McCauley, Harry (2004) Circling Descartes. Maynooth Philosophical Papers, 2. pp. 70-83.

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Abstract

From its initial, pre-publication circulation amongst a group of his contemporaries right up to the present day, Descartes’s Meditations has remained a highly controversial philosophical text. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the text is whether a circular argument lies at its very heart – a circular argument which would, quite literally, destroy the very edifice of knowledge which Descartes had tried so hard to rebuild upon secure and solid foundations. In this paper I want to have another look at the Cartesian Circle and to argue that, for all the undoubted ingenuity of Descartes’s various responses to the issue, a damaging circle remains in place and, moreover, I shall argue, it is a circle which outruns Descartes’s standard resources for responding to the charge of circularity.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Descartes
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Arts & Humanities > Philosophy
Item ID:	422
Depositing User:	Harry McCauley
Date Deposited:	12 Oct 2006
Journal or Publication Title:	Maynooth Philosophical Papers
Publisher:	National University of Ireland Maynooth
Refereed:	Yes
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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