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The Cartesian Circle Parker Aiken

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The Cartesian CircleParker Aiken

Argument

• The Cartesian Circle cannot be successfully defended as non-circular by either Descartes, or modern interpretations of his writings.

Important Notes

• The Truth Rule plays an integral part in the circle

• The Truth Rule: “What ever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true”

The Circle

• “I have a clear and distinct perception of a perfect God”

• “Deception is an imperfection”

• “Therefore deception is not a property of God”

• “if deception is not a property of God then there is no reason to doubt the truth rule”

• “Therefore truth rule is true”

Problem

• Descartes presupposes that clear and distinct perceptions are true in an attempt to prove that they are true.

First Interpretation

• The first interpretation is the most obvious and most common

• It is that Descartes made a mistake and fell into arguing in a circle

• This interpretation has no defense because it is clearly circular

Another Interpretation

• The Memory interpretation• “To begin with, we are sure that God exists because we attend to the arguments

which prove this; but subsequently it is enough for us to remember that we perceived something clearly in order for us to be certain that it is true. This would not be sufficient if we did not know that God exists and is not a deceiver”

• This interpretation holds that while God is proven through clear and distinct perceptions, God is not responsible for the truth of clear and distinct perceptions, but instead God is responsible for the veracity of our memories, and that clear and distinct perceptions were true all along

Memory interpretation continued…

• This interpretation suggests that God ensures that we can trust merely our memories of clear and distinct perceptions.

• This fails to avoid the circularity of the original argument because the original argument claims that clear and distinct perceptions are true because of God, and at no point in the original argument does Descartes mention our memories.

A Third Interpretation

• One possible interpretation of the Cartesian circle would be to say that Descartes was not attempting to attain truth, but instead certainty.

• In this interpretation it is not necessary that the existence of an all perfect God is proven true, but instead that the meditator is free of doubt and in a state of certainty when it comes to the existence of God.

• This would avoid the circle because instead of proofs being offered, only a state of conviction is required.

Downfall of this interpretation

• This interpretation does not succeed in avoiding the Cartesian circle because it is too weak to be the correct interpretation.

• It would require that one should replace all mentions of truth in the meditations with certainty instead.

A possible solution

• An attempt to avoid circular reasoning in the Cartesian circle would be to claim that Descartes only doubts the truth of some clear and distinct perceptions, but not others, and that he uses the ones he does not doubt to prove the others.

• This attempt fails to avoid circularity because there is still no reason given to prove that the clear and distinct perception that is used to establish the existence of God should be at a higher level of certainty than other clear and distinct perceptions.

Conclusion

• if one takes Descartes view of absolute truth which he establishes in his principles it becomes nearly impossible to deny that he fell into circular thinking when attempting to establish the existence of God. Different interpretations of what Descartes might have meant when establishing the existence of God can be construed in an attempt to avoid circularity, but in the end, all of these attempts fall short and it seems that there is really no way to successfully defend Descartes when it comes to the Cartesian circle.