Delphi Collected Works of René Descartes by René Descartes

Author:René Descartes [Descartes, René]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthologies
Amazon: B01NBSJ7LS
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2017-01-06T13:00:00+00:00

SELECTIONS FROM ‘THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY’

Translated by John Veitch

Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy is in essence a synthesis of the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Originally written in Latin, it was published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version, Les Principes de la Philosophie, followed in 1647. It set forth the principles of nature — the Laws of Physics — as Descartes viewed them, explaining the principle that in the absence of external forces, an object’s motion will be uniform and in a straight line. Newton borrowed this principle from Descartes and included it in his own Principia; to this day, it is still generally referred to as Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Principles of Philosophy was primarily intended to replace the Aristotelian curriculum then used in French and British universities. The work provides a systematic statement of Descartes’ metaphysics and natural philosophy, representing the first truly comprehensive and mechanistic account of the universe.

Descartes introduces Philosophy as the study of wisdom, understood as the ability to conduct the human activities and also as the perfect knowledge of all the things that a man can know for the direction of his life, maintenance of his health, and knowledge of the arts. He argues that only God is perfectly wise and that man is more or less wise, in proportion to the knowledge he has of the most important truths.

The work is notable for concerning the degrees of knowledge. Descartes identifies four degrees of knowledge, which he names common, and a fifth that he designates as higher. The first degree consists on clear and evident notions that can be acquired without need of any meditation. The second degree is all that is learned by means of the senses. The third comprises what we learn when talking with other men. The fourth consists on what we can learn from the writings of men capable of giving good instructions.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.