The
evil demon, also known as
evil genius, and occasionally as
malicious demon or
genius malignus, is a concept in
Cartesian philosophy. In his 1641
Meditations on First Philosophy,
René Descartes hypothesized the existence of an evil
demon, a personification who is "as clever and deceitful as he is powerful, who has directed his entire effort to misleading me." The evil demon presents a complete illusion of an external world, including
other minds, to Descartes' senses, where there is no such external world in existence. The evil genius also presents to Descartes' senses a complete illusion of his own body, including all bodily sensations, when Descartes has no body. Some Cartesian scholars opine that the demon is also
omnipotent, and thus capable of altering mathematics and the fundamentals of logic, though omnipotence of the evil demon would be contrary to Descartes' hypothesis, as he rebuked accusations of the evil demon having omnipotence.