With Descartes, not only does systematic philosophy begin, which aims to answer the questions themselves, but also a philosophy that engages with the treatment of the questions through a confrontation with the material of those positions it seeks to overcome. The central innovation of the "Meditationes" lies neither in a merely apparent independence from all previous metaphysics nor in a new terminology, but in a complete reorganization of the existing material. Descartes operates sovereignly within the terminology of Aristotle and scholastic metaphysics, and just as sovereignly takes up the themes of this tradition, combining them into a completely new structure. What is new about Descartes' metaphysics is that he acts 'with' the inherited metaphysics, not 'within' it. The new translation follows this approach.