Based on the new two volume Cambridge edition of the Philosophical Writings, this anthology of essential texts contains the most important and widely studied of the writings.

This book is a systematic study of Descartes' relation to Augustine. It offers a complete reevaluation of Descartes' thought and as such will be of major importance to all historians of medieval, neo-Platonic, or early modern philosophy. Stephen Menn demonstrates that Descartes uses Augustine's central ideas as a point of departure for a critique of medieval Aristotelian physics, which he replaces with a new, mechanistic anti-Aristotelian physics. Special features of the book include a reading of the Meditations, a comprehensive historical and philosophical introduction to Augustine's thought, a detailed account of Plotinus, and a contextualization of Descartes' mature philosophical project which explores both the framework within which it evolved and the early writings, to show how the collapse of the early project drove Descartes to the writings of Augustine.

An important and original reading of Descartes' account of mind-body unity and his theory of mind.

This study rehabilitates unpopular views in analytic philosophy, serving as an interpretation of unreconstructed Cartesianism.

René Descartes (1596–1650) is well-known for his introspective turn away from sensible bodies and toward non-sensory ideas of mind, body, and God. Such a turn is appropriate, Descartes supposes, but only once in the course of life, and only to arrive at a more accurate picture of reality that we then incorporate in everyday embodied life. In this clear and engaging book David Cunning introduces and examines the full range of Descartes’ philosophy. A central focus of the book is Descartes’ view that embodied human beings become more perfect to the degree that they move in the direction of finite approximations of independence, activity, immutability, and increased knowledge. Beginning with an introduction and a chapter on Descartes’ life and works, Cunning also addresses the following key topics: Descartes on the wonders of the material universe skepticism as epistemic garbage, and the easy dissolution of hyperbolic doubt Descartes’ three arguments for the existence of God the ontology of possibility and necessity freedom and embodiment arguments for the immateriality of mind sensible bodies and the pragmatic certainty by which to navigate them Descartes’ stoic view on how best to live. Descartes is an outstanding introduction to one of the greatest of Western philosophers. Including a chronology, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary of key terms, it is essential reading for anyone studying Descartes and the history of modern philosophy.

Table of contents

Contents: (1) Historical Overview; & Descartes's Perspectivist Sources; (2) Analysis of Refraction: Cartesian Light-Theory; & A Critical Evaluation; (3) The Foundations of Perspectivist Optics: Perspectivist Light-Theory; Quantization of Light; & Comparison with Descartes's Theory of Light; (4) The Perspectivist Analysis of Refraction: Physical Model; Physical "Explanation" & The Final Cause; (5) Perspectivist Grounds of the Cartesian Proof: Mathematical Implications; From Cosines to Sines; & Descartes Revisited; (6) Cartesian Light-Theory as a Culmination; Toward a Kinetic Theory of Light; & Epistemological Consequences. App.: The Sine-Law Before Descartes; The Fermat-Descartes Controversy; & Kepler, Descartes & the Anaclastic. Illustrations.

René Descartes: The Complete Correspondence in English Translation is the first complete English translation of the extant correspondence of the polymath René Descartes, who excelled in all areas of philosophy, the sciences, and mathematics. The translation is based on the best available editions, modified by several other sources. It is accompanied by an editorial apparatus consisting of cross-references and brief biographies of the correspondents. Descartes' correspondence elaborates his views, providing a crucial resource for students, teachers, and scholars in philosophy, history of philosophy, and history of science and mathematics. Volume I presents correspondence from the period 1619 to 1638. The letters begin with exchanges between Descartes and the physico-mathematician Isaac Beeckman, the essayist Guez de Balzac, the lens maker Jean Ferrier, and Descartes' future primary correspondent Marin Mersenne. It includes letters to high ranking Oratorians. One can also see the beginnings of Descartes' relations with Constantijn Huygens, who will be Descartes' other chief correspondent. One can also trace the developments of Descartes' early unpublished works on metaphysics, physics, and human biology, together with his reaction to the condemnation of Galileo by the Catholic Church. The letters show developments in Descartes' construction and publication of the Discourse on Method, together with the essays Dioptrics, Meteors, and Geometry. This results in an explosion of letters from and to various critics such as the professor of medicine Vopiscus Fortunatus Plemp, the astrologer Jean Baptiste Morin, the mathematicians Pierre Petit, Gilles Personne de Roberval, Pierre de Fermat, and many others.