Chapter 31 postscript

Descartes' Meditationes de prima philo-sophia, originally written in Latin, was published in 1641.Before it was officially published, Descartes asked someone to give the proofs of six meditations to some famous theologians and philosophers at that time to read, and asked them to give their opinions, so that they could make further elaborations based on their opinions, in order to be able to read more easily. Published with permission of the Faculty of Divinity, University of Paris.Descartes received a total of six sets of "Rebuttals", and he made a "Reply" to these "Refutations".Thus, the first Latin edition of the Meditations consisted of six Meditations, six Refutations, and six Answers. (The seventh set of Rebuttals was received later, and is included in the second Latin edition together with the Reply and a letter from Descartes to Father Dinet.) Descartes' Reply is six The important annotations and supplements of the first "Meditations" are very valuable clarifications of Descartes' philosophical thoughts, many of which are not mentioned or mentioned in the six "Meditations".These Replies and the six Meditations form an indivisible whole.As for the authors of each group of "Refutations", some are famous philosophers, such as Hobbes, Arnaud, and Gassendi. They all raised many valuable questions, and it can be seen from their "Refutations" To show their philosophical attitude, especially the fifth group of "Refutation" (about 70,000 words in total) itself is one of the main philosophical works left by the materialist Gassendi to future generations.

After reading Descartes' "Meditations", a talented young aristocrat Duke de Luynes who had considerable prestige in the court admired Descartes' theory and thought it was worth publishing it to the world. Most people in France can read it quickly (Latin is a language that only a few learned people can understand), so he translated the six parts of "Meditations" into French popular language, that is, French, and then Clerselier (Clerselier) and Translate the "Rebuttal" and "Reply".However, Gassendi was very unhappy to see his "Refutation" appearing in the Latin edition of "Meditations", saying that his "Refutation" was only for Descartes' personal reading and should not be published to the world, so he sent it to the public. The "Refutation" (that is, the fifth group of "Refutation")

and several new Opinions against Descartes' Reply, published in Amsterdam in 1644 under the title Disquisitio metaphysica.At this time, Clareser was translating to the fourth group of "Refutation", so Descartes asked him to delete the fifth group of "Refutation" and "Reply", and asked him not to translate it, but replaced it with Descartes' "Refutation" in their place. Statement of the Fifth Group of Rebuttals" and a "Letter to Clareser" in reply to Gassendi's Metaphysical Investigations.Descartes thought that the book "Metaphysical Investigations" was too thick, so he asked someone to make an excerpt for him, and "Letter to Clareser" was his reply to this excerpt.It is included in the fifth group of "Refutation" and "Reply" in the first French edition.

Even so, Clareser translated the fifth group of "Refutation" and "Reply", and finally obtained Descartes' consent reluctantly, and attached it to the sixth group of "Refutation" and "Reply" as the last part of "Meditations" The whole book was published in 1647. Except for the fifth group of "Refutation" and "Reply", all parts have been reviewed and revised by Descartes himself. Comparing the Latin text, we can see traces of additions and deletions in many places.It is for this reason that the first French edition of the Meditations has greater authority than the Latin edition.

Eleven years after Descartes' death (1661), the second French edition of Meditations was published.In the second edition, Clare Sele revised the six translations of "Meditations" translated by De Luna, and even rewrote many places.He also slightly modified his own translation of the "Refutation" and "Reply", and in some places even added a whole paragraph that was not in the first edition, including the name of Duke de Luna, one of the translators of "Meditations", Canceled and replaced by a unified translator—his own name.In terms of content, the seventh group of "Refutation" and "Reply" and Descartes' letter to Father Denay are added.In this way, it can be said that the second French edition of "Meditations" was completely revised by Clareser without Descartes' consent.All subsequent French editions that we have seen have been reprinted from the second edition. (The third edition in 1673 just added some tricks on the basis of the second edition, such as adding "summary" and corresponding page numbers between the contents of "Contemplation", "Refutation" and "Reply" .

This version was not followed by later versions. ) At the beginning of this century, Adam (Charles Adam) and Tannery (Paul Tannery) edited and published "The Complete Works of Descartes", which collected the Latin text and French translation of "Meditations".The French text they adopted was the first edition in 1647, and it was typesetting in archaic characters according to the style of the first edition, and placed in the ninth volume. The reason why they adopted the first edition in French and not the second edition was that, according to them, "all must have been reviewed and revised by Descartes himself".That is to say, starting from this dominant idea, they also deleted the fifth group, Gassendi's "Refutation" and Descartes' "Reply", because this part has not been reviewed by Descartes himself, and Descartes once disagreed. Put it in his Meditations.

The Chinese version of this book is translated based on the 1956 edition edited and reprinted by Adam and Tanari according to the first French edition. , 1865), this part is reprinted according to the second edition in 1661, especially in the six "Meditations" parts, the text is quite different from the first edition, except that only rhetorical In addition to the problem, I have made annotations in places with different meanings.In the "Rebuttal" and "Reply", I also referred to the direct translation from the Latin version by E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross where the text was difficult to understand. The English translation of Descartes' Philosophical Works (The Philosophical Works of Descartes, Cambridge University Press, 1912).

In view of the extraordinary importance of the fifth group, Gassendi's "Refutation" and Descartes' "Reply", although the versions of Adam and Tanari were not accepted, I also translated and supplemented these two parts based on Simon's version. After the fourth set of rebuttals and defenses.Among them, the part of Gassendi's "Refutation" was translated in 1963. It was once published by the Commercial Press under the title of Gassendi's "Interrogation of Descartes' Meditation", and it has been revised again this time.As for Father Bourdin's seventh set of Rebuttals, since they are all of little value, and glib, cynical, and boring, they are very tiresome to read, and at the same time too long (together with the " Reply, about 75,000 words in total), and the content is very monotonous-the objection is only Descartes' general suspicion, so it is not added.

I started translating Descartes' Meditations in 1935 and revised it in 1962.The translation was unfortunately lost during the ten years of turmoil. The retranslation began in 1976 and was completed in 1980.This year, before the entire book was typesetting, I re-examined it again, mainly to determine the translation of several terms, such as clair and distinct, which are Descartes’ criteria for understanding truth. However, considering that distinct has the meaning of "separate from other things", this time it was changed to "clear and distinct".Another example is infini and indefini, the former means "infinity", and the latter means "undetermined".Considering that the two have the same meaning in Descartes, but in order to reserve infini (infinity) for God, those things that cannot see the end, such as the infinite extension of space, the infinite division of various parts of quantity, and the number Endless numbers, etc., are called indefini to show the difference from God, so I translate indefini as "infinity" (not translated as "unfixed") to show the difference from "infinite".

Although this translation has been reviewed and revised many times, there are still many mistakes and inadequacies, and readers are welcome to correct them. translator March 1985