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Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings
René Descartes
A compact, authoritative one-volume reader gathering the essential Descartes: the *Discourse on the Method* and *Meditations on First Philosophy* in full, plus generous extracts from the *Rules for the Direction of the Mind*, the *Optics*, the *Principles of Philosophy*, the *Objections and Replies*, and the *Passions of the Soul*. Distilled from the standard two-volume Cambridge edition by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, it renders seventeenth-century French and Latin into clear modern English while keeping running references to the standard Adam-Tannery pagination scholars cite. For anyone meeting the founder of modern philosophy — the man of "I think, therefore I am," methodical doubt, and mind-body dualism — this is the practical single book to own, trusted alike in undergraduate seminars and by general readers who want Descartes in his own words.
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The author
René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist usually credited with launching modern Western philosophy. He invented much of analytic geometry (Cartesian coordinates bear his name), and in metaphysics he sought certainty by doubting everything doubtable until he reached the one thing he could not doubt — the existence of his own thinking. His sharp split between mind and body, "Cartesian dualism," has shaped and vexed philosophy of mind ever since. He spent his most productive years in the Dutch Republic and died in Stockholm, having been summoned to tutor Queen Christina of Sweden.
The book
This anthology, edited and translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (with Anthony Kenny), was published by Cambridge University Press in 1988 as a distillation of their complete two-volume Philosophical Writings of Descartes.
How to read it
Start with the Discourse and Meditations; the Objections and Replies then show Descartes defending himself against sharp contemporaries like Hobbes and Gassendi, which is where the arguments come alive.
For more context
The full Cambridge edition and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry go deeper.
Sources - Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings — Cambridge University Press - Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings — PhilPapers
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- René Descartes
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Place of publication
- Cambridge
- Year
- 1988
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Spirituality & Philosophy
- Location
- Colorado