Rene Descartes - Philosophical Works (18 books)

RENÉ DESCARTES (1596-1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer who spent most of his life in the Dutch Republic. He laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and has been dubbed "The Father of Modern Philosophy" in recognition of the fact that much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings.

The DISCOURSE ON METHOD is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the evolution of natural sciences. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions. Together with MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY (Meditationes de Prima Philosophia), PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY (Principia philosophiae) and RULES FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND (Regulae ad directionem ingenii), it forms the basis of the epistemology known as Cartesianism.


This collection includes all the principal philosophical works (in multiple translations), several anthologies, and a large selection of the essays and correspondence. All the following books are in PDF format:

* THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN PRINCESS ELISABETH OF BOHEMIA AND RENÉ DESCARTES (University of Chicago Press, 2007). Edited and translated by Lisa Shapiro.

* DISCOURSE ON METHOD (Oxford World's Classics, 2006). Translated with Introduction and Notes by Ian Maclean.

* DISCOURSE ON METHOD & MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY (Hackett, 1998). Fourth edition. Translated by Donald A. Cress.

* DISCOURSE ON METHOD & MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY (Dover, 1955; 2003). Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross.

* DISCOURSE ON METHOD, MEDITATIONS, & PRINCIPLES (J.M. Dent, 1912). Translated by John Veitch.

* THE GEOMETRY OF RENÉ DESCARTES: With a Facsimile of the First Edition (Dover, 1954). Translated by David Eugene Smith and Marcia L. Latham.

* MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY (Routledge, 1993). Edited with an Introduction by Stanley Tweyman.

* MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY: With Selections from the Objections and Replies (Cambridge University Press, 1996). Revised edition. Translated and edited by John Cottingham.

* MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY: With Selections from the Objections and Replies (Oxford World's Classics, 2008). Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Moriarty.

* MEDITATIONS, OBJECTIONS, AND REPLIES (Hackett, 2006). Edited and translated by Roger Ariew and Donald Cress.

* PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS AND CORRESPONDENCE (Hackett, 2000). Edited with an Introduction by Roger Ariew.

* PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS (Prentice Hall, 1971). Translated and edited by Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Thomas Geach, with an Introduction by Alexandre Koyré.

* PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS (Modern Library, 1958). Selected and translated by Norman Kemp Smith.

* THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF DESCARTES (Cambridge University Press, 1984-1991). 3 volumes. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch.

* PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY (Kluwer, 1982). Translated with Explanatory Notes by Valentine Rodger Miller and Reese P. Miller.

* THE WORLD & OTHER WRITINGS (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Translated and edited by Stephen Gaukroger.


See also:

* [DISCOURSE ON METHOD / MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY]. Translated by John Veitch. Included in the volume THE RATIONALISTS (Anchor, 1960), with works by Spinoza and Leibniz. -- PDF