Descartes' Meditations
A Critical Guide

This book provides new insights into understanding Descartes' philosophy of mind, especially the role and significance of the senses and emotions.

Karen Detlefsen (Edited by)

9780521111607, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 2012

278 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.54 kg

Descartes' Meditations, one of the most influential works in western philosophy, continues to provoke discussion and debate. This volume of original essays by leading established and emerging early modern scholars ranges over all six of the Meditations and explores issues such as scepticism, judgement, causation, the nature of meditation and the meditator's relation to God, the nature of personhood, Descartes' theory of sense perception and his ideas on the nature of substance. The contributors bring new insights to both central and less-studied topics in the Meditations, and connect the work with the rich historical and intellectual context in which Descartes forged his thought. The resulting volume will appeal to a wide range of scholars of early modern thought.

Introduction
Part I. Skepticism: 1. The skepticism of the first meditation Thomas M. Lennon and Michael W. Hickson
2. Descartes and content skepticism Deborah Brown
Part II. Substance and Cause: 3. Descartes against the materialists: how Descartes' confrontation with materialism shaped his metaphysics Daniel Garber
4. Thinking: the nature of Descartes' mental substance Martha Brandt Bolton
5. Causation and causal axioms Tad M. Schmaltz
Part III. Sensations: 6. Sensation and knowledge of body in Descartes' Meditations John Carriero
7. Descartes on sensory representation, objective reality, and material falsity Gary Hatfield
Part IV. The Human Being: 8. Teleology and natures in Descartes' sixth meditation Karen Detlefsen
9. The role of will in Descartes' Account of Judgment Lilli Alanen
10. God and meditation in Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy Jorge Secada
11. Cartesian selves Lisa Shapiro.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP]