René DESCARTES
Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences. Plus la Dioptrique et les météores, qui sont les essais de cette méthode [avec] Traité de la mechanique [avec] Abrégé de la musique
Chez Charles Angot|à Paris 1668|17.50 x 23 cm|relié
Chez Charles Angot, à Paris 1668, 4to (17.5 x 23cm), 303 pp. (23 p.); 127 pp. (1 p.), bound.
Third edition of Discours de la méthode, dated 8 May 1668, expanded with Traité de la Méchanique first published here and the first French edition of Abrégé de la Musique. Another “third edition” of Discours de la Méthode by Théodore Girard and Nicolas Le Gras (with Michel Bobin) was printed a few days earlier (28 April) without the additional texts. For the first time, Descartes' name is present on the title-page of both editions.
First edition of Traité de la méchanique and first French edition of L'Abrégé de la musique.
Full brown calf contemporary binding, skillfully restored upper spine end, joints and corners. The name of a former owner has been cut out of the title page and filled with a piece of paper, discreet wormholes affecting some letters throughout the volume.
Descartes had postponed the publication of his Traité du monde et de la lumière for the first time in 1632 to defend heliocentrism, when Galileo had just been condemned. As he was about to publish his latest scientific works, Dioptrique, Météores and Géométrie, Descartes decided to write a work of circumstance intended to serve as a preface to his scientific thesis, which would be his first philosophical work: Le Discours de la méthode. The author well understood the necessity to prepare the opinion with caution to new scientific theories, and purposely avoids giving a dogmatic method and theory for “rightly conducting the reason”, and chooses instead to recount his own experience by commenting on his intellectual adventure. Discours de la méthode thus becomes a manifesto of reason based on a fundamental presupposition: the exercise of doubt in all things. It is through this doubt that Descartes establishes the foundations of a new science. We know what a brilliant future Discours de la méthode and his fundamental cogito will have, by embodying, beyond scientific and philosophical principles, the very essence of a certain French spirit.
Third edition of Discours de la méthode, dated 8 May 1668, expanded with Traité de la Méchanique first published here and the first French edition of Abrégé de la Musique. Another “third edition” of Discours de la Méthode by Théodore Girard and Nicolas Le Gras (with Michel Bobin) was printed a few days earlier (28 April) without the additional texts. For the first time, Descartes' name is present on the title-page of both editions.
First edition of Traité de la méchanique and first French edition of L'Abrégé de la musique.
Full brown calf contemporary binding, skillfully restored upper spine end, joints and corners. The name of a former owner has been cut out of the title page and filled with a piece of paper, discreet wormholes affecting some letters throughout the volume.
Descartes had postponed the publication of his Traité du monde et de la lumière for the first time in 1632 to defend heliocentrism, when Galileo had just been condemned. As he was about to publish his latest scientific works, Dioptrique, Météores and Géométrie, Descartes decided to write a work of circumstance intended to serve as a preface to his scientific thesis, which would be his first philosophical work: Le Discours de la méthode. The author well understood the necessity to prepare the opinion with caution to new scientific theories, and purposely avoids giving a dogmatic method and theory for “rightly conducting the reason”, and chooses instead to recount his own experience by commenting on his intellectual adventure. Discours de la méthode thus becomes a manifesto of reason based on a fundamental presupposition: the exercise of doubt in all things. It is through this doubt that Descartes establishes the foundations of a new science. We know what a brilliant future Discours de la méthode and his fundamental cogito will have, by embodying, beyond scientific and philosophical principles, the very essence of a certain French spirit.
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