Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by Donald A. Cress, Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.
René Descartes posits the existence of an evil demon in Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes suggests that he may not be able to trust the evidence of his own senses because, for all he knows, an evil demon could somehow be deceiving him about what he seems to be experiencing. He concludes that he must doubt the existence of everything around him.