376 RENÉDESCARTES
Descartes had now established a basis for accepting the “obvious” truths he
had thrown out earlier by his method of doubt. He had at the same time identified
the criterion needed to distinguish the foundational truths upon which his knowl-
edge rested, namely, the criterion that a truth must be “clearly and distinctly
perceived.” An example of his rationalistic dependence upon such intuitions is his
claim that the essential nature of a material object can only be known intuitively,
not through sense perceptions.
One final point needs to be noted. The “I” that Descartes found at the end of
his methodological doubting was “entirely distinct from the body.” This “I” was
an immaterial mind, a “spiritual” thing. The body is an “extended, non-thinking
thing.” As such, it is part of the material world, subject to the same laws of
motion as a billiard ball. The “I,” or the mind, on the other hand, is not bound by
physical laws. This Cartesian distinction leads to a problem about the relation-
ship between body and mind. One of the first to raise the issue was Princess
Elizabeth of Bohemia (1618–1680). Her correspondence with Descartes, given
here in the Anscombe and Geach translation, addresses questions with which we
still struggle today.
For a concise treatment of Descartes’ thought in its historical context, see Alexandre
Koyré, “Introduction,” in E. Anscombe and P.T. Geach, eds.,René Descartes’
Philosophical Writings(Edinburgh: Nelson, 1954). Among the best of several
excellent general studies of Descartes are Anthony Kenny,Descartes: A Study of
His Philosophy(New York: Random House, 1968); Margaret Dauler Wilson,
Descartes(Oxford: Routledge, 1983); John Cottingham,Descartes(Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1986); Stephen Gauktoger,Descartes: An Intellectual Biography
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Genevieve Rodis-Lewis,Descartes: His
Life and Thought(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999); and Desmond
Clark,Descartes: A Biography(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
For the fascinating story of what happened to Descartes’ body after his death, see
Russell Shorto,Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith
and Reason(New York: Doubleday, 2008). For discussions of Descartes’
Meditations, see L.J. Beck,The Metaphysics of Descartes: A Study of the
Meditations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); Stanley Tweyman, ed.,
Rene Descartes’Meditations on First Philosophyin Focus(Oxford: Routledge,
1993); Gary Hatfield,Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Descartes’Medita-
tions (London: Routledge, 2002); Catherine Wilson,Descartes’Meditations
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Janet Broughton,Descartes’s
Method of Doubt(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Richard Francks,
Descartes’Meditations:A Reader’s Guide(London: Continuum, 2008); and John
Carriero,Between Two Worlds: A Reading of Descartes’sMeditations (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2009). S. Woolhouse,Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz: The
Concept of Substance in Seventeenth-Century Metaphysics(London: Routledge,
1993) provides a comparative study, whereas John Cottingham,A Descartes
Dictionary(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993) provides a helpful reference work.
For collections of essays on Descartes, see Willis Doney, ed.,Descartes: A Collec-
tion of Critical Essays(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967); Amelie O. Rorty, ed.,
Essays on Descartes’Meditations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986);
