Book · 1641
Meditations on First Philosophy
by René Descartes
A philosopher strips away every belief he holds to find the one thing that can't be doubted, then rebuilds the world from there — in six meditations, 80 pages.
What does Reddit think of Meditations on First Philosophy?
The tone across both subs is neutral throughout. Nobody gushes; nobody trashes. What gets debated is the cogito itself. The ↑129 r/askphilosophy comment argues that most critiques overload Descartes' claim — readers project content into "I think, therefore I am" that he never put there. The ↑55 thread uses the Meditations to explain causal containment principles in a live argument about God's existence. The book shows up reliably in canonical reading lists. The ↑59 one-per-author thread at r/askphilosophy places it between Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Hume's Treatise without ceremony. That's the company it keeps. Annual mention volume has been steady at 3–6 per year since 2019, with no particular spike. Nobody on Reddit is discovering this book. They're reaching for it when they need to cite something specific about epistemology or the cogito. It functions as infrastructure.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Radical doubt as method
- · The cogito and self-knowledge
- · Existence of God via causal reasoning
- · Mind-body dualism
- · Foundationalism in epistemology
Common praise
- + r/askphilosophy (↑53) calls it written in a relatively understandable manner and notes that, unlike most classical texts, secondary resources are everywhere.
- + Shows up in nearly every canonical western philosophy reading list, slotted between Aristotle and Hume — 27 mentions across 7 years without anyone contesting that placement.
- + The causal containment argument gets cited to resolve contemporary disputes about God's existence, not just as historical context.
Common criticism
- − Sentiment is flat across all 27 mentions — the book is cited as obligatory, not exciting.
- − r/askphilosophy commenters spend more effort correcting popular misreadings of the cogito than engaging with the text's actual claims.
- − Rarely discussed on its own terms; threads that name it use it as a reference point for something else.
Who it's for
If your philosophy reading has been articles, YouTube, and one survey course, this is the primary text that makes those secondary sources legible. You probably already know the cogito as a meme; the Meditations is where you find out what Descartes actually claimed and why it mattered enough to spend six meditations on it. The r/askphilosophy community (22 mentions) treats it as prerequisite to talking sensibly about early modern philosophy — Locke, Hume, and Kant all respond to it. Anyone looking for a lively Reddit discussion will be disappointed: 27 mentions in 7 years is infrastructure, not conversation.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Meditations on First Philosophy?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“I find many critiques of the cogito frustrating because, in my opinion many people read a lot more content into "the cogito" than is really there. For example, [here's the top comment from an old thread on this subject](
“If I had to pick one book per author: The Republic - Plato Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle Meditations on First Philosophy - Descartes A Treatise on Human Nature - Hume Critique of Pure Reason - Kant Phenomenology of Spirit - Hegel The World As Will and Representation - Schopenhauer The Comm…
“I have to recommend Miguel de Unamuno's The Tragic Sense of Life. He's funky and not at all a starter philosopher but he is apparently very beautiful and poetic in the original Spanish. Otherwise, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Augustine's Confessions, Blaise Pascal's Pensees, D…
“Two early modern figures that are good to look at for this are Descartes and Locke. Descartes argues in his 'meditations on first philosophy' that, since everything has a cause, and nothing can come from something less than itself (a ball cannot travel further than the ability of the thrower) we ca…
“My first year philosophy course got me reading Descartes's Meditations on First philosophy. It's written in a relatively understandable manner, and touches on topics such as the nature of reality and the existence of God. It's one of the most discussed classical texts so you'll have no trouble findi…
“> My understanding of Foucalt is negative, as per Jordan Peterson's criticism, and I don't care to delve too deep into the philosophy of a person that I have a negative view of this early in my undertaking of philosophy. But Foucault's position does not even remotely resemble Peterson's description…
“Abstract: The philosopher Rene Descartes is responsible for the popular saying "I think, therefore I am". But what is the significance of this quote? To answer this question, we need to turn our attention towards two of his works, the Meditations on First Philosophy and his Discourse on Method. …
“>but I have taken a philosophy class and consumed lots of philosophy media Given that you've only taken *a* philosophy class (and consumed "philosophy media", whatever that means), it's fair to say that it *is* arrogance, or at least naïveté. Some have already defended Plato, so I'll just mention …
Convinced? Pick up Meditations on First Philosophy
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with Meditations on First Philosophy — counted from the comments, not curated.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
David Hume
David Hume's 1748 argument that knowledge comes from experience, not reason alone — and that you should probably stop pretending to know things you cannot verify.
On Liberty
John Stuart Mill
Mill's 1859 case for why society has no right to silence you — even when you're wrong — distilled to 130 pages that r/askphilosophy assigns before almost anything else.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Immanuel Kant
Kant's 1785 argument that morality comes from reason alone — the Categorical Imperative in its original 90-page form, before the Critiques complicate everything.
Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
Aristotle's 2,400-year-old argument that living well depends on virtue, leisure, and the company you keep — still the canonical text for the field.
Phaedo
Plato
Socrates spends his final hours arguing that the soul survives death — and inviting his friends to find the holes in his logic.
Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
Kant's 1781 attempt to settle the limits of human knowledge — the book that split philosophy in two and still hasn't been fully digested.
Meditations on First Philosophy — frequently asked
Is Meditations on First Philosophy hard to read without a philosophy background?+
No. The ↑53 r/askphilosophy comment calls it written in a relatively understandable manner and notes that, unlike most classical texts, you won't struggle to find secondary resources. It's short, the argument is explicit, and the structure does most of the orientation work.
What does Reddit actually discuss when Meditations on First Philosophy comes up?+
Mostly the cogito, and mostly to correct people about it. The ↑129 r/askphilosophy comment argues that critics routinely overload the cogito with content Descartes never put there. Beyond that, it appears in canonical reading lists and argument threads about God's existence — cited as a tool, rarely as a topic in itself.
Should I read Meditations on First Philosophy before tackling Hume or Kant?+
Yes, based on the data. The ↑59 r/askphilosophy thread places it explicitly in the sequence between Aristotle and Hume as the representative Descartes entry. The causal and epistemological vocabulary Descartes sets up reappears in almost every early modern argument that follows.
Which subreddits talk about Meditations on First Philosophy the most?+
r/askphilosophy by a wide margin — 22 of the 27 total mentions over 7 years. r/philosophy accounts for the remaining 5. Both treat it as a standard reference rather than a discovery. Mentions have been steady at 3–6 per year, with no particular spike or decline.