Descartes's 3rd Meditation
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Hello: Can someone who really knows & understands Descartes help me? He's tough for me to understand!
Question: Why does he (Descartes) need to prove the existence of God in the 3rd Meditation...and what purpose do you think it serves the structure of the Meditation?
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Solution Summary
Descartes' discussion of the existence of God in the 3rd Meditation is debated.
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To begin answering the question I would like to start by explaining that you should not feel bad that you are having a hard time understanding Descartes' meditations. Always remember that such works have been analyzed for such a long time after they were written because of the difficulty with understanding the works. In essence, treat your difficulty as a type of initiation into the work of philosophers!
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<br>Descartes may have had many reasons for presenting to his readers a proof for the belief in the existence of God. Bibliographical texts state that Descartes was a very religious man and this most likely had much to do with his desire to have 'philosophical proof' to support his own person convictions. Remember that philosophy in general, not to mention his own method, is a field that promotes doubt even in its best of times. Hence, paradoxically, Descartes may have wanted to decrease his own doubt within his religious life with the use of his own 'Cartesian Method' (i.e. his methodological doubt).
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<br>This reason, ...
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