Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings by

Ren Descartes

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Original Title: Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings

ISBN: 0140447016
ISBN13: 9780140447019
Autor: Ren Descartes/Desmond M. Clarke (Translator)
Rating: 5 of 5 stars (718) counts
Original Format: Paperback, 256 pages
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Published: November 26th 1998 / by Penguin Classics / (first published January 1st 1976)
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Philosophy- 124 users
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Description:

'I shall imagine myself as if I had no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, no senses at all'

Descartes was prepared to go to any lengths in his search for certainty even to deny those
things that seemed most self-evident. In his Meditations of 1641, and in the Objections and
Replies that were included with the original publication, he set out to dismantle and then
reconstruct the idea of the individual self and its existence. In doing so, Descartes developed a
language of subjectivity that has lasted to this day and also took his first steps towards the view
that would eventually be expressed in the epigram Cogito, ergo sum ('I think, therefore I am'), one
of modern philosophy's most famous and most fiercely controversial claims.

The first part of a two-volume edition of Descartes' works in Penguin Classics, this edition includes
extensive selections from the Objections and Replies, Part One of The Principles of Philosophy,
Comments on a Certain Manifesto and related correspondence from 1643 to 1649.
About Author:

Ren Descartes, also known as Renatus Cartesius (Latinized form), was a highly influential
French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer. He has been dubbed the "Father of
Modern Philosophy," and much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings,
which continue to be studied closely. His influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian
coordinate system that is used in plane geometry and algebra being named for him, and he was
one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution.
Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of
the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the Early Modern version of what are now commonly called
emotions, he goes so far as to assert that he will write on his topic "as if no one had written on
these matters before". Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism,
the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like St. Augustine. In his natural
philosophy, he differs from the Schools on two major points: First, he rejects the analysis of
corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejects any appeal to ends divine or
natural in explaining natural phenomena. In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of
Gods act of creation.
Descartes was a major figure in 17th century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch
Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of
Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all versed in
mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as
well. As the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system, Descartes founded analytic geometry,
the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the invention of calculus and analysis.
Descartes' reflections on mind and mechanism began the strain of Western thought that much
later, impelled by the invention of the electronic computer and by the possibility of machine
intelligence, blossomed into the Turing test and related thought. His most famous statement is:
Cogito ergo sum (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am), found in 7 of
part I of Principles of Philosophy (Latin) and in part IV of Discourse on the Method (French).

Other Editions:
- Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings

- Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings (Kindle Edition)

- Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings (Hardcover)

- Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings (Paperback)

- Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings (Penguin Classics)

Books By Author:

- Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy

 - Meditations on First Philosophy

- Discourse on Method

- The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Volume I)

- Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and

Replies (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)

Books In The Series:

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Philonous

- The Philosopher's Handbook: Essential Readings from Plato to Kant

- Ten Great Works of Philosophy

- Autobiographies
- The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

- Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

- The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century

- Discourse on Metaphysics & Other Essays

- Selected Writings

- The Book of Margery Kempe

- The Cid / Cinna / The Theatrical Illusion

- On Liberty and The Subjection of Women

- The Portable Plato

- On the Plurality of Worlds

- Volpone and Other Plays

- The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists

 - Roman Lives: A Selection of Eight Lives

- Shamans Through Time

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The Penguin Descartes
Acknowledgements
Note to Corrected Edition
Note on References to Descartes
Chronology
Introduction & Notes
Further Reading
Meditations on First Philosophy
Note on the Text and Translation
--Letter of Dedication to the Sorbonne
--Preface to the Reader
--Summary of the Following Six Meditations
--Meditations
--Objections and Replies (Selections)
The Principles of Philosophy
Note on the Text
--Letter to Princess Elizabeth
--Part One: The Principles of Human Knowledge
Note on the Text
--Desca
The Penguin Descartes
Acknowledgements
Note to Corrected Edition
Note on References to Descartes
Chronology
Introduction & Notes
Further Reading
Meditations on First Philosophy
Note on the Text and Translation
--Letter of Dedication to the Sorbonne
--Preface to the Reader
--Summary of the Following Six Meditations
--Meditations
--Objections and Replies (Selections)
The Principles of Philosophy
Note on the Text
--Letter to Princess Elizabeth
--Part One: The Principles of Human Knowledge
Note on the Text
--Descartes' Correspondence: Selections, 1643-9
Note on the Text
--Comments on a Certain Manifesto
Notes
Index
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