John Cottingham is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading. His book include Descartes (Blackwell, 1986) and The Rationalists (OUP 1988) and he is also editor of the The Cambridge Companion to Descartes (CUP, 1992) and co-editor and co-translator of the English edition of The Philosophical Writings on Descartes (CUP, 1985-91).