Maarten Maartensz

CONTENTS

• Remarks on my notes
   

• Prefatory Note To The Meditations.

• Dedication.

• Synopsis of the Six Following Meditations.

• Meditation I: Of the Things which may be brought within the Sphere of the Doubtful.

• Meditation II: Of the Nature of the Human Mind; and that it is more easily Known than the Body.

• Meditation III: Of God: that he Exists.

• Meditation IV: Of the True and the False.

• Meditation V: Of the Essence of Material Things, and, again, of God, that he Exists.

• Meditation VI: Of the Existence of Material Things, and of the real Distinction between the Soul and Body of Man.

• Notes

The text for this file was the 1911 edition of The Philosophical Works of Descartes (Cambridge University Press), translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane.¹

Remarks on my notes

Originally, my notes on Descartes' meditations are from 1995. I have reformatted them and extended them a little in August 2000. In the earlier formatting my remarks were inbetween the text of Descartes. They are now in their own files, with links to and from the text. As before, the parts I comment on are blue.  To Contents

Most lively portrait of Descartes.

The portraits come from St Andrews University, which has an excellent site given to mathematicians, with biographies, works, references and pictures: Well worth visiting if you are interested in mathematics!

NOTE Jan 2003: On the moment my remarks on meditation 6 are not on line since they disappeared somehow into bitheaven. I'll have to find some earlier copy somewhere.

last update: 06 Jan 2010