Discourse on Method & Meditations (Great Books in Philosophy) [Paperback]

Rene Descartes (Author), Robert M. Baird (Editor), Stuart E. Rosenbaum (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1989 | Series: Great Books in Philosophy

Is knowledge possible? If so, what can we know and how do we come to know it? What degree of certainty does our knowledge enjoy? In these two powerful works, Descartes, the seventeenth-century philosopher considered to be the father of modern philosophy, outlines his philosophical method and then counters the sceptics of his time by insisting that certain knowledge can be had. He goes on to address the nature and extent of human knowledge, the distinction between mind and body, the existence of God, and the existence of external objects.

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About the Author

Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD) was a teacher and Greco-Roman philosopher. Originally a slave from Hierapolis in Anatolia (modern Turkey), he was owned for a time by a prominent freedman at the court of the emperor Nero. After gaining his freedom he moved to Nicopolis on the Adriatic coast of Greece and opened a school of philosophy there. His informal lectures (the Discourses) were transcribed and published by his student Arrian, who also composed a digest of Epictetus' teaching known as the Manual (or Enchiridion). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 123 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (February 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879755261
• ISBN-13: 978-0879755263
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,009,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I think therefore I read..., October 8, 2005

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FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Discourse on Method And The Meditations (Mass Market Paperback)

Rene Descartes is often considered the founding father of modern philosophy. A true Renaissance man, he studied Scholastic philosophy and physics as a student, spent time as a volunteer soldier and traveler throughout Europe, studied mathematics, appreciated the arts, and became a noted correspondent with royals and intellectual figures throughout the continent. He died in Sweden while on assignment as tutor to the Queen, Christiana.

Descartes 'Discourse on Method' is a fascinating text, combining the newly-invented form of essay (Descartes was familiar with the Essays of Montaigne) with the same kind of autobiographical impulse that underpins Augustine's Confessions. Descartes writes about his own form of mystical experience, seeing this as almost a kind of revelation that all past knowledge would be superseded, and all problems would eventually be solved by human intellect.

In the Discourse, Descartes formulates logical principles based on reason (which makes it somewhat ironic that this came to him almost as a revelation). Descartes had some appreciation for thinkers such as Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, but he thought that Bacon depended too much upon empirical data, and with Hobbes he disagreed on what would be the criteria for ascertaining certainty.

Descartes was a mathematician at heart, and perhaps had a carry-over of Pythagorean mystical attachment to mathematics, for his sense of reason led him to impute an absolute quality to mathematics; this has major implications for metaphysics and epistemology. Descartes method was a continuation in many ways of the ideas of Plato, Aristotle and the medieval thinkers, for they all tended toward thinking in absolute, universal terms in some degree.

Descartes in his first section discounts much of Scholasticism, stating that the only real absolutes are theology and mathematics; because theology is based upon revelation, it is therefore beyond reason, and thus, mathematics becomes the only rational truth. Descartes develops this idea further with rules of method, which include ideas of intuition, analysis and deduction. He uses some of his method to come up with his greatest proposition:

Cogito ergo sum - - I think, therefore I am

'The Cogito is a first principle from which Descartes will now deduce all that follows.' This permits Descartes to deal both with rational elements and empirical data.

The other major piece in this collection, 'The Meditations', includes several different mediations, including that on the existence of the soul, the existence of God, the material world, things we may doubt, and other philosophical problems of the time. These meditations do incorporate Descartes attempt to employ his method to some degree, but at the same time divert into other means. For example, Descartes' meditation on the existence of God is in many ways the Anselm ontological proof revisited, and has a certain circular reasoning to it.

This is an important text, one that I read the summer before I went to college, and makes a good study for those who wish to see the personal element in the development of philosophy.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant mind at work, September 28, 2000

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louis smith - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discourse on Method And The Meditations (Mass Market Paperback)

Descartes has written one of the greatest classics in the history of philosophy. He gets down to the elements of how we can know truth. This is in sharp contrast to the majority of philosophy books that give another mans opinion, but not on how we know truth. Descartes begins his book by saying that there are contrary opinions among philosophers, other people and just in general. For every opinion given there is a contrary opinion, so how do we know truth, if knowing truth is even possible? He writes in his book, that what we know as the world ,could be the creation of a demon who fools us into thinking that what we know is real. So he writes that one should doubt everything. Then he says that someone is doubting, so there must be something real that is doubting. Hence he arrives at his famous self evident principle "I think, therefore I am." He then states that we begin our search for truth on self evident principles such as "Truth exists" and his principle stated above among others. We divide our problem and solve it starting from the easiest to the most difficult. As a final step we take in all the evidence into review. This is an excellent method in which to find truth. His first step though is the most important one, that is, establishing doubt. We can't really know what a thing is and hence we should be doubtful. This is a far better method than the scientific method and far easier to implement. Science does not and cannot arrive at truth, because truth is eternal and has no limit. The most science can do is to have a utility value. That is it can make life easier for us by mastering nature. To find truth we leave that to the religions such as Christianity and Buddhism and also to the philosophers like Descartes.

4 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is absolutly inspiring, July 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Discourse on Method And The Meditations (Mass Market Paperback)

Great book, go buy it! Descartes is one the true geniuses of this worl