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Open Philosophy LibraryMeditations On First PhilosophyRené Descartes

Meditations On First Philosophy

By René Descartes

René Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy leads the reader through six stages of radical doubt and rational reconstruction. It develops the certainty of the thinking self, arguments for God's existence, an account of error, the essences of material things, and the real distinction and intimate union of mind and body. First published in 1641, the work is foundational to modern rationalism, epistemology and philosophy of mind. This edition uses John Veitch's public-domain translation.

Translator or editor
John Veitch
Publication
1641; Veitch translation published 1901
Genre
Rationalism; metaphysics; epistemology
Era
17th Century, Early Modern Philosophy

About this work

First published in 1641, Meditations on First Philosophy is René Descartes' systematic attempt to establish foundations for knowledge capable of withstanding radical doubt. The First Meditation questions sensory belief, waking experience and even mathematical reasoning. The Second discovers that the thinker's existence remains certain whenever thinking occurs and investigates the mind through the example of the changing wax. The Third and Fifth Meditations offer different arguments for God's existence. The Fourth explains error as the will extending judgement beyond what finite understanding perceives clearly. The final Meditation restores qualified confidence in material things and argues that mind and body are really distinct, while recognising that human beings experience them as intimately united. The work's six-day structure turns philosophy into an exercise performed by the reader. Its questions about scepticism, self-knowledge, representation, judgement and consciousness continue to shape epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of mind.

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