Meditations on First Philosophy

by เรอเน เดส์การตส์

Blurb

Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in 1641. The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Metaphysiques. The original Latin title is Meditationes de prima philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking animae immortalitas for animae immaterialitas, as suspected already by A. Baillet.
The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure. He wrote the meditations as if he had meditated for six days: each meditation refers to the last one as "yesterday" One of the most influential philosophical texts ever written, it is widely read to this day.
The Meditations consist of the presentation of Descartes' metaphysical system in its most detailed level and in the expanding of Descartes' philosophical system, which he first introduced in the fourth part of his Discourse on Method.

First Published

1641

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