A Beginner's Guide to Descartes's Meditations

by Gareth Southwell

A concise and readable guide to Descartes's Meditations geared toward beginner philosophy students (at A-level, or on undergraduate degree courses) and general readers.

160 pages, Paperback

First published December 11, 2007

About the author

Gareth Southwell is a writer, illustrator and philosopher who lives in South Wales in the UK. He has a PhD in death, which has been read by exactly four people (including himself). His first novel MUNKi is just a thinly fictionalised version of this, with most of the boring bits taken out and replaced with robots and people swearing in Welsh. Sign up to his monthly email list for news, views, and free stories from the MUNKi universe. For more information on his sci-fi and philosophy writing, or his book cover and design work, please visit garethsouthwell.com .

Reviews

[Keshnee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read many philosophy books and I thought I would be confused by the content so I chose this book as it is meant for a beginner and it's structured as a discussion rather than just the meditations themselves. I found this book easy to follow and a good introduction to Decartes Meditations and philosophy in general.

I think I will need to re-read this book a couple of times before I fully (or even partially) understand the concepts the meditations are trying to introduce. Currently I think that his meditations just don't make logical sense, or at least the logic is not apparent to me - to me circular reasoning isn't reasoning at all. But I think that is the nature of all philosophy - each individual needs to find what fits their thinking best.

"...our belief thresholds differ from individual to individual. So, what is 'proof' to one person remains inconclusive to another, and people can hold on to unfashionable beliefs in the face of overwhelming opposition." - William James

This was a slow read for me - think it's taken me more than 6 months to finish it and it's only about 100 pages. But it's just that the ideas took a while to sink in and I would still recommend it to someone interested in Descartes - my interest was only due to his name being used as an acronym in one of my courses, so probably more relevant to others and I should probably choose my philosophers based on better grounds. I hope the more familiar I get with philosophical terms the easier it will be to take it in.