Final answer:
True, Descartes set a trap for himself with the evil deceiver hypothesis by casting doubt on the possibility of certain knowledge, leading to a form of skepticism he struggled to overcome.
Step-by-step explanation:
Many scholars argue that René Descartes indeed set a trap for himself with the evil deceiver hypothesis and was unable to escape its skeptical implications, making the statement true. Descartes' hypothesis suggests that if an evil demon is tricking us by controlling our experiences, we could be deceived about everything we perceive. For instance, the demon could make us believe we are eating a sandwich when we are not, inhibiting our ability to discern real experiences from false ones. This leads to the conclusion that without the capability to distinguish between real and deceived experiences, we cannot claim to have knowledge.
Descartes himself tries to overcome this skepticism, particularly by establishing that certain truths, such as those found in mathematics (e.g., 1 + 1 = 2), must hold even in the face of such deception. However, the evil deceiver scenario casts doubt even on these truths, suggesting that if we cannot be certain of anything, then we can't truly claim to have knowledge.
The concept of an evil deceiver was influential in the history of philosophy and can be contrasted with other approaches, such as Malebranche's occasionalism, Leibniz's optimism about the best of all possible worlds, and the Many Gods Problem that questions religious beliefs. Descartes stimulated extensive debate and criticism, such as Putnam's Brain in a Vat argument, which echoes similar skepticism about our knowledge of the external world.