The White Council

which is the better explanation?

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: It is conceivable that Sauron would not fear destruction of the ring. The simplest explaination is that he did not realize how much of himself he had put into the ring. Intent on crafting the one ruling ring, he put more and more of himself into it without knowing. Following the loss of the ring, he was weakened but continued to exist. If he believed that the ring had been destroyed, this would reinforce his belief that the ring was not a threat to his existence.

He seemed to fear its destruction when Frodo claimed it for himself at the cracks of doom. But perhaps he wasn't really afraid for himself, he just didn't want to lose the ring. That doesn't seem very plausible to me, but maybe it makes sense. In any case, the case you're stating seems to be what pretty much everybody here believes but me, namely that Sauron would not have thought that destroying the ring would have destroyed him as well. That just really surprises me, for reasons I've given in plenty of posts below. If I'm all alone in this, I will consider changing my view, even if I don't hear any compelling evidence. But I still think this is an implausible situation -- that Sauron wouldn't know much more about his own ring than this gives him credit for.

: I don't believe that Gandalf, or any of the wise, realized that destroying the ring would also destroy Sauron. Their intent from the onset was to destroy the ring in order to prevent Sauron from regaining and using it.

But see, here's one problem: Gandalf says on many occasions that destroying the ring would destroy Sauron. I've listed some of the passages in other posts. One is in "The Last Debate" (which led to the dispute on whether Gandalf would lie or not). You're right that it doesn't make much sense to suppose that Gandalf would know this about the ring when Sauron doesn't! Yet Gandalf does seem to know it. And he claims that Sauron doesn't. That's why I said it was a whopper. I think Gandalf just misspoke.

: Gandalf does not know what Sauron believed. It is conjecture on Gandalf's part, based on the belief that if Sauron had known of the rings existence, he would have sought to recover it earlier.

Yes. So there has to be another explanation (in other words, a better conjecture based on the same evidence). How about: Sauron knew it was out there, but did not know where to look. It's not as if we have a daily log of Sauron's activies during the third age. It's quite possible that he was looking all the while for the ring...but didn't consider looking for an old hobbit hidden under the Misty Mountains. That seems very plausible to me.