Overview

Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy has proven to be not only one of the canonical texts of Western philosophy, but also the site of a great deal of interpretive activity in scholarship on the history of early modern philosophy over the last two decades. David Cunning's monograph proposes a new interpretation, which is that from beginning to end the reasoning of the Meditations is the first-person reasoning of a thinker who starts from a confused non-Cartesian paradigm and moves slowly and awkwardly toward a grasp of just a few of the central theses of Descartes' system. The meditator of the Meditations is not a full-blown Cartesian at the start or middle or even the end of inquiry, and accordingly the Meditations is riddled with confusions throughout. Cunning argues that Descartes is trying to capture the kind of reasoning that a non-Cartesian would have to engage in to make the relevant epistemic progress, and that the Meditations rhetorically models that reasoning. He proposes that Descartes is reflecting on what happens in philosophical inquiry: we are unclear about something, we roam about using our existing concepts and intuitions, we abandon or revise some of these, and then eventually we come to see a result as clear that we did not see as clear before. Thus Cunning's fundamental insight is that Descartes is a teacher, and the reader a student. With that reading in mind, a significant number of the interpretive problems that arise in the Descartes literature dissolve when we make a distinction between the Cartesian and non-Cartesian elements of the Meditations, and a better understanding of surrounding texts is achieved as well. This important volume will be of great interest to scholars of early modern philosophy.

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9780199380305

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One might have thought it nearly impossible at this late date to write a new book containing a well argued, fresh perspective on fundamental features of Descartes's philosophy. With this book, David Cunning has achieved that nearly impossible feat. The accomplishment is especially remarkable given his focus on the Meditations, which is one of the most thoroughly studied works of philosophy in existence. --Mind A rich, rewarding, and provocative study. Cunning starts with the idea that Descartes, in authoring the Meditations, is a teacher as well as a systematic philosopher. Cunning has a sophisticated (and textually well-grounded) account of the relationship between Descartes the teacher and the confused first-person meditator of the text. Cunning engages the secondary literature carefully, and shows a clear command of, and sensitivity to, the whole range of Descartes' writings. Careful, systematic and challenging.... I enthusiastically recommend this volume not only to scholars of Descartes and early modern philosophy, but also to anyone interested in the intersection of epistemology and philosophical pedagogy. --British Journal for the History of Philosophy Many aspects of the Meditations are discussed in novel and interesting ways. This interpretation makes an important and original contribution to the literature. It closely observes important features of Descartes' reasoning in the Discourse, the Meditations, and the Principles. --Journal of theHistory of Philosophy David Cunning's Arguments and Persuasion in Descartes' Meditations is an ambitious book, offering interpretations of and solutions to a wide range of interpretive issues in the Meditations. Meticulously argued... This is a fascinating book. --Philosophy in Review Those who construe Descartes' philosophy as resting on iconoclastic notions of intellectual autonomy, mastery of natures and a sense of independence bordering on solipsism will need to rethink as a result of

One might have thought it nearly impossible at this late date to write a new book containing a well argued, fresh perspective on fundamental features of Descartes's philosophy. With this book, David Cunning has achieved that nearly impossible feat. The accomplishment is especially remarkable given his focus on the Meditations, which is one of the most thoroughly studied works of philosophy in existence. --Mind A rich, rewarding, and provocative study. Cunning starts with the idea that Descartes, in authoring the Meditations, is a teacher as well as a systematic philosopher. Cunning has a sophisticated (and textually well-grounded) account of the relationship between Descartes the teacher and the confused first-person meditator of the text. Cunning engages the secondary literature carefully, and shows a clear command of, and sensitivity to, the whole range of Descartes' writings. Careful, systematic and challenging.... I enthusiastically recommend this volume not only to scholars of Descartes and early modern philosophy, but also to anyone interested in the intersection of epistemology and philosophical pedagogy. --British Journal for the History of Philosophy Many aspects of the Meditations are discussed in novel and interesting ways. This interpretation makes an important and original contribution to the literature. It closely observes important features of Descartes' reasoning in the Discourse, the Meditations, and the Principles. --Journal of the History of Philosophy David Cunning's Arguments and Persuasion in Descartes' Meditations is an ambitious book, offering interpretations of and solutions to a wide range of interpretive issues in the Meditations. Meticulously argued... This is a fascinating book. --Philosophy in Review Those who construe Descartes' philosophy as resting on iconoclastic notions of intellectual autonomy, mastery of natures and a sense of independence bordering on solipsism will need to rethink as a result of this book. The passive acceptance of God/Nature is of course very different from the acceptance of authority, dogma, textual traditions, precedents and history, and the great virtue of the book is that it brings out this distinction so clearly. I much recommend this worthwhile and original book. --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Scholars and graduate students of Descartes will find the exercise of working through this book challenging and illuminating. Recommended. --CHOICE An important contribution to Descartes scholarship. It advances novel and original interpretations of key arguments in the Meditations, and (particularly in the extremely valuable footnotes) offers critical discussions of previous commentators. The writing is clear and accessible, the mastery of relevant primary and secondary texts is truly impressive, and the overall approach is very well-conceived. --Edwin McCann, Philosophy, University of Southern California This is a thoughtful, interesting study of Descartes' Meditations that proposes a large-scale, unifying perspective on the work that would both illuminate heretofore unrecognized aspects of it and resolve some of the long-standing scholarly questions of interpretation. --Steven Nadler, Philosophy, University of Wisconsin

One might have thought it mearly impossible at this late date to write a new book containing a well argued, fresh perspective on fundamental features of Descarte's philosophy. With this book, David Cunning has achieved that nearly impossible feat. The accomplishment is especially remarkable give his focus on the Meditations, which is one of the most thoroughly studied works of philosophy in existance. Alan Nelson, Mind

One might have thought it mearly impossible at this late date to write a new book containing a well argued, fresh perspective on fundamental features of Descarte's philosophy. With this book, David Cunning has achieved that nearly impossible feat. The accomplishment is especially remarkable give his focus on the Meditations, which is one of the most thoroughly studied works of philosophy in existance. * Alan Nelson, Mind *

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David Cunning is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa.

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