Cartesian circle
E198125
The Cartesian circle is a famous alleged circular reasoning in René Descartes’ Meditations, where his proof of God’s existence and his justification of clear and distinct perceptions appear to depend on each other.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Cartesian circle canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1783672 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Cartesian circle Context triple: [Meditations on First Philosophy, notableIdea, Cartesian circle]
-
A.
Several Circles
Several Circles is an abstract painting by Wassily Kandinsky that explores pure geometric forms and color relationships through a dynamic composition of overlapping circles.
-
B.
Archimedes' spiral
Archimedes' spiral is a classical mathematical curve that winds outward from a fixed point at a constant rate as it revolves around that point.
-
C.
Bernoulli lemniscate
The Bernoulli lemniscate is a figure-eight–shaped algebraic curve that serves as a classic example in the study of complex analysis, elliptic functions, and special constants.
-
D.
Squares with Concentric Circles
"Squares with Concentric Circles" is a famous abstract study in color theory by Wassily Kandinsky, featuring a grid of squares each containing vividly colored concentric circles.
-
E.
Circle A
Circle A was a tail marking insignia used by the U.S. Army Air Forces, notably appearing on the Enola Gay during World War II.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Cartesian circle Target entity description: The Cartesian circle is a famous alleged circular reasoning in René Descartes’ Meditations, where his proof of God’s existence and his justification of clear and distinct perceptions appear to depend on each other.
-
A.
Several Circles
Several Circles is an abstract painting by Wassily Kandinsky that explores pure geometric forms and color relationships through a dynamic composition of overlapping circles.
-
B.
Archimedes' spiral
Archimedes' spiral is a classical mathematical curve that winds outward from a fixed point at a constant rate as it revolves around that point.
-
C.
Bernoulli lemniscate
The Bernoulli lemniscate is a figure-eight–shaped algebraic curve that serves as a classic example in the study of complex analysis, elliptic functions, and special constants.
-
D.
Squares with Concentric Circles
"Squares with Concentric Circles" is a famous abstract study in color theory by Wassily Kandinsky, featuring a grid of squares each containing vividly colored concentric circles.
-
E.
Circle A
Circle A was a tail marking insignia used by the U.S. Army Air Forces, notably appearing on the Enola Gay during World War II.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
alleged logical fallacy
ⓘ
interpretive issue in Descartes scholarship ⓘ philosophical problem ⓘ |
| allegedlyUses |
God’s existence to guarantee reliability of clear and distinct perceptions
ⓘ
clear and distinct perceptions to prove God’s existence ⓘ |
| allegedProblemFor |
Descartes’ epistemological project
ⓘ
Descartes’ foundationalism ⓘ Descartes’ theory of knowledge ⓘ |
| concerns | relationship between proof of God and certainty of clear and distinct perceptions ⓘ |
| discussedBy |
20th-century analytic philosophers
ⓘ
Anthony Kenny ⓘ Antoine Arnauld ⓘ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ⓘ Harry Frankfurt ⓘ Immanuel Kant ⓘ Jaakko Hintikka ⓘ John Cottingham ⓘ |
| discussedIn |
Meditation III
ⓘ
Meditation IV ⓘ Meditation V ⓘ |
| field |
epistemology
ⓘ
history of philosophy ⓘ philosophy of religion ⓘ |
| hasInterpretations |
no-circle or reconstructionist reading
ⓘ
strong circularity reading ⓘ weak circularity reading ⓘ |
| historicallyFormulatedBy | Antoine Arnauld ⓘ |
| involves |
alleged circular reasoning
ⓘ
epistemic justification ⓘ metaphysical justification ⓘ |
| involvesConcept |
God as a non-deceiver
ⓘ
clear and distinct perceptions ⓘ criterion of truth ⓘ divine veracity ⓘ foundationalism ⓘ methodological doubt ⓘ |
| mainWorkDiscussedIn | Meditations on First Philosophy ⓘ |
| namedAfter | René Descartes ⓘ |
| questionRaised |
whether Descartes can non-circularly justify trust in reason
ⓘ
whether divine guarantee is needed for epistemic certainty ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
causal argument for God’s existence
ⓘ
foundational justification of knowledge ⓘ ontological argument ⓘ problem of the criterion ⓘ skepticism ⓘ theistic proofs ⓘ |
| statusInScholarship | controversial ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Cartesian circle Description of subject: The Cartesian circle is a famous alleged circular reasoning in René Descartes’ Meditations, where his proof of God’s existence and his justification of clear and distinct perceptions appear to depend on each other.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.