Descartes Is There a Vicious Circle in the Meditations
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Is There A Vicious Circle In The Meditations?
Descartes' Meditations consider the nature of knowledge and the human mind, the validity of truth and the existence of God.
It is Descartes' means of proving God that begs the question of circularity. The circular reasoning found is that, on one hand we can only know that God exists because we clearly and distinctly perceive it, and on the other hand, we only know that our clear and distinct perceptions are true because God exists.
In the Third Meditation Descartes says that all the things we conceive very clearly and distinctly are true, but then recognizes that these things are open to doubt. Even evidently simple things such as "three plus two makes five." This doubt arises from the chance that everything he knows is actually the result of an all-powerful deceiver.
Descartes then seeks to remove this doubt by inquiring whether indeed there is a God and whether He can be deceitful "for without the knowledge of these two truths, I do not see that I can ever be certain of anything."
Descartes proves his God in the Third and Fourth Meditations with the following argument:
1. I have an idea of God, a perfect being...