[NEW COURSE] [MULTI-PART SERIES] In the Meditations (1641), the founding work of modern philosophy, Descartes states two intentions. The Dedication Letter to the Religious Faculty of the Sorbonne states the intention of persuading the rational infidels with rational arguments that God exists and that the soul is immortal. The opening sentence of Meditation One states the intention of providing a philosophic foundation for the new science of mathematical physics. In the process of executing these two intentions, Descartes establishes the modern conception of the soul as exclusively mind or consciousness, thereby inaugurating subjectivity as a philosophic foundation. To interpret the Meditations is to determine the relations between the theology, the theory of science, and the account of subjectivity. Required Text: Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Fourth edition by Rene Descartes, ISBN 9780872204201 Discussion, Lecture