Well, it seems like the argument for the existence of God could be seen as just a part of the main argument of the Third Meditation, which is meant to establish the possibility of my knowing anything (like whether 2+3=5, etc.). He's worried about how we can know this stuff. Here's one way to look at the argument with the circularity problem:
- If I know God exists and is not a deceiver, then it's possible for me to be certain of some things (because then I'll know that God is not tricking me into being sure of those things I feel very sure of).
- [insert argument for the existence of God here]
- God exists.
- [insert argument for the non-deceiving of God here]
- God is not a deceiver.
- God exists and is not a deceiver. (by 3 and 4)
- I know God exists and is not a deceiver. (by examining the above arguments)
- It's possible for me to be certain of some things. (by 1 and 7)
This is the conclusion he wanted. The problem is that to get from step 6 to step 7, it would be required for us to already accept 8. That is, we might have arguments for the existence and non-deceiving of God, but for those arguments to create knowledge in us, it must be possible for me to be certain of some things. So in order to get to 8, 8 itself would really need to appear as a premise somewhere above 7, which would make this a circular argument. Notice that this makes it clear that the circularity has nothing to do with the argument for the existence of God, which appears up in step 2.
This whole thing could use some precisifying, but I think it's a good start.
2 comments:
This seems like a great articulation of the circularity worry.
However, there is some reason to think that Descartes should not be interpreted as giving that circular argument. To see why, consider first the following crucial passage:
“And whenever my preconceived belief in the supreme power of God comes to mind, I cannot but admit that it would be easy for him, if he so desired, to bring it about that I go wrong even in those matters which I think I see utterly clearly with my mind’s eye. … And since I have no cause to think that there is a deceiving God, and I do not yet even know for sure whether there is a God at all, any reason for doubt which depends on this supposition is a very slight and, so to speak, metaphysical one” (CSM II: 25).)
There are two possibilities to consider. First, it could be that Descartes intends this ‘metaphysical’ reason for doubt to extend to everything whatsoever, including things that are manifest by the natural light. If so, then Descartes should be interpreted in giving the circular argument displayed in the original post, and this is disastrous for his overall project.
However, in his third reply to the second set of objections Descartes makes it clear that he did not (allegedly) intend for this metaphysical reason for doubt to extend to such things:
“…when I said that we can know nothing for certain until we are aware that God exists, I expressly declared that I was speaking only of knowledge of those conclusions which can be recalled when we are no longer attending to the arguments by means of which we deduced them” (CSM II: 100).
Following Descartes, then, we can read the ‘metaphysical’ reason for doubt as not applying to those things that are manifest by the natural light.
(Note that Descartes repeatedly says, during the 'proof' of the existence of god, that "all of this is manifest by the natural light", etc.)
If we interpret Descartes in such a way, then it doesn't seem like any circularity arises. (In regards to the argument displayed in the original post, we then wouldn't start with anything like premise 1).
Of course, if we interpret Descartes in that way, then it also doesn't seem like he has any non-dogmatic response to a determined skeptic. But that is another issue. It may be that a non-dogmatic response to a determined skeptic is impossible.
I like the passage you gave from the objections/replies, but I think that might still apply here. The problematic step is moving from "God exists & isn't a deceiver" to "I know God exists & isn't a deceiver". But we only know those things because we just went through a proof of them (just like with "I exist" and "2+3=5"). So they would fall into the category of things that we can't know unless we know that God exists. Tilt!
I think what you say would be right if he just said that we know by the natural light that God exists and is not a deceiver. If that's what he really thought, though, why go through the whole argument? The parts where he says he knows stuff by the natural light (like the causal principle about the hierarchies) gets us that we can know some of the premises of the argument for God's existence, but not the conclusion.
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