Zusammenfassung / Summary
Proving something twice raises suspicions: The first time, it could have been proven only insufficiently; or, even worse, both attempts may be unsatisfactory, wherefore insistent repetition has to be relied upon in order to convince. However, it was René Descartes himself in his famous “Meditationes de prima philosophia” who proved God’s existence twice in this epoch-making text. The “Meditations” seem a strange work anyway, combining its explicit guiding principle “nothing is older than the truth” with a method that, according to the author, “has rarely been used until now”. Taking a formalistic perspective, the essay seeks to apply the Cartesian concept of philosophy, which is set somewhere between the poles of the very old and the very new, on the double proof of God’s existence, showing that, from the Cartesian perspective, the repetition is only consequent.