Rene Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy in Focus

This volume contains the excellent and popular Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross translation of Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy , and in addition a portion of the Replies to Objections II in which Descartes discusses how the method employed in the Meditations , which he calls ‘analysis’, differs from the method of ‘synthesis’ employed by the general geometer. In the Editor’s introduction, Stanley Tweyman provides a fresh and detailed discussion of the relationship between Descartes’ Rule for the Direction of the Mind and the method of ‘analysis’, insofar as each has application to the Meditations . The six critical papers which Tweyman has drawn together in this book present a broad and exegetical commentary on the Meditations and give an indication of the diversity of scholarly opinion which exists on the topic of method in Descartes’ philosophy. An extensive bibliography is also included.