Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Descartes’s works are taken from the reference edition: Œuvres de Descartes, edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Paris, CERF, 1897–1913, revised edition, Paris, Vrin-CNRS, 1964–1974, 12 volumes [AT]. When mentioned in the footnotes, the English versions are taken from The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, Cambridge, CUP, 1985–1991, 3 volumes [CSM], with some modifications (in particular, to avoid any misunderstanding, the French words évidence and évident and their Latin versions evidentia and evidens will be always translated by the English expressions “self-evidence” and “self-evident”). When no mention of an English version is made, the translations provided are to be understood as mine. For Descartes’s correspondence up to 1638, the relevant texts are quoted – with some occasional alterations – from the on-going new English edition: René Descartes. The Complete Correspondence in English Translation, Volume I, From the Early Years to the Discourse on Method, 1619–1638, edited and translated by Roger Ariew, Erik-Jan Bos with Élodie Cassan, Sébastien Maronne, Oxford, OUP, 2024 [CC]. A complete bibliography of Descartes’s works and critical literature, with useful comments and updates, may be found in Bulletin cartésien, a yearly publication (1972–) of the Centre d’études cartésiennes (Paris)/Centro dipartimentale di studi su Descartes “Ettore Lojacono” (Lecce), available online (http://www.cartesius.net/il-centro/pubblicazioni/category/bulletin-cartesien/).
This volume is an augmented version of an introductory book on Descartes published in Italy in 2010, incorporating new research and updated discussions of scholarly literature. I am once again grateful to Antony McKenna for his friendly assistance and support throughout the drafting of this work, that could not have been published without his help.