The dream argument and its role in Cartesian doubt continue to engage commentators. As recent scholarship shows, a consensus has yet to be attained. In what follows I attempt to resolve the current debate by offering an account of the dream doubt which captures Descartes’s rhetorical strategy in Meditation I. A faithful reading of the text, I propose to show, reveals that the dream doubt is not entertained seriously nor is it proposed merely for the sake of methodological skepticism. It (...) is rather an integral part of a dogmatic intrusion of Cartesian science at a pivotal point in the critique of prescientific experience. After presenting the proposed interpretation, I examine the accounts offered in the current scholarship. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show the way in which the Discourse on Method participates in the antitheological launching of the modern project---the securing of a secular paradise by the “universal instrument” of human reason. It is argued that the order of the presentation of the parts of the Discourse conceals the true architectonic order of the Cartesian edifice because the physics of Part Five is more foundational than the metaphysics which seemingly must ground it in Part Four.

This paper attempts to show the way in which the Discourse on Method participates in the antitheological launching of the modern project---the securing of a secular paradise by the “universal instrument” of human reason. It is argued that the order of the presentation of the parts of the Discourse conceals the true architectonic order of the Cartesian edifice because the physics of Part Five is more foundational than the metaphysics which seemingly must ground it in Part Four.

The past two decades have witnessed a flourishing of studies on Descartes by English language commentators. The focus of attention has been the Meditations, which continues to be regarded as the Archimedian point of Cartesian philosophy. The schism that has characterized the history of Cartesian scholarship persists throughout this most recent revival of interest in Descartes. The fundamental issue continues to be the question concerning the sincerity or insincerity of Descartes' theological metaphysics.