Discourse on Method / Edition 1

by René Descartes, Richard Kennington, Pamela Kraus, Frank Hunt

Overview

This is an English translation of Descartes' seminal discourse, with an original essay by Richard Kennington. This text is designed to provide the student with a close translation, notes, and a glossary of key terms, facilitating access to ideas as they originally were presented and helping to make the translator's work transparent.

Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Decartes' immediate audience.

The Focus Philosophical Library publishes clear, faithful editions enabling access for modern students to the essential ideas and wisdom of the world’s greatest thinkers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781585102594
Publisher:	Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/01/2007
Series:	Focus Philosophical Library
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

Richard Kennington (1921–1999) was a professor of philosophy at The Pennsylvania State University and Catholic University of America. His teaching wqas centered largely on seventeenth-century thinkers such as Bacon and Descartes.

Pamela Kraus teaches at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. She is coeditor (along with Frank Hunt) of Richard Kennington's "On Modern Origins: Essays in Early Modern Philosophy" (Lexington, 1004).

Frank Hunt teaches at St Johns College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is coeditor, along with Pamela Kraus, of Richard Kennington's "On Modern Origins in Early Modern Philosophy" (Lexington, 1004).

Table of Contents

Introduction

• Who Was René Descartes?
• What Was Descartes’s Overall Philosophical Project?
• What Is the Structure of the Discourse?
• Some Useful Background Information
• Some Common Misconceptions
• How Important and Influential Is This Text?
• Timeline
• Suggestions for Critical Reflection
• Suggestions for Further Reading

Translator’s Note

Discourse on Method

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six

Appendix: From Rules for the Direction of the Mind

Index.

Editorial Reviews

Ian Johnston’s new translation of Descartes’s famous Discourse on Method will stand with the best and most readable translations now available in English. For readers coming to Descartes’s work for the first time, Andrew Bailey’s introduction nicely situates the text both philosophically and historically.” — Kurt Smith, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

“Descartes’s Discourse on Method is incredibly rich: it motivates readers to think critically, it introduces Descartes’s ethics as well as his metaphysics, and it aims to show the power of reasoning well. Ian Johnston’s translation is clear and accessible to students while remaining true to the original text.” — Lisa Shapiro, Simon Fraser University

From the Publisher