Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes

Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes

I will now close my eyes, I will stop my ears, I will turn away my senses from their objects, I will even efface from my consciousness all the images of corporeal things; or at least, because this can hardly be accomplished, I will consider them as empty and false; and thus, holding converse only with myself, and closely examining my nature, I will endeavor to obtain by degrees a more intimate and familiar knowledge of myself. I am a thinking (conscious) thing. although the things which I perceive or imagine are perhaps nothing at all apart from me, I am nevertheless assured that those modes of consciousness which I call perceptions and imaginations, in as far only as they are modes of consciousness, exist in me. -from Meditation I: Of God: That He Exists Sometimes called the father of modern philosophy, French mathematician, scientist, and writer RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650) continues to have a deeply profound impact on our modern world. His thinking on how the mind works and what is it capable of has profoundly impacted our understanding of ourselves-he summed up his philosophy with the phrase I think, therefore I am, which still thrills us-and his influence extends to our own experiments with modern computing and artificial intelligence. This concise discourse on doubt and the nature of truth was written in Latin and first published in 1641 with the subtitle In which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated. Here, Descartes considers: - Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt - The Nature of the Human Mind: That It Is Better Known Than the Body - God, That He Exists - The True and the False - The Essence of Material Things - The Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body Scottish poet, philosopher, and historian JOHN VEITCH (1829-1894) translated Meditations into English in 1852-this is a replica of the 1901 edition.

RENE DESCARTES was born into a family of some means in the small French town of La Haye on March 31, 1596. With the death of his mother when Descartes was barely one year old, he was raised by grandparents until the age of ten when he entered the Jesuit school at La Fleche. At eighteen, Descartes enrolled in the University of Poitiers, where he earned a degree in law. Not long thereafter, while Descartes was serving in the military in the Netherlands he became acquainted with a mathematician and physicist by the name of Isaac Beeckman, who sparked his intellectual interest. A family legacy permitted Descartes to pursue these interests in relative comfort.

From 1619 to 1628, Descartes lived in Paris, but spent a good bit of time traveling throughout Europe. It was during this time that he focused his attention on formulating a rational method that could free scientific think-ing and philosophical discourse from the rampant skepticism that threatened to drown discussion of important metaphysical and epistemological questions in a sea of uncertainty. Descartes developed a method that he believed could serve the needs of science and philosophy equally well. His efforts to realize this goal have earned him the title of the father of modern philosophy.

In 1628, his travels ended, Descartes settled in the Netherlands, where he remained for the next twenty years. The last few months of his life were spent in Sweden, where he ventured in 1649 at the request of Queen Christina to instruct her in philosophy and to assist in the development of an institute for the advancement of science. While in Stockholm, Descartes came to the aid of the French ambassador, a friend who was suffering from pneumonia. Not long thereafter, Descartes contracted the disease and died on February 11, 1650.

Rene Descartes's works include: The World (1633), Essais (1637), Discourse on Method (1637), Meditations Concerning Primary Philosophy (1644), Treatise on the Passions (1648), and Rules for the Direction of the Mind (published posthumously in 1701).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781453611920
ISBN 10	1453611924
Title	Meditations on First Philosophy
Author	Rene Descartes
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	CreateSpace
Year published	2010-06-13
Number of pages	112
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable