Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, 4th Ed.

by René Descartes

Book Overview

This edition contains Donald Cress's completely revised translation of the Meditations (from the corrected Latin edition) and recent corrections to Discourse on Method , bringing this version even... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872204200
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.3" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Exceptional depth and range

Usually, philosophy books speak only to academic philosophers. This one shows Descartes' influence in a wide range of domains, including math and science, ethics and politics, psychology, and literature and the arts. The nine essays that complement Descartes' texts (the Discourse and Meditations) are accessible, but deeply informed. They have little or no competition. The translation is classic and clean, not fussy. This is not the last word on Descartes. Professorial competition guarantees many more. But this book is both scholarly and provocative.

I can't be positive, but I think he blew my mind.

Reading Descartes is like a breath of fresh air. Frankly I'm surprised no one has reviewed this before now. Reading Descartes is kind of like being informed you were going to die today, but were miraculously saved at the last moment, all without your knowledge. It changes your version of the world in the way only really good poetry can. He is so logical it makes his writings and thought process really clear and concise and this translation seems really user friendly to a layman like myself. I can't be positive, but I think he blew my mind.

a brilliant mind at work

Descartes has written one of the greatest classics in the history of philosophy. He gets down to the elements of how we can know truth. This is in sharp contrast to the majority of philosophy books that give another mans opinion, but not on how we know truth. Descartes begins his book by saying that there are contrary opinions among philosophers, other people and just in general. For every opinion given there is a contrary opinion, so how do we know truth, if knowing truth is even possible? He writes in his book, that what we know as the world ,could be the creation of a demon who fools us into thinking that what we know is real. So he writes that one should doubt everything. Then he says that someone is doubting, so there must be something real that is doubting. Hence he arrives at his famous self evident principle "I think, therefore I am." He then states that we begin our search for truth on self evident principles such as "Truth exists" and his principle stated above among others. We divide our problem and solve it starting from the easiest to the most difficult. As a final step we take in all the evidence into review. This is an excellent method in which to find truth. His first step though is the most important one, that is, establishing doubt. We can't really know what a thing is and hence we should be doubtful. This is a far better method than the scientific method and far easier to implement. Science does not and cannot arrive at truth, because truth is eternal and has no limit. The most science can do is to have a utility value. That is it can make life easier for us by mastering nature. To find truth we leave that to the religions such as Christianity and Buddhism and also to the philosophers like Descartes.

Descartes as founder for the founder of existential thought

Even though the writings and musings of Descartes are now universally regarded as being wrong, he's still a worthwhile read. Literally thousands of well-respected critics to his first philosophy created their own philosophies. Mightn't you? Hmmm? Hmmmmmm? Regarded as the founder of Modern Philosophy, the writings of Descartes have been used to bring us to the post-modern writings of Lacan, Camus, and Bernard Tapkis of Tallahassee, FL. I think therefore I am? Sure, a logical fallacy...but, I'll be ...if I would have thought of it on my own.