Meditations on First Philosophy

by Rene Descartes, Andrew Bailey (Editor), Ian Johnston (Translator)

Overview

Complete with a new and highly readable translation, this edition makes the classic text more accessible than ever before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554811526
Publisher:	Broadview Press
Publication date:	04/30/2013
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	106
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

René Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist and writer of the Age of Reason. He has been called the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and much of subsequent Western philosophy can be seen as a response to his writings. He is responsible for one of the best-known quotations in philosophy: "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am").

He was a pioneer and major figure in 17th Century Continental Rationalism (often known as Cartesianism) later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the British Empiricist school of thought of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. He represents a major break with the Aristotelianism and Scholasticism of the Medieval period.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Translator’s Note

Meditations on First Philosophy

Dedication to the Sorbonne

Preface to the Reader

Synopsis of the Six Following Meditations

• First Meditation: Concerning Those Things Which Can Be Called into Doubt

  Second Meditation: Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind and the Fact that It Is Easier to Know than the Body

  Third Meditation: Concerning God and the Fact that He Exists

  Fourth Meditation: Concerning Truth and Falsity

  Fifth Meditation: Concerning the Essence of Material Things, and, Once Again, Concerning the Fact that God Exists

  Sixth Meditation: Concerning the Existence of Material Things and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body

Index

Editorial Reviews

"Broadview Press has produced an excellent translation of Descartes's famous Meditations on First Philosophy. It is accurate, philosophically sensitive, and it rivals any of the translations currently available. Andrew Bailey's introduction of the text, and his biography of Descartes, is a real plus, and will serve students well."

Kurt Smith

"A very helpful translation. The language is clear, and the supplementary material and notes lay out a cross-section of the interpretive debates, and provide tips for how a reader might approach them."

David Cunning

"Descartes was living and writing at a tumultuous time, and Bailey does a nice job of sketching the intellectual environment into which the Meditations was launched, while pre-emptively warding off a number of common misunderstandings of Descartes's aims."

Seth Bordner

Broadview Press has produced an excellent translation of Descartes’s famous Meditations on First Philosophy. It is accurate, philosophically sensitive, and it rivals any of the translations currently available. Andrew Bailey’s introduction of the text, and his biography of Descartes, is a real plus, and will serve students well.” — Kurt Smith, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

“A very helpful translation. The language is clear, and the supplementary material and notes lay out a cross-section of the interpretive debates, and provide tips for how a reader might approach them.” — David Cunning, University of Iowa

“Descartes was living and writing at a tumultuous time, and Bailey does a nice job of sketching the intellectual environment into which the Meditations was launched, while pre-emptively warding off a number of common misunderstandings of Descartes’s aims.” — Seth Bordner, University of Alabama

From the Publisher