Book

Selections from the Principles of Philosophy

by René Descartes (1596–1650)

6 chapters, about 31,000 words. The text is in the public domain in the United States and comes from Project Gutenberg.

Chapters

1. LETTER OF THE AUTHOR 5,700 words
2. TO THE MOST SERENE PRINCESS, 800 words
3. PART I. OF THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 13,000 words
4. PART II. OF THE PRINCIPLES OF MATERIAL THINGS. 4,900 words
5. PART III. OF THE VISIBLE WORLD. 500 words
6. PART IV. OF THE EARTH. 5,900 words

Ideas discussed in this book

• A
• Action at a distance
• Anxiety
• Cerebral cortex
• Certainty
• Existence of God
• Identity of indiscernibles
• Metaphysics
• Mockery
• Nyaya
• Rarefaction
• Real number
• Vacuum

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