A Companion to Descartes - Paperback

by Janet Broughton (Editor), John Carriero (Editor)

A collection of more than 30 specially commissioned essays, this volume surveys the work of the 17th-century philosopher-scientist commonly regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, while integrating unique essays detailing the context and impact of his work.

• Covers the full range of historical and philosophical perspectives on the work of Descartes
• Discusses his seminal contributions to our understanding of skepticism, mind-body dualism, self-knowledge, innate ideas, substance, causality, God, and the nature of animals
• Explores the philosophical significance of his contributions to mathematics and science
• Concludes with a section on the impact of Descartes's work on subsequent philosophers

Back Jacket

"Good companions fulfill two more duties - they provide better ways of understanding the familiar and they also defamiliarise it by encouraging newslants and alerting us to relatively ignored issues: this companion does both ....A most attractive and wide-ranging addition to its field."
(Reference Reviews, Issue 6 2008)

With more than 30 newly commissioned essays, A Companion to Descartes details in unparalleled depth the work of the seventeenth-century philosopher-scientist commonly regarded as the founder of modern philosophy. Alongside discussion of his seminal contributions to our understanding of skepticism, mind-body dualism, self-knowledge, innate ideas, substance, causality, God, and the nature of animals, the volume provides in several essays a uniqueorientation to the intellectual, religious, and scientific contexts that were important to Descartes's work. Concluding with discussions of the impact of Descartes's work on subsequent generations of philosophers, the essays in this volume offer fresh and distinctive scholarly perspectives on this giant of the history of modern thought.

Author Biography

Janet Broughton is Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Descartes's Method of Doubt(2002).

John Carriero is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published widely in early modern philosophy.