René Descartes

René Descartes

René Descartes was born on March 31st, 1596. René passed away February 11th, 1650 at 53 years old. René Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now Desca, France.

René Descartes was a French scientist, philosopher, and mathematician, who's widely considered to be a seminal figure in the emergence of both modern science and philosophy.

He's often been called the father of modern philosophy, and is largely viewed as being responsible for the increased attention that's given to epistemology during the 17th century.

It is said that the night of November 10 and 11 in 1619 (St. Martin's Day), as he was stationed in Neuburg an der Donau, he shut himself in a room with a cocklestove in order to escape the cold. As he was within, he had these three dreams, and believed that a divine spirit revealed to him a new philosophy.

Upon exiting, René formulated analytic geometry and the idea of applying the mathematical method to philosophy. René concluded from his visions that the pursuit of science would prove to be, for him, the pursuit of true wisdom and would form a central part of his life's work. He also saw quite clearly that all truths were connected to one another, so finding a fundamental truth and proceeding forward with logic would open the way to all science.

Mathematics was crucial to René's method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of algebra and geometry into analytic geometry.

He spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, and then later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Even though he served a Protestant state and later was counted as being a deist by critics, he was actually Roman Catholic.

His Meditations on First Philosophy is still a standard text at most university philosophy departments. His influence in mathematics is just as apparent, being the namesake of the Cartesian coordinate system. René is also credited as the father of analytic geometry, which was used in the discovery of infinitesimal analysis and calculus and was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution.

Metaphysical Writings is one of the foundation stones of modern philosophy.

René was ready to go to any and all lengths in his quest for certainty—even deny those things which seemed most self-evident. In his Meditations of 1641 and in the Objections and Replies, which were included in the original publication, he set off to dismantle and then reconstruct the idea of the individual self and its very existence. In doing this, he developed this language of subjectivity which has lasted to this very day, and he also took his first steps toward the view which would eventually be expressed in "I think, therefore I am", one of modern philosophy's most famous, and most fiercely contested, claims.

Related Authors

Fans of René Descartes also enjoy these authors:

1. Robert A. Heinlein, author of: Stranger in a Strange Land.
2. Isaac Asimov, author of the Foundation Series.
3. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings Series.
4. Neal Stephenson, author of: Snow Crash.
5. Ray Bradbury, author of: Fahrenheit 451.

René Descartes: F.A.Q