Descartes' Life and Works (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Cite this entry Search the SEP • Advanced Search • Tools • RSS FeedTable of Contents• What's New• Archives• Projected ContentsEditorial Information• About the SEP• Editorial Board• How to Cite the SEP• Special CharactersSupport the SEPContact the SEP ©Metaphysics Research Lab,CSLI,Stanford University  Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia Free  Descartes' Life and WorksFirst published Mon Apr 9, 2001; substantive revision Tue Feb 27, 2007Descartes has been heralded as the first modern philosopher. He isfamous for having made an important connection between geometry andalgebra, which allowed for the solving of geometrical problems by wayof algebraic equations. He is also famous for having promoted a newconception of matter, which allowed for the accounting of physicalphenomena by way of mechanical explanations. However, he is most famousfor having written a relatively short work, Meditationes de PrimaPhilosophia (Meditations On First Philosophy), publishedin 1641, in which he provides a philosophical groundwork for thepossibility of the sciences. 1. Early Years2. The World and Discourse3. The Meditations4. The Principles5. The PassionsBibliography References Other English Translations Helpful Sources Other Internet ResourcesRelated Entries1. Early YearsDescartes was born in La Haye on March 31, 1596 of Joachim Descartesand Jeanne Brochard. He was one of a number of surviving children (twosiblings and two half-siblings). His father was a lawyer andmagistrate, which apparently left little time for family. Descartes'smother died in May of the year following his birth, and he, his fullbrother and sister, Pierre and Jeanne, were left to be raised by theirgrandmother in La Haye. At around ten years of age, in 1606, he wassent to the Jesuit college of La Fleche. He studied there until 1614,and in 1615 entered the University of Poitiers, where a year later hereceived his Baccalaureate and License in Canon & Civil Law. Forthe history and the text of his thesis, see the following supplementarydocument:Descartes' Law ThesisIn 1618, at the age of twenty-two, he enlisted in the army of PrinceMaurice of Nassau. It is not known what his duties were exactly, thoughBaillet suggests that he would have very likely been drawn to whatwould now be called the Corps of Engineers (Baillet, Livre 1, Chapitre9, p. 41). This division would have engaged in applied mathematics,designing a variety of structures and machines aimed at protecting andassisting soldiers in battle. Sorell, on the other hand, notes that inBreda, where Descartes was stationed, the army "doubled as militaryacademy for young noblemen on the Continent" (Sorell, p. 6). And,Gaukroger notes that the education of the young noblemen was structuredaround the educational model of Lipsius (1547-1606), a highly respectedDutch political theorist who received a Jesuit education at Cologne(Gaukroger, pp. 65-6). It is likely that the military environment (thatis, the academy) at Breda would have reminded Descartes of La Fleche.Though there are reasons for thinking that he may have been a soldier,the majority of biographers argue that it is more likely that hisduties were oriented more towards education or engineering.While stationed at Breda, Descartes met the mathematician IsaacBeeckman (1588-1637). Notes that Descartes kept related to hiscorrespondence reveal that he and Beeckman had become more than simpleacquaintances-their relationship was more one of teacher and student(Descartes being the latter). This relationship would rekindle inDescartes an intense interest in the sciences. In addition todiscussions about a wide variety of topics in natural science, a directresult of certain questions posed by Beeckman compelled Descartes towrite the Compendium Musicae. Among other things, theCompendium attempted to work out a theory of harmony, rootedin the concepts of proportion or ratio, which (along the lines of theancients) attempted to express the notion of harmony in mathematicalterms. It would not be published during Descartes's lifetime. As forBeeckman, Descartes would later downplay his influence.2. The World and DiscourseAfter Descartes left the army, in 1619, his whereabouts for the nextfew years are unknown. Based on what he says in the Discours de laMethode (Discourse on the Method), published in 1637,there is speculation that he spent time near Ulm (Descartes apparentlyattended the coronation of Ferdinand II in Frankfurt in 1619). There issome evidence that would suggest that he was in France in 1622, for itwas at this time that property he had inherited was sold-the proceedsof which would provide him a simple income for many years. There issome speculation that between 1623 and 1625 he visited Italy. Descartesemerges in 1625 in Paris, his notes revealing that he was in contactwith Father Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), a member of the Order ofMinims. This relationship would prompt Descartes to make public histhoughts on natural philosophy (science). It is by way of Mersenne thatDescartes's work would find its way into the hands of some of the bestminds living in Paris-for instance, Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694), PierreGassendi (1592-1655), and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).In 1628 Descartes left Paris. At this time he seems to have beenworking on the Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii (Rules forthe Direction of the Mind), a work that he would abandon, somespeculating around the time of the move from Paris. In 1630 he moved toAmsterdam. There he worked on drafts of the Dioptrique (theOptics) and the Meteors (the Meteorology),which were very likely intended to be a part of a larger work, LeMonde (The World). In 1632 he moved again, this time toDeventer, to apparently teach Henry Reneri (1593-1639) his physics. Itis also during his stay in Deventer that Descartes probably worked on afinal draft of the Traite de l'homme (Treatise onMan), which in connection to the Optics and theMeteorology was probably originally intended to be a part ofThe World.When The World had become ready for publication in 1633,upon hearing of the Church's condemnation of Galileo (1564-1642) in thesame year, Descartes decided against its publication. For, the worldsystem he had adopted in the book assumed, as did Galileo's, theheliocentric Copernican model. In a letter to Mersenne, dated November1633, Descartes expresses his fear that were he to publish TheWorld, the same fate that befell Galileo would befall him. And,this is something that he understandably wanted to avoid. TheWorld appears to have been constituted of several smaller, butrelated, works: a treatise on physics, a treatise on mechanics(machines), a treatise on animals, and a treatise on man. Although muchof The World has been lost, some of it seems to have survivedin the form of essays attached to the Discourse which, as wasmentioned earlier, would be published four years later, in 1637. And,some of it was published posthumously. Arguably, Constantijn Huygens(1596-1687) received what Descartes refers to as "three sheets" ofThe World, along with a letter dated 5 October 1637. These"sheets" deal primarily with mechanics.Around 1635, Reneri began to teach "Cartesian" physics. Also duringthis year, a domestic servant by the name of Helene gave birth to ababy girl, Francine. According to a baptismal record, dated 28 July1635, Descartes is named the father (AT I 395n). Gaukroger gives thebaptismal date as 7 August 1635 (Gaukroger, p. 294). And, GenevieveRodis-Lewis gives Francine's date of birth as 19 June 1635(Rodis-Lewis, p. 40). In 1636 Reneri acquired an official chair inPhilosophy at the University of Utrecht, and continued to build afollowing of students interested in Cartesian science. Around March of1636, at the age of forty, Descartes moved to Leiden to work out thepublishing of the Discourse. And, in 1637 it is published.With the Discourse out and a following of students building inUtrecht, Descartes seems to have turned his attention from career tofamily. In a letter dated 30 August 1637 we find him apparently workingout an arrangement for Francine, but strangely refers to her as his"niece"-which suggests that he did not want certain people to know thathe was a father. Gaukroger suggests that despite this apparent denialof paternity, Descartes not only corresponds with Francine, but in 1637brings her and Helene to his new home at Santpoort or Egmond-Binnen(Gaukroger, pp. 294, 332).The Discourse is the first published work of Descartes's,coming some four years after his abandonment of the publishing ofThe World. This work is important for many reasons. Forinstance, it tells us what Descartes himself seems to have thought ofhis early education, and in particular, his early exposure tomathematics. Roger Ariew suggests that these reflections are not so muchthose of the historical Descartes, as much as they are those of apersona Descartes adopts in telling the story of theDiscourse (Ariew, pp. 58-63). Uncontested, however, is theview that the Discourse sketches out the metaphysicalunderpinnings of the Cartesian system. And, as a bonus, it has threeworks that are attached to it that are apparently added so as toexemplify the method of inquiry it develops (though admittedly it isunclear how the method is applied in these essays). The attached essaysare the Optics, the Meteorology, and LeGeometrie (the Geometry). As was suggested earlier, theOptics and Meteorology were very likely versions ofworks originally intended for The World.It should be stressed that the three attached essays are importantindependent of the Discourse, for they contain much worthstudying. In the Optics, for example, Descartes works out hislaws of refraction, and within this context, what would later be calledSnell's Law (which Descartes seems to have worked out as early as1632). Further, although the Geometry would seem to have come out ofnowhere, there is evidence in Descartes's notes to himself, from whichClerselier reconstructed some of Descartes's correspondence, that hehad been working on some version of it as early as 1619. In a letter toBeeckman, dated 26 March 1619, for example, Descartes discusses thesubject matter that is found in the Geometry, and in a letterdated 23 April 1619, he explicitly mentions the book's title. It is inthis work that Descartes shows how certain geometrical problems can besolved by way of algebraic equations.The significance of the sort of connection that Descartes madebetween geometry and algebra was great indeed, for without it themathematization of the physics and the development of the calculusmight not have happened when they did-a generation later via Sir IsaacNewton (1642-1727). It should be noted, however, that as groundbreakingas this work may be, contrary to the claims of many, nowhere in theGeometry is a "Cartesian Coordinate System" ever developed(that is, the x-y coordinate system taught to today'sstudents of algebra), nor is he the originator of other mathematicalconcepts that bear his name, for example, the "Cartesian Product". CarlBoyer notes that various concepts that lead to analytic geometry arefound for the first time in the Geometry, and that theGeometry's mathematical notation is still used today. But, heargues, although Cartesian geometry is taken by many to be synonymouswith analytic geometry, the fact is that the fundamental aim ofDescartes's system is quite different from that of contemporaryanalytic geometry (Boyer, pp. 370-1). And so, the claim that Descartesis the originator of analytic geometry, at least as we understand ittoday, overstates the case. As Boyer rightly points out, however, thisdoes not diminish the importance of the work in the history ofmathematics.3. The MeditationsIn 1639 Descartes began writing the Meditations. And, in 1640he returned to Leiden to help work out its publication. During theyear, Francine died. Understandably, Descartes was deeply saddened byher death. There is evidence to suggest that he was called away fromLeiden around the time of her death, returning soon after. Some havespeculated that he left Leiden to be at her side. Also during thisyear, Descartes's father and sister died. Descartes's relationshipwith his father (and brother) was of the sort that Pierre, hisbrother, failed to even bother him with the news of their father'sdeath. Rather, it seems to have been in a letter from Mersenne thatDescartes first learns of it. In a follow up letter to Mersenne, dated3 December 1640, Descartes expresses regret in not having been able tosee his father before his death. But, he refuses to leave Leiden toattend his father's funeral, and instead stays to complete thepublishing of the Meditations. Some have suggested that thisin part demonstrates a profound strain that existed in therelationship between Descartes and his father.Today, the Meditations is by far Descartes's most popularwork—though this would not have been the case in Descartes'sday. This work is important to today's scholar for many reasons, theleast of which is its including as an attached text written objectionsfrom some of the best minds living in Paris. Mersenne sent theMeditations to philosophers and theologians forcriticism. The list of critics includes: Caterus, Hobbes, Arnauld,Gassendi, and Mersenne himself, with several other unnamed readers whoraised their objections through Mersenne. A later edition wouldinclude Bordin. Descartes replied to each critic, and the result wasan appended text referred to as "The Objections and Replies." Thesecond edition contains seven sets in all.The Meditations opens by developing skeptical questionsconcerning the possibility of knowledge. Through a series of severalcarefully thought out meditations, the reader establishes (along withthe author) the groundwork for the possibility of knowledge (scientia).Descartes is not a skeptic, as some have insisted, but uses skepticismas a vehicle to motivate his reader to "discover" by way ofphilosophical investigation what constitutes this ground. In the SecondReplies, Descartes refers to this style of presentation as the"analytic" style. There were two styles of presentation: analytic andsynthetic. It is important not to confuse these terms with those, say,used by Kant. For Descartes the analytic style of presentation (andinquiry) proceeds by beginning with what is commonly taken to be knownand discovering what is necessary for such knowledge. Thus, the inquirymoves from what is commonly known to first principles. The "discovery"moves in such a way that each discovery is based on what was discoveredbefore. By contrast, the synthetic style of presentation begins byasserting first principles and then to determining what follows.Prompted by Mersenne, Descartes sketches out in the Second Replies asynthetic rendering of the Meditations.In establishing the ground for science, Descartes was at the sametime overthrowing a system of natural philosophy that had beenestablished for centuries-a qualitative, Aristotelian physics. In aletter to Mersenne, dated 28 January 1641, Descartes says "these sixmeditations contain all the foundations of my physics. But please donot tell people, for that might make it harder for supporters ofAristotle to approve them. I hope that readers will gradually get usedto my principles, and recognize their truth, before they notice thatthey destroy the principles of Aristotle." Unlike his earlier work,The World, the Meditations parts ways with the "old"science without explicitly forwarding controversial views, like that ofthe Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system. Specifically,the Cartesian view denies that physics is grounded in hot, cold, wet,and dry. It argues that contrary to Aristotle's view, such "qualities"are not properties of bodies at all. Rather, the only properties ofbodies with which the physicist can concern him or herself are size,shape, motion, position, and so on-those modifications thatconceptually (or logically) entail extension in length, breadth, anddepth. In contrast to Aristotle's "qualities," the properties (ormodes) of bodies dealt with in Cartesian physics are measurablespecifically on ratio scales (as opposed to intensive scales), andhence are subject in all the right ways to mathematics (Buroker, pp.596-7). This conception of matter, conjoined with the sort ofmathematics found in the Geometry, allies itself with the workof such Italian natural philosophers as Tartaglia, Ubaldo, and Galileo,and helps further the movement of early thinkers in their attempts toestablish a mathematical physics.Descartes's letter to the "learned and distinguished men" of theSorbonne, which is appended to the Meditations, suggests thathe was trying to pitch the Meditations as a textbook for theuniversity. Though the endorsement of the Learned Men would not haveguaranteed that the Meditations would be accepted or used as atextbook, it could certainly be viewed as an important step to gettingit accepted. Unlike today's notion of a textbook, in Descartes's day"textbooks" were intended mostly for teachers, not students. Typically,at the close of a teacher's career, his notes would be published forthe benefit of those who would go on to teach such course material. Theawkwardness of Descartes's seeking the acceptance and use of hisMeditations by teachers is amplified by the fact that he wasnot a teacher himself. Consequently, his seeking "textbook" statuswould have very likely been viewed by those Learned Men as being a bitpretentious. He was, it could be said, a freelancer with no academic orpolitical ties to the university (outside of his connection toMersenne). And, he certainly lacked the credentials and reputation ofsomeone like a Eustachius, whose widely used textbook of the period isof the sort the Meditations was in all likelihood aimed atreplacing. Although the Meditations seems to have beenendorsed by the Sorbonne, it was never adopted as a text for theuniversity.4. The PrinciplesSoon after his encounter with the Sorbonne, Descartes's public lifewas further complicated by the Dutch theologian, Gisbert Voetius(1588-1676). Voetius had attacked Regius, a Dutch physician who taughtmedicine at the University of Utrecht, for his having taught certain"Cartesian" ideas that conflicted with traditional theologicaldoctrine. Regius was friend to both Reneri and Descartes, and was astrong adherent to Descartes's philosophical views. Voetius tried tohave Regius removed from his position as professor, and attacked notonly Descartes's work but his character. In his defense Descartesentered into the debate. The controversy would leave Regius confinedto teaching medicine, and his published defense of (his conception of)Cartesian thought would be officially condemned by Voetius, who infive years time would rise to the position of University rector. Atthe end of the debate, which off and on lasted about five years, thesituation ultimately became desperate for Descartes. He feared beingexpelled from the country and of seeing his books burned. He wouldeven seek protection by asking the Prince of Orange to intervene andquell Voetius' attack.In 1643, at the age of forty-seven, Descartes moved to Egmond duHoef. With the Voetius controversy seemingly behind him (though, asmentioned above, it would again raise its head and climax five yearsdown the road), Descartes and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia began tocorrespond. In this exchange, Princess Elizabeth probed Descartes onthe implications of his commitment to mind-body dualism. During thistime, he completed a final draft of a new textbook, which he had begunthree years earlier, the Principia Philosophiae(Principles of Philosophy), and in 1644 it was published. Hededicated it to Princess Elizabeth.The Principles is an important text. The work is divided intofour Parts, with five hundred and four articles. Part One developsDescartes's metaphysics. Although it would appear to be a quick runthrough of the Meditations, there are a number ofdissimilarities. For example, the order of presentation of the proofsfor God's existence, which some have argued is significant, found inthe Third and Fifth Meditations, is reversed in thePrinciples. The principles introduced in Part Two are basedon the metaphysics of Part One. And, the subsequent physics developedin Parts Three and Four is based upon the principles of PartTwo. Although the physics turns out to be unsound, thePrinciples nevertheless inspired such great thinkers asRobert Boyle (1627-1691), Edmond Halley (1656-1742), and IsaacNewton. As an important side note, it must be stressed that eventhough Descartes had throughout his career put a great deal ofemphasis on mathematics, the physics developed in thePrinciples does not appear to be a mathematicalphysics. Rather, it it traditionally taken to be a conceptual projectwith only a hint of empirical overtones-a physics rooted entirely inmetaphysics. Arguably, however, Descartes's work on enumeration, orderand measure, in the Rules provides the conceptual machinerynecessary for establishing a ‘mathematical’physics—a conceptual machinery that is carried over to thePrinciples (Smith 2003). Two parts, never completed, wereoriginally intended to deal with plants, animals, and man. In light ofthis and what Descartes says in a 31 January 1642 letter to themathematician Constantijn Huygens, it is plausible to think that thePrinciples would have looked something like TheWorld had it been completed as planned.One of the more controversial positions the Principlesforwarded, at least according to Newton, was that a vacuum wasimpossible. This followed from Descartes's commitment to the view thatthe essence of body was extension. Supposing that a vacuum was takento be a "gap" between bodies—that is, it is taken to be an utterabsence of body (matter)-if it turned out (as indeed it does) thatthis gap was extended in length, breadth, and depth, then it would notbe an absence of body, but would by definition be a body-asmuch a body as the two bodies between which it is taken to be agap. The corporeal universe was thus a plenum, individual bodiesseparated only by their surfaces. Newton argued in his DeGravitatione and Principia that the concept of motionbecomes problematic if the universe is taken to be a plenum. Anothercontroversial position was Descartes's insistence that matter isinfinitely divisible. Gassendi, and later Cordemoy, argued that theremust be a bottom, a ‘substance,’ to the physical universeupon which the being of all corporeal things depend. In line with theancient atomist Epicurus, they argued that if matter was infinitelydivisible, so dividing it would show that there was nobottom—and so, corporeality would not be substantial. So, ifcorporeality is substantial, as Descartes himself had claimed, theremust be a minimum measure of extension that could not be divided (bynatural means, anyway). And so, there are atoms. But, this conclusionwas something that Descartes explicitly rejected in thePrinciples.5. The PassionsIn 1646, as a result of the probings of Princess Elizabeth, Descartescompleted a working draft of Passions de l'ame (Passionsof the Soul). During this year another prominent political figurebegan to correspond with Descartes, Queen Christina of Sweden. And,Regius published what he took to be a new and improved version ofCartesian science, which as we now know would draw the wrath ofVoetius. But Regius did not stop there, for he seemed to have foundimportant differences between his "Cartesian" view and that ofDescartes's, and attempted to separate the two, publishing a broadsheetthat listed twenty-one anti-Cartesian theses (which his version of"Cartesian" science rejected). In response to this, Descartes wrote asingle-page printed defense that was posted on public kiosks for all toread. Published in 1648, the Notae in Programma Quoddam(Notes on a Program-also referred to as Comments on aCertain Broadsheet) is Descartes's public defense. However, asmentioned earlier, tensions mounted as a result of the public exchangeand Descartes felt his way of life in the Netherlands to be threatened.As luck would have it, an admirer and friend of Descartes's-Chanut, whoworked for Queen Christina's court-and Queen Christina herself beganprobing Descartes about the possibility of coming to Sweden. And, aftera not too lengthy correspondence, Queen Christina offered Descartes aposition in her court. For many reasons, which would certanily includethose related to his concerns about Voetius, Descartes accepted theoffer. And, in 1649 he left for Sweden. Queen Christina at first required very little from Descartes.However, according to Gaukroger, this would change. For, after he hadsome time to settle in, she ordered him to do two things: first, to putall of his papers in order, and secondly, to put together designs foran academy (Gaukroger, p. 415). Arguably, Descartes had some idea ofhow the latter might be done by way of his experience in Breda. InJanuary of 1650 Queen Christina began to require Descartes to give herlessons in philosophy. These apparently would begin at five in themorning and would last for about five hours. They were given three daysa week (Gaukroger, p. 415). During this time Descartes published thePassions, the work having emerged primarily from hiscorrespondence with Princess Elizabeth (to whom he had dedicated thePrinciples). One aim of the Passions was to explainhow the emotional (and thus moral) life of a human being was connectedto the soul's being essentially united to a body. Simply put, a’passion of the soul’ is a mental state (or thought) thatarises as a direct result of brain activity. Such passions can move usto action. Since this is so, Descartes suggests that one needs to learnto control one's passions, for they can move one to perform viciousacts. Critics of Descartes, including Elizabeth, argued thatDescartes's metaphysical commitments put real pressure on the viewexpounded in the Passions. For, according to Descartes'smetaphysics, the nature of mind is to think and the nature of body isto be extended in length, breadth, and depth. One view concerningcausation, a view that Descartes's critics seemed to have attributed tohim, is that one thing causes another to move, for example, by way ofcontact. Contact, in this context, seems to be possible only by way ofsurfaces. Now, bodies, since they are extended and thus have surfaces,can come into contact with one another and thus can cause one anotherto move. However, if minds are not extended, they lack surfaces. And,if they lack surfaces, there is no way in principle for bodies to comeinto contact with them. Thus, there is no way in principle for bodiesto move minds, and visa versa. That is, minds and bodies cannot inprinciple causally interact. And so, if the view expounded in thePassions requires that bodies and minds be capable of causalinteraction, and Descartes's metaphysical commitments make suchinteraction impossible, Descartes's metaphysics puts a great deal ofpressure on the view expounded in the Passions.Although things seemed to be moving forward, they were not going aswell as one would have hoped. In a letter to Bregy, for instance, dated15 January 1650, Descartes expresses reservations about his decision tocome to Sweden. He sees himself to be "out of his element," the winterso harsh that "men's thoughts are frozen here, like the water" (AT V467; CSMK III 383). Given the sentiment expressed in the letter, thisremark was probably intended to be as much Descartes's take on theintellectual climate as it was about the weather. In early February,less than a month after writing Bregy, Descartes fell ill. His illnessquickly turned into a serious respiratory infection. And, although atthe end of a week he appeared to have made some movement towardsrecovery, things took a turn for the worse and he died in the earlymorning of 11 February 1650. He was fifty-three years old.BibliographyNOTE: In the above, the Adam and Tannery volumes, Oeuvres De Descartes, 11 vols., are cited.Such citations are abbreviated as "AT," followed by the appropriatevolume and page numbers. I have whenever possible used the Cottingham,Stoothoff, and Murdoch translation, The Philosophical Writings Of Descartes, 3 vols. Volume 3 includesAnthony Kenny as a translator. This has been abbreviated as "CSMK,"followed by the appropriate volume and page numbers. The AT and CSMKnumbers are cited, side by side, separated by a semicolon.] ReferencesAriew, Roger. "Descartes and Scholasticism: the intellectualbackground to Descartes' thought," in The Cambridge Companion toDescartes, edited by John Cottingham (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1992), pp. 58-90.Baillet, Adrien. La Vie de M. Descartes (2 vols.) Paris(1691).Boyer, Carl B. A History of Mathematics (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1985).Buroker, Jill. "Descartes On Sensible Qualities," Journal OfThe History Of Philosophy, October 1991, Vol. XXIX, No. 4, pp.585-611.Descartes, René.Oeuvres De Descartes, 11 vols., edited by Charles Adam andPaul Tannery (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1983).Descartes, René. ThePhilosophical Writings Of Descartes, 3 vols., translated by JohnCottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, volume 3 includingAnthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).Gaukroger, Stephen. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).Rodis-Lewis, Genevieve. "Descartes' life and the development of hisphilosophy," in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, editedby John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp.21-57.Smith, Kurt. "Was Descartes's Physics Mathematical?" Historyof Philosophy Quarterly (July 2003), Vol. 20, No. 3,pp. 245-256.Sorell, Tom. Descartes (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1987).Other English TranslationsDescartes, René. The Philosophical Writings OfDescartes, 3 vols., translated by John Cottingham, RobertStoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, volume 3 including Anthony Kenny(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).–––. Meditations on First Philosophy,translated by John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996).–––. Principles of Philosophy,translated by V.R. Miller and R.P. Miller (Dordrecht: D. Reidel,1983).–––. The Geometry of RenéDescartes, translated by David Eugene Smith and Marcia L. Lantham(New York: Dover Publications, 1954).–––. The Passions of the Soul,translated by Stephen H. Voss (Indianapolis: Hackett PublishingCompany, 1989). Helpful SourcesEssays on Descartes' Meditations, edited by EmelieOksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).Descartes's Meditations: Critical Essays, editedby Vere Chappell (Lanhan: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,1997).Descartes' Meditations: Background SourceMaterials, edited by Roger Ariew, John Cottingham, and Tom Sorell(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).Descartes, edited by John Cottingham (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1998).Reason, Will and Sensation: Studies in Descartes'Metaphysics, edited by John Cottingham (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1994).Studies in Seventeenth-Century European Philosophy, Volume2 of Oxford Studies in the History of Philosophy, edited byM.A. Stewart (OxfordL Clarendon Press, 1997).The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, 2vols., edited by Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998).The Blackwell Guide to Descartes' Meditations, StephenGaukroger (ed), (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).A Companion to Rationalism, Alan Nelson (ed), (Oxford:Blackwell, 2006).A Companion to Descartes, Janet Broughton and JohnCarriero (eds), (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).Alanen, Lilli. Descartes's Concept of Mind (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 2003).Brown, Deborah. Descartes and the Passionate Mind(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).Clarke, Desmond. Descartes's Theory of Mind (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2003).Curley, E. M. Descartes Against the Skeptics (Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1978).Des Chene, Dennis. Spirits and Clocks: Machine and Organism inDescartes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).Garber, Daniel. Descartes' Metaphysical Physics (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1992).Garber, Daniel. Descartes Embodied (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001).Gaukroger, Stephen. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).Gueroult, Martial. Descartes' Philosophy Interpreted Accordingto the Order of Reasons, 2 vols., translated by Roger Ariew(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).Hatfield, Gary. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Descartesand the Meditations (London: Routledge, 2002).Kenny, Anthony. Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy(Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1968).Rodis-Lewis, Genevieve. Descartes: His Life and Thought,translated by Jane Marie Todd (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1999).Rozemond, Marleen. Descartes's Dualism (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1998).Sorell, Tom. Descartes (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1987).Williams, Bernard. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry(London: Penguin Books, 1978).Wilson, Catherine. Descartes's Meditations (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003).Wilson, Margaret. Descartes (London: Routledge & KeganPaul plc, 1978).Other Internet ResourcesThe Descartes Web Site website directed by Patricia Easton (Claremont GraduateUniversity) Online copy of Descartes' Passions of the Soul (French,1649, Paris Edition; English, 1650, London Edition)Descartes E Il Seicento, maintained by Giulia Belgioioso (Director, CentroInterdipartmentali Di Studi Su Descartes E Il Seicento), Jean-RobertArmogathe (Centre d'Etudes cartésiennes), and their colleagues A superb website on DescartesRelated Entries Arnauld, Antoine | Descartes, René: epistemology | Descartes, René: modal metaphysics | Descartes, René: ontological argument | Descartes, René: theory of ideas | Desgabets, Robert | Mersenne, MarinAcknowledgmentsI am indebted to the NEH for allowing me the opportunity to participatein the 2000 NEH Summer Seminar, "Descartes and His Contemporaries,"held at Virgina Tech. In addition to learning a great deal from theSeminar's leaders, Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber, I learned a greatdeal from my fellow participants. I am also indebted to BloomsburgUniversity of Pennsylvania for providing me with a Faculty DevelopmentGrant, summer 2001. Lastly, I am indebted to Alan Nelson and RogerAriew for comments on earlier versions of this article. Copyright © 2007 byKurt Smith<ksmit4@bloomu.edu> |
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