Many scholars have suggested that Descartes’ argument in the third Meditation is fatally flawed because his reasoning “moves in a circle” so to speak (now known as the “Cartesian circle”).
This appears to involve appealing to two different intuitions in such a way that each of these appears
to be needed to support or justify the other:
a) a clear and distinct idea can be recognized by us as being self-evidently and indubitably true.
b) the concept of God (as a non-deceiving being) is a clear and distinct idea.
The problem, as many thinkers have pointed out, is that we need to assume the former to be sure of the latter, and yet, it is the existence of the latter (a non-deceiving God) that guarantees the former.
Explain in detail for your reader (present your reasons clearly and systematically) why you think this either does or does not, represent a fatal flaw for Descartes’ argument.
