Customer Reviews

Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction

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Dicker's introduction to Descartes is clearly written and easily accessible to new students of Descartes. Although it's not substitute for a thorough inquiry into Descartes' philosophy, Dicker's book is a necessary read for new students. See his book on Hume as well.

An excelent introduction to Cartesian philosophy: "After a thorough dicussion of several basic issues of metaphysics and epistemology elicited from the main themes and arguments of the Meditations and of the work's historical background and critical reception, Georges Dicker offers his own reflections on Cartesian doubt, the cogito, the causal and ontological proofs of God's existence, the Cartesian circle, Cartesian dualism, and Descartes' views of the material world."

I was one of the many lucky enough not only to read this book but have the text analyzed in a classroom setting by the author himself. In this text Dr. Dicker displays his extensive knolwedge of the subject at hand. Yet in doing so he shows a tendancy to over analyze Descartes meditations eventually making anything beyond the original text segments very laborious reading, although I would recomend the book for the purpose it was intended for in my case; a very methodical introduction to basic philosophy.

While the genius of Descartes is always eminant, a foreign, or should I say highly specialize text transcribes even the most basic of concepts. I would definately recommend this book to any graduate or anyone who one day hopes to become a graduade student in philosophy.