A decorative woodcut headpiece featuring a central female figure, likely representing Justice or Wisdom, holding a sword and scales, flanked by elaborate floral and leafy scrollwork.

PREFACE.

First Philosophy original: "Philosophia prima"; this refers to Metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality and being. was once adorned with enviable praises by the Scholastics original: "Scholasticis"; the school of thinkers who dominated medieval universities, combining Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology.; but, after Cartesian philosophy original: "Philosophia Cartesiana"; the system of René Descartes, which favored mathematical certainty and rational doubt over tradition. gained strength, it was brought into contempt and exposed to everyone's mockery. For Descartes original: "Cartesius"; René Descartes (1596–1650), often called the father of modern philosophy. began to philosophize clearly and distinctly original: "clare ac distincte"; a central requirement in Descartes' method for a truth to be accepted as certain., so that terms are not admitted unless a clear and obvious notion corresponds to them, or they consist of a definition that can be resolved into simpler notions of that kind, and so that things are explained in an intelligible way through intrinsic reasons. In First Philosophy, however, the definitions of terms were for the most part more obscure than the terms themselves, and the rules (which they called canons original: "canones"; established principles or rules of logic and metaphysics used in Scholastic debate.) were no less obscure than they were ambiguous, so that

(Wolff's Ontology.)