Considered by many the starting point of modern Western philosophy, Meditations on First Philosophy was written by René Descartes and published in 1641. In this one brief work, Descartes turned key Aristotelian doctrines upside down and framed many of the questions that philosophers would debate for centuries to come. While we can trace Descartes' enormous influence to the development of mind-body dualism and modern skepticism, he also provided the Cartesian Circle, the Wax Argument, as well as his theories of ideas, of body, and of perception—all of which became important seeds for philosophical debate. 

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