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Meditations on First Philosophy

Descartes

William Molyneux (1680)

Descartes's Meditations, first published in Latin in 1641, is the founding work of modern philosophy. In six short meditations the narrator withdraws from the world, subjects all his beliefs to systematic doubt — including the existence of the external world and his own body — and claims to find certainty only in the cogito: I think, therefore I am. From this single point he rebuilds knowledge of God, mind, and matter, fixing the mind-body problem that would occupy philosophy for the next four centuries. This edition is William Molyneux's 1680 English translation — the first into English — whose archaic phrasing preserves the original's stern, geometrical tone.

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Contents

  1. Section I
  2. Section II
  3. Section III
  4. Section IV
  5. Section V
  6. Section VI