René Descartes was a French philosopher who was born in 1596 and died in 1650. His works include Discourse on Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, and Rules for the Direction of the Mind, which are concisely described in this Guide. SparkNotes also offers full Guides for Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, as well as for another of Descartes’s famous works, Principles of Philosophy.

Summary

Read a single-section Summary & Analysis for Discourse on Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, or Rules for the Direction of the Mind.

Core Ideas

Read descriptions of some of the main underlying ideas the works of René Descartes discussed in this Guide.

Further Study

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