René Descartes is spoken of as the father of modern philosophy, his seventeenth-century contributions the most significant since Aristotle. Collected here are three of his central works: the "Discourse on the Method," the "Meditations on the First Philosophy," and selections from the "Principles of Philosophy."
The "Discourse" was first published as an introduction to treatises on optics, meteorology, and geometry, written in French rather than scholarly Latin to reach a wider audience. Composed as a kind of intellectual autobiography, it outlines a four-precept method for right reasoning before turning to morality, metaphysics, medicine, and scientific progress.
In the "Meditations," Descartes takes up "the existence of God and the nature of the human soul," arriving at his most famous idea: "cogito ergo sum"-"I think, therefore I am." From the cogito he deduces the existence of a non-deceiving God, and from there the distinction between mind and body on which all other truths about the world may be based. First published alongside objections from seven contemporaries and his replies to them, it remains one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy.
The "Principles of Philosophy" was intended as a textbook to replace the Aristotelian textbooks of its day, offering in short numbered paragraphs a systematic overview of Descartes' metaphysics and natural philosophy.
Descartes' legacy is enormous: as translator John Veitch put it, his philosophy is "a sort of crossroad whence diverge the chief ways followed by modern thought." Later figures from Hume and Kant to Wittgenstein have had to engage with his project or mark their contrast from it. This edition includes an appendix excerpting Descartes' replies to his critics, along with Veitch's endnotes on key terms in Descartes' thought.
From the certainty of doubt to the architecture of the soul, these foundational texts trace the thinking that reshaped Western philosophy for centuries to come.
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