands and saying "no
hands," blinking my eyes and saying "no eyes." Everything I saw
seemed to me like something Cheshire, a piece of cheese, for instance,
appearing and disappearing in the leaves of the tree. Poor kitty! And
now? Well ....
0. K. BOUWSMA
University of Nebraska
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Argument from Illusion
Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses.
But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to trust
completely those who have deceived us even once. (p. 1 bottom LHS]
co
00:09:05 As most true has
come to me through
my senses, but
occasionally i've
found that they That
is my senses have
deceived me and it's
unwise to trust
completely those
who are deceived us
once.
1. My senses have sometimes deceived me
2. It is unwise (ever") to trust completely things that have deceived us even once
3. So, it is unwise (ever) to trust my senses completely
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