René Descartes , Lat. Renatus Cartesius, 1596-1650, French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, b. La Haye. Descartes' methodology was a major influence in the transition from medieval science and philosophy to the modern era.

Life

Descartes was educated in the Jesuit College at La Flèche and the Univ. of Poitiers, then entered the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau. In 1628 he retired to Holland, where he spent his time in scientific research and philosophic reflection. Even before going to Holland, Descartes had begun his great work, for the essay on algebra and the Compendium musicae probably antedate 1628. But it was with the appearance in 1637 of a group of essays that he first made a name for himself. These writings included the famous Discourse on Method and other essays on optics, meteors, and analytical geometry. In 1649 he was invited by Queen Christina to Sweden, but he was unable to endure the rigors of the northern climate and died not long after arriving in Sweden.

Elements of Cartesian Philosophy

It was with the intention of extending mathematical method to all fields of human knowledge that Descartes developed his methodology, the cardinal aspect of his philosophy. He discards the authoritarian system of the scholastics and begins with universal doubt. But there is one thing that cannot be doubted: doubt itself. This is the kernel expressed in his famous phrase, Cogito, ergo sum [I think, therefore I am].

From the certainty of the existence of a thinking being, Descartes passed to the existence of God, for which he offered one proof based on St. Anselm's ontological proof and another based on the first cause that must have produced the idea of God in the thinker. Having thus arrived at the existence of God, he reaches the reality of the physical world through God, who would not deceive the thinking mind by perceptions that are illusions. Therefore, the external world, which we perceive, must exist. He thus falls back on the acceptance of what we perceive clearly and distinctly as being true, and he studies the material world to perceive connections. He views the physical world as mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind, the only connection between the two being by intervention of God. This is almost complete dualism .

The development of Descartes' philosophy is in Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641); his Principia philosophiae (1644) is also very important. His influence on philosophy was immense, and was widely felt in law and theology also. Frequently he has been called the father of modern philosophy, but his importance has been challenged in recent years with the demonstration of his great debt to the scholastics. He influenced the rationalists, and Baruch Spinoza also reflects Descartes's doctrines in some degree. The more direct followers of Descartes, the Cartesian philosophers, devoted themselves chiefly to the problem of the relation of body and soul, of matter and mind. From this came the doctrine of occasionalism , developed by Nicolas Malebranche and Arnold Geulincx .

Major Contributions to Science

In science, Descartes discarded tradition and to an extent supported the same method as Francis Bacon, but with emphasis on rationalization and logic rather than upon experiences. In physical theory his doctrines were formulated as a compromise between his devotion to Roman Catholicism and his commitment to the scientific method, which met opposition in the church officials of the day. Mathematics was his greatest interest; building upon the work of others, he originated the Cartesian coordinates and Cartesian curves; he is often said to be the founder of analytical geometry. To algebra he contributed the treatment of negative roots and the convention of exponent notation. He made numerous advances in optics, such as his study of the reflection and refraction of light. He wrote a text on physiology, and he also worked in psychology; he contended that emotion was finally physiological at base and argued that the control of the physical expression of emotion would control the emotions themselves. His chief work on psychology is in his Traité des passions de l'âme (1649).

Bibliography

See biographies by J. R. Vrooman (1970), S. Gaukroger (1995), R. Watson (2002), A. C. Grayling (2005), and D. Clarke (2006); see studies by J. Maritain (tr. 1944, repr. 1969), A. G. Balz (1952, repr. 1967), H. Caton (1973), and S. Gaukroger (1989 and 2002; as ed. 1980, 1998, 2000, and 2006).

RenÉ Descartes

Born: March 31, 1596
La Haye, France
Died: February 11, 1650
Stockholm, Sweden
French philosopher and writer

The French thinker René Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy (the study of the universe and man's place in it). His Discourse on Method and Meditations defined the basic problems of philosophy for at least a century.

Early life

René Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, in La Haye, France. His father, Joachim, served in the Parliament of Brittany, France. Jeanne Brochard Descartes, his mother, died in 1597. His father remarried and René and his older brother and sister were raised by their maternal grandmother and by a nurse for whom he retained a deep affection. In 1606 Descartes entered La Flèche, a religious college established for the education of the sons of noblemen. As a child he was often ill and was allowed to spend a portion of each day studying in bed. He used this time for meditation and thought. According to Descartes's description of his eight-year course of studies at La Flèche, he often felt embarrassed at the extent of his own ignorance.

Travel and study

After leaving college at age eighteen, Descartes earned a law degree in Poitiers, France. From 1618 to 1628 he traveled throughout Europe as a soldier. Living on income from inherited properties, Descartes served without pay and saw little action. He was present, however, at one of the major battles of the Thirty Years War (1618–48). Descartes sought out famous mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers (those who seek wisdom) wherever he traveled. The most significant of these friendships was with Isaac Beeckman, a Dutch mathematician, who encouraged Descartes to begin writing scientific theories on mathematics and music.

Descartes was deeply influenced by three dreams he had in 1619 in Ulm, Germany. He interpreted them to mean that all science is one and that its mastery is universal wisdom. This idea of the unity of all science was in opposition to the belief that the sciences were distinguished by their different objects of study. Descartes felt that if one could draw conclusions from a correct method of reasoning, then one could know everything. He began to devote his efforts to proving that he had discovered such a method. To focus better on his work, Descartes moved to Holland, where he lived peacefully for the next twenty years.

First works

Descartes's first major work, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, was written by 1629 but was not published until 1701. The work begins by assuming that man's knowledge has been limited by the belief that science is determined by the various objects of experience. The first rule therefore states that all true judgment depends on reason alone. For example, mathematical truths are valid even without observation and experiment. The second rule argues that the standard for true knowledge should be the certainty demanded of mathematical demonstrations. The third rule states that the mind should be influenced only by what can clearly be observed. The remaining rules are devoted to the explanation of these ideas or to showing their use in mathematical problems.

By 1634 Descartes had written The World, in which he supported several theories, including the idea of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) that Earth is not the center of the universe but revolves around the sun. Only fragments of the book survive, because when Descartes heard that a book published by Galileo (1564–1642), which also supported Copernicus, had been condemned by the Catholic Church, his fear of similar treatment led him to withdraw his work. In 1634 he also wrote the brief Treatise on Man, which attempted to explain human physiology (a branch of biology dealing with organs, tissues, and cells).

Other works

In 1637 Descartes finished Discourse on Method, which uses a personal account of his education as an example of the need for a new method of study. Descartes also presents four rules for reducing any problem to its basics and then constructing solutions. In 1641 and 1642 Meditations on First Philosophy appeared together with six sets of objections by other famous thinkers. The Meditations is one of the most famous books in the history of philosophy. While earlier Descartes works were concerned with explaining a method of thinking, this work applies that method to the problems of philosophy, including the convincing of doubters, the existence of the human soul, the nature of God, and the basis of truth.

The remainder of Descartes's career was spent defending his positions. In 1644 he published the Principles of Philosophy, which breaks down and expands the arguments of the earlier Meditations. In 1649 Descartes accepted an invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) to become her teacher. During this time he wrote The Passions of the Soul, which explains passion as a product of physical and chemical processes. The weather in Sweden caused Descartes's health to suffer, however, and after a brief illness he died in Stockholm in 1650.

For More Information

Balz, Albert G. A. Descartes and the Modern Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952.

Descartes, René. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings. Edited by John Cottingham. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Gaukroger, Stephen. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Rodis-Lewis, Geneviève. Descartes: His Life and Thought. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Strathern, Paul. Descartes in 90 Minutes. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1996.

Descartes, René (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and man of science, often called the father of modern philosophy. Aiming to reach totally secure foundations for knowledge, he began by attacking all his beliefs with sceptical doubts, and considered all that was certain was his own conciousness and therefore existence (‘cogito, ergo sum’ I think, therefore I am).