The plain truth : Descartes, Huet, and skepticism / / by Thomas M. Lennon.

• Superior document: Brill's studies in intellectual history, v. 170
• Author: Lennon, Thomas M.
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's studies in intellectual history ; v. 170.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (272 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

The skeptic Pierre-Daniel Huet’s Censura philosophiae cartesianae (1689) is the most comprehensive, unrelenting and devastating critique of Descartes ever. It incisively captures all the issues that now interest readers of Descartes: the method of doubt, the cogito , clarity and distinctness as criteria of truth, the circularity of the Meditations , proofs of God’s existence, et cetera Naturally, the work provoked great controversy among the Cartesians, who were implicated in various capacities—Nicolas Malebranche as the occasional cause of the publication, and Pierre-Sylvain Regis as the chief defender of the Cartesian camp. What emerges in this study of the controversy is a heroic, defensible Descartes. He possesses hitherto unappreciated answers to the criticisms that have bedeviled his philosophy from his time to ours.

Table of Contents

People -- Who was Huet? -- The Censura : why and when? -- The birth of skepticism -- Malebranche's surprising silence -- The downfall of Cartesianism -- Kinds -- Huet a Cartesian? -- Descartes and skepticism : the standard interpretation -- Descartes and skepticism : the texts -- Thoughts -- The cogito : an inference? -- The transparency of mind -- The cogito as pragmatic tautology -- Doubts -- The reality of doubt -- The generation of doubt -- The response to doubt -- Rules -- The criterion of truth -- The trump argument -- Circles -- The simple circularity of the Meditations -- The inner circle(s) -- Gods -- Gassendist influences -- The objections of objections -- The rejection of intentionality -- Virtues -- Descartes's voice -- Betting the family farm -- The propagation of light -- The heart-beat -- The moving earth -- Faith and reason -- Descartes as methodological academic skeptic.