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This evil demon thought experiment is Descartes’ way of pushing doubt to its limits. If there was one thing that we could be sure the evil > demon couldn’t trick us about, that would be amazing. It would also > provide a way of answering those people who claim that we can’t know anything at all for certain.

[A little history of philosophy, Nigel Warburton, Chapter XI]

What does the word "that" refer to? Is it the thing that we could be sure the evil demon couldn’t trick us about?

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I don’t think that is the (hypothetical) particular thing we could be sure the evil demon couldn’t trick us about- rather, that refers to the existence of such a thing. It’s really the whole clause that that is standing in for (“there was [being] one thing...”).

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