ABSTRACT
As soon as he wrote Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes sent a first draft of the work to the music theorist and theologian Father Marin Mersenne, asking him to disseminate it among some of the leading intellectuals of the time. Descartes received a number of objections to the central theses of his book from these intellectuals. After Descartes published Meditations, a controversy erupted in the academic community. Many of Descartes's contemporaries criticized Meditations. In Objections, Descartes published arguments that sought to counter the complaints made against his proof of the existence of God. One of the aspects of Descartes's text that might seem relevant only to his own time lies in the very attempt to prove the existence of God by way of deductive argument. In focusing on Descartes's philosophical work, it is easy for modern readers to overlook the fact that Descartes's view of science differs from the modern conception of science.
