Book Description
Bold and pioneering, this book makes a detailed historical and systematic case that Descartes's theory of knowledge is an elegant and powerful combination of a priori, naturalistic, and dialectical elements meriting serious consideration by both contemporary analytic philosophers and postmodern thinkers. In the course of making this case Thomas Vinci develops a broad reinterpretation of Cartesian thought that unlocks novel solutions to many of the most vexed questions in Cartesian scholarship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Important Descartes
This is an important book on Descartes by a U Pitt veteran.I also recommend Williams (Descartes) and Broughton ("D and the Method of Doubt"/Princeton UP), as well as Stroud's Quest for Reality (Oxford UP), MD Wilson, "Ideas and Mechanisms."

Vinci's book is an extremely careful reading of D's Meditations.Chapter Two: "Truth, Existence and Ideas" is excellent.Some of the more important material here is in Chapter Four: "Sense Experience of Primary Qualities," as well as Chapter Five: "Perceptual Representation of Ordinary Objects."

This book deserves my highest recommendation and is an excellent introduction (as well as rigorous) to a "historical" Descartes--how D's project is relevant and contributes to current philosophy of mind discussions, esp. in perceptual knowledge.

I also recommend Sellars' EPM and McDowell. ... Read more