Georges Dicker

A solid grasp of the main themes and arguments of the seventeenth century philosopher Rene Descartes is an essential tool towards understanding modern thought, and a necessary entree to the work of the empiricists and Immanuel Kant, and to the study of contemporary epistemology and philosophy of mind. Clear and accessible, this book serves as an introduction to Descartes's ideas for undergraduates and as a sophisticated companion to his Meditations for more advanced readers. After a thorough discussion of the main themes and arguments of the Meditations, the historical background of the work, and its critical reception, the author offers his own reflections on Cartesian doubt, the cogito, the causal and ontological proofs of God's existence, the Cartesian circle, Cartesian dualism, and Descartes' views of the material world. The commentary includes and cross-references the full text of Meditations I, II, and V, and most of Meditations III and VI, employing John Cottingham's highly-praised translation.

In ‘Kant's Refutation of Idealism’ (Noûs, 47), I defend a version of the Refutation, pioneered by Paul Guyer inKant and the Claims of Knowledge, whose core idea is that the only way that one can know the order of one's own past experiences, except in certain rare cases, is by correlating them with the successive states of perceived external objects that caused the experiences. Andrew Chignell has offered a probing critique of my reconstruction of Kant's argument (Philosophical Quarterly, 60), and I have responded (Philosophical Quarterly, 61). In a rebuttal of my response, Chignell raises three new objections (Philosophical Quarterly, 61). My purpose in this paper is to reply to these.