Product Description

Rene Descartes (1569-1650), the 'father' of modern philosophy, is without doubt one of the greatest thinkers in history: his genius lies at the core of our contemporary intellectual identity. Breaking with the conventions of his own time and suffering persecution by the Church as a consequence, Descartes in his writings - most of which are philosophical classics - attempted to answer the central questions surrounding the self, God, free-will and knowledge, using the science of thought as opposed to received wisdom based on the tenets of faith. This edition, the most comprehensive one-volume selection of Descartes' works available in English, includes his great essay, Discourse on Method.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151797 in Books
• Published on: 1997-01-01
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

The perfect place to start with Descartes
The fact that this is the cheapest introductory collection of Descartes' writings of its size doesn't mean it's of inferior quality. This translation by Elizabeth Haldane and G. R. T. Ross is a reliable one, and this volume presents all the most important texts unabridged (and extracts from a few more obscure ones).
If you want to study the greatest rationalist of all time a little further, you may want to supplement this with a more heavily annotated edition of a given text, but this remains extremely good value.