Status Updates From Meditations and Other Metap...

Having finished the third meditation and explored it, I admire his willingness to begin earlier in the meditation by not just assuming God exists but arguing it.

I think a lot of modern readers get to the third meditation which is the root of a lot of their aversion to Descartes' Meditations, because of bias against belief in God; we need to give Descartes the benefit of the doubt as he requested in the preface!

Descartes insofar is not as difficult to understand as people claim - having read just his first and second meditations, whether that persists is unclear.

What is currently sure, however, is that Descartes repeats himself fairly often, like when he asks once again what he is and says something to the effect of ‘well, I just said, I’m a thinking thing.’ That’s slightly jarring, though not much of a criticism.

Descartes insofar is not as difficult to understand as people claim - having read just his first and second meditations, whether that persists is unclear.

What is currently sure, however, is that Descartes repeats himself fairly often, like when he asks once again what he is and says something to the effect of ‘well, I just said, I’m a thinking thing.’ That’s slightly jarring, though not much of a criticism.

Amazing so far, though the real meat of the book is yet to begin. Descartes predicts many modern objections of reviewers, like many on this app, who seem to detest his work because they cannot give him the benefit of the doubt and a reasonable, open-minded approach to his ideas.

We are, of course, yet to see whether his arguments are really reasoned well or not. Some of his phrasings are frustrating, admittedly.