Desmond Clarke

Desmond M. Clarke (1942 – 17 September 2016) was an author and professor of philosophy at University College Cork, in Cork, Ireland. His research interests lay predominantly in the 17th century, on such topics as the history of philosophy and theories of science - with a specific interest in the writings of René Descartes, as well as contemporary church/state relations, human rights, and nationalism. He was co-editor of the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series, and he has translated and written an introduction for the Penguin edition of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. He retired from his position as Professor of Philosophy in 2006.

Clarke was the founder and a general editor of Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy – 76 volumes have been published with new translations of non-English texts from ancient Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, French, Italian and German. He died on 17 September 2016.

Recent publications

• Descartes : A Biography (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
• Descartes's Theory of Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003)
• Pascal's Philosophy of Science in N. Hammond, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Pascal (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 102-121.
• Explanation, Consciousness and Cartesian Dualism, in R.E. Auxier and L.E. Hahn, eds., The Philosophy of Marjorie Grene (Library of Living Philosophers, vol. xxix). Chicago and La Salle, III.; Open Court, 2002, pp. 471–85.
• Exorcising Ryle's Ghost from Cartesian Metaphysics, Philosophical Inquiry, 23 (2001), 27-36.
• Causal powers and occasionalism from Descartes to Malebranche, in Stephen Gaukroger, ed. Descartes' Natural Philosophy (Routledge, 2000), 131 -48.
• Cartesianism, in W. Applebaum, ed. Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution (Garland, 2000), 122-24.
• Constitutional Bootstrapping: the Irish Nation, Ir. Law Times, 18 (2000), 74-77
• Nationalism, the Irish Constitution, and Multicultural Citizenship, Northern Ireland Legal Quart. 51 (2000), 100-19.
• A two-volume edition of the works of Descartes: René Descartes, Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings (Penguin, 1998), and Discourse on Method and Related Writings (Penguin, 1999).
• D. Clarke and C. Jones, eds., The Rights of Nations: Nations and Nationalism in a Changing World (N. Y.: St. Martin's Press, and Cork University Press, 1999).
• Faith and Reason in the Thought of Moise Amyraut, in A. P. Coudert, et al. eds. Judaeo-Christian Intellectual Culture in the Seventeenth Century (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999), pp. 145–59.
• Education, the State, and Sectarian Schools, in T. Murphy and P. Twomey, eds. Ireland's Evolving Constitution (Oxford: Hart, 1998), pp. 65–77.
• Descartes' Concept of Scientific Explanation, in J. Cottingham, ed. Descartes (Oxford Readings in Philosophy; Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 259–80.
• Nation, State and Nationality in the Irish Constitution, Ir. Law Times, 16 (1998), 252-6.