First published in 1641, Meditations on First Philosophy is a seminal work of modern Western philosophy, written by the renowned French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes. The book is structured as a series of six meditative essays in which Descartes discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain, aiming to establish a secure foundation for scientific and philosophical knowledge. Through his method of Cartesian doubt, he famously deduces his own existence as a thinking thing ("Cogito, ergo sum"), introduces the concept of mind-body dualism, and presents ontological arguments for the existence of God and the reality of the material world. This highly acclaimed translation by Donald A. Cress captures the precision of Descartes' original Latin text, making it an essential resource for students, professors, and scholars of metaphysics, epistemology, and the history of philosophy.