Who recommends it
- Philosophy Books for BeginnersReading list
The next classic on my list is Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. Much of what I have said about Plato’s Meno applies to this book too. It is not as old as the Meno, of course, but even so it is four hundred years old, and arguably the first great text of modern philosophy. (“Modern”, in this context, does…
- Rebecca GoldsteinInterview
I have two quite different careers, as a philosopher and as a novelist. It’s easier to assign three books for the first. They would be The Republic by Plato, Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes, and Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume. As far as becoming a novelist, I have no specific…
- Daniel CohenInterview
It might actually be Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes. I read it in my first philosophy class in my first semester at college and subsequently spent many late-night hours in delightfully inconclusive arguments about the insanity and magnificence of such an impossible, foolish, and audacious project…
Often recommended alongside
The Republic
The Problems of PhilosophyMore books by Rene Descartes our guests recommend
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