<p>One of the foundation-stones of modern philosophy, Ren¿escartes'' <i>Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings </i>is translated from the Latin with an introduction by Desmond M. Clarke in Penguin Classics.<br><br>Descartes was prepared to go to any lengths in his search for certainty - even to deny those things that seemed most self-evident. In his <i>Meditations </i>of 1641, and in the <i>Objections and Replies </i>that were included with the original publication, he set out to dismantle and then reconstruct the idea of the individual self and its existence. In doing so, Descartes developed a language of subjectivity that has lasted to this day, and he also took his first steps towards the view that would eventually be expressed in the epigram <i>Cogito, ergo sum </i>(''I think, therefore I am''), one of modern philosophy''s most famous - and most fiercely contested - claims.<br><br>The first part of a two-volume edition of Descartes'' works in Penguin Classics, the second of wh