page_title: Principles of Philosophy
section_title: Copies and modern editions
hierarchical_section_title: Principles of Philosophy / Copies and modern editions
caption_attribution_description: English: René Descartes' Principia Philosophiae. This copy was printed in 1656 CE, and is owned by Southwest Research Institute rare book collection at the Tom Slick Memorial Library in San Antonio, Texas.
context_page_description: Principles of Philosophy is a book by René Descartes. In essence, it is a synthesis of the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. It was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version followed in 1647.
  The book sets forth the principles of nature—the Laws of Physics—as Descartes viewed them. Most notably, it set forth the principle that in the absence of external forces, an object's motion will be uniform and in a straight line. Newton borrowed this principle from Descartes and included it in his own Principia; to this day, it is still generally referred to as Newton's First Law of Motion. The book was primarily intended to replace the Aristotelian curriculum then used in French and British universities. The work provides a systematic statement of his metaphysics and natural philosophy, and represents the first truly comprehensive, mechanistic account of the universe.
context_section_description: A copy of Descartes' Principia philosophiae dated 1656 is owned by the Tom Slick rare book collection at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas.
  Reidel, a Dutch publisher, released an English edition of Principia philosophiae in 1983 (ISBN 90-277-1451-7), translated by Valentine Rodger and Reese P. Miller with explanatory notes. Though a translation of the original 1644 Latin work, this edition by Rodger and Miller includes additional material from the 1647 French translation.
caption: René Descartes' Principia Philosophiae. This copy was printed in 1656, and is owned by Southwest Research Institute rare book collection at the Tom Slick Memorial Library in San Antonio, Texas.
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