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Rating: 
Summary: A much nicer introductory edition is available
Review: If you're a student or professor looking for a nice introductory edition to Descartes' writings, this is not the best edition to get. The typeface (at least in the several copies I've examined) is very poor. It almost looks as though the pages have been photocopied. A much better edition has been published by Hackett in 2000 (ed. by Roger Ariew). It not only has the basic philosophial treatises you'll find in this edition, but terrific selections from Descartes' minor writings and correspondence.
Rating: 
Summary: Descartes' Basic Writings
Review: This first volume in a two-volume set contains: (1) Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence, (2) Discourse on the Method, (3) Optics, (4) Meditations on First Philosophy (together with Objections and Replies), (5) Principles of Philosophy, (6) Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, and (7) The Passions of the Soul. The only book missing from this great volume is Descartes' Geometry, but given the breadth and depth of the current volume, such an omission is understandable.The translation is among the very best, with the consistent use of nouns and verbs and direct objects throughout the various texts. The book is accompanied by an excellent index, and an occasional note only when absolutely necessary. The text is allowed to speak for itself, and this it does with aplomb. My only regret is my copy is not printed on acid-free paper, and after a decade is already beginning to age prematurely. This one complaint aside, this volume is both well written and covers Descartes' best ideas. This particular volume belongs in all serious students' and collegiate libraries.
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