Descartes' Meditations

Rene Descartes

Jan 2012 · Agora Publications · Narrated by Albert A. Anderson

About this audiobook

René Descartes is often described as the first modern philosopher, but much of the content of his Meditations on First Philosophy can be found in the medieval period that had already existed for more than a thousand years. Does God exist? If so, what is his nature? Is the human soul immortal? How does it differ from the body? What role do sense experience and pure reason play in knowing? Descartes stands out from his predecessors because of the method he developed to treat these and other fundamental questions. Drawing on his study of mathematics, he searches for a way to establish absolutely certain conclusions based on indubitable premises. His importance in modern philosophy lies in the challenge he offers to every subsequent thinker in philosophy and science.

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About the author

Albert A. Anderson, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Babson College in Massachusetts, where he held an endowed chair as Murata Professor of Ethics from 1995 to 2003. He has also held tenured faculty appointments in philosophy at Clark University in Massachusetts and Albion College in Michigan and full-time positions at Bates College in Maine and Rhode Island School of Design. He was a founding member of the International Society for Universal Dialogue serving as its president from 1996-2001. He is joint translator from French of The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience by Mikel Dufrenne.