Silencing the Demon’s Advocate

In Silencing the Demon's Advocate, Rubin presents an interpretation of Descartes' Meditations that avoids many of the standard objections to Descartes' reasoning.

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).

"In this slim volume, Rubin takes an original approach to the text of Descartes' Meditations, providing fresh perspectives on familiar themes. According to Rubin, Descartes' strategy in the Meditations is not so much to add support for his specific beliefs such as "God exists" but to subtract grounds for doubt, a task accomplished in large part by an implied dialogue between Descartes as meditator and Descartes as advocate for the "deceiving demon."—CHOICE

Larry Nolan:
"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."

"Ronald Rubin's new book provides a refreshingly even-handed interpretation and analysis of Descartes's Meditations. Rubin skillfully employs short expositions of Latin philosophical terminology, textual analysis, and contemporary analytic method to arrive at a largely sympathetic understanding of this seminal work...his development and employment of the heuristic device of the "Demon's Advocate" surely sets this work apart form the other, vast literature on the Mediations."—Journal of the History of Philosophy

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:
"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."

"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