A solid grasp of the main themes and arguments of the seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes is essential for understanding modern thought, and a necessary entree to the work of the Empiricists and Immanuel Kant. It is also crucial to the study of contemporary epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. This new edition of Georges Dicker's commentary on Descartes's masterpiece, Meditations on First Philosophy, features a new chapter
on the Fourth Meditation and improved treatments of the famous cogito ergo sum and the notorious problem of the Cartesian Circle, among numerous other improvements and updates. Clear and accessible, it serves as an introduction to Descartes's ideas for undergraduates and as a sophisticated companion to his Meditations
for advanced readers. The volume provides a thorough discussion of several basic issues of epistemology and metaphysics elicited from the main themes and arguments of the Meditations. It also delves into the work's historical background and critical reception. Dicker offers his own assessments of the Cartesian Doubt, the cogito, the causal and ontological proofs of God's existence, Cartesian freedom and theodicy, Cartesian Dualism, and Descartes's views about the existence and
nature of the material world. The commentary also incorporates a wealth of recent Descartes scholarship, and inculcates - but does not presuppose - knowledge of the methods of contemporary analytic philosophy.
- ISBN10 0195380320
- ISBN13 9780195380323
- Publish Date 25 April 2013 (first published 1 February 1993)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Edition 2nd Revised edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 368
- Language English