A Reading Guide to Descartes` Meditations on First Philosophy

The European Enlightenment is a period that contributed concepts that continue to be authoritative in philosophical conversation, and defined the criteria for what is important in the endeavors of human thought even in our own day. Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy presents the questions that are responsible for a departure from Scholasticism and the dawn of modern philosophy. To understand Continental Philosophy, and the history that precedes the analytical tradition, one cannot overlook Descartes’ precedent.
    Even into the eighteenth century philosophical bearings were considered a prerequisite to culture. But to understand the transition of philosophy into the keeping of the universities, one cannot sidestep Descartes’ union of philosophy to science. But not only this – in its beginnings, it must be noted that this chapter of the Enlightenment contains one of the most meaningful convergences of God and science. Despite the success or failure of Descartes’ conclusions of innate ideas and the undoubtability of   kmo God, the attempt and its commitments define a significant displacement of both faith and reason (even mathematics) that provides the context for recognizing, for example, the likes of Kant and Newton in the fullness of their own projects.
    Emanuala Scribano’s guide to the reading of the Meditations is both a critical treatment of the content of this text as well as an historical overview of the philosophical climate and conversation of Descartes’ contemporaries. It is an accurate presentation of Descartes’ motivation and immediate influence on the culture, and in particular those aspects which succeeded in altering theology, philosophy, and physics simultaneously. Scribano provides rich references to the Scholastic and Platonic traditions in order to better characterize the way in which nuances of thought lead to momentous shifts in general theory and the construction of concepts. Descartes tries to found an untouchable science, but one that also defends the existence of God. Hence, it is not enough to look forward from Descartes, but also behind to the patrimony of human enterprise in what regards satisfying the need of both gnosis and episteme. Scribano’s commentary is especially helpful for those already familiar with Aquinas and Aristotle, as she employs frequent juxtapositions between these and Descartes’ divergences. 
    Beyond the general interest and scholarship, this book is especially...read more...