Silencing the Demon's Advocate: The Strategy of Descartes' Meditations

by Ronald Rubin

Overview

This book attempts to explain The Meditations (1641), a classic of Western philosophy in which Descartes tries to reach a predetermined end ("perfect certainty") by means of a definite method ("the method of doubt"). The author argues that many problems of interpretation—including notorious problems of circularity—arise from a failure to recognize that Descartes' strategy for attaining certainty is not to add support for his beliefs, but to subtract grounds for doubt. To explain this strategy, Rubin views Descartes as playing the role of a fictional character—The Demon's Advocate—whose beliefs are, in some respects, mirror images of Descartes' own. The purpose of The Meditations, he contends, is to silence The Demon's Advocate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804758161
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	04/23/2008
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ronald Rubin is Professor of the History of Ideas at Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges. Among his published works are Formal Logic: A Model of English (1989) and a translation of Descartes' Meditations (1984).

Editorial Reviews

"Ronald Rubin's new book provides a refreshingly even-handed interpretation and analysis of Descartes's Meditations...his development and employment of the heuristic device of the "Demon's Advocate" surely sets this work apart from the other, vast literature on the Meditations." —Journal of the History of Philosophy

From the Publisher

"Rubin's ingenious, elegant, and terse essay is a most valuable contribution to the Cartesian secondary literature, containing a wealth of insight into the nature and structure of Descartes's metaphysical doctrines and arguments."

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"Much has been written on the Meditations in the last thirty years, so it is difficult to say anything new, but Professor Rubins lively and analytically written book succeeds in doing just that. Especially noteworthy are his fresh readings of the method of doubt, the cogito, and the Cartesian Circle."

Marquette University - Larry Nolan