- Born
- Died
- René Descartes (Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 - 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist and lay Catholic who invented analytic geometry, linking the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra. He spent a large portion of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the United Provinces. One of the most notable intellectual figures of the Dutch Golden Age, Descartes is also widely regarded as one of the founders of modern philosophy.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bonitao
- Descartes attended the Jesuit school La Flèche from 1604 to 1614. There he came into contact with scholasticism and the way of thinking of humanism. He also discovered mathematics as his preferred subject. He studied philosophy, mathematics, law, law and medicine in Poitiers until 1616. In 1618, Descartes entered the military service in Bavaria and Nassau and traveled all over Europe. Among other things, he also served in the army of the famous general Johann Tserclaes Graf von Tilly in the Thirty Years' War in Germany. During this time he dealt with natural sciences such as the writings of the Italian Galileo Galilei. In 1621 Descartes resigned from military service and continued his travel and scientific research activities. He then settled in Holland in 1629. There he was able to devote himself to his philosophical and scientific work in peace and seclusion. His first work was entitled "The World". But when Descartes learned that Galileo had been condemned for his scientific beliefs in 1633, he destroyed the nearly completed work for fear of a similar fate.
Descartes' philosophical thinking takes its starting point from doubt about all sensory knowledge or traditional opinions. This can be found in one of his major works ("Meditationes de prima philosophia", 1641). According to the philosopher, this doubt needs to be further developed and overcome. Excluded from doubt itself is doubt as a way of thinking. Descartes saw the idea of God as the most perfect reality. Because of its perfection, it is not a human idea, but rather a divine idea. From this the philosopher concludes that the idea of God is proof of his existence. Descartes drew a line from the idea of God and the associated truthfulness of God to other things that, if clearly recognized, were just as true. He traced a true proof of the world back to the clear idea of the world, the essential feature of which is the expansion of the material. Descartes distinguished between the two: God is uncreated, thought and substance are equal to created substance. The philosopher recognized in humans the division between thought and matter or expansion.
Descartes equated the physicality of humans and all other living beings with a machine. In his rationalistic way of thinking, he recognized that matter consisted of the smallest bodies, the so-called corpuscles, which had different shapes and sizes. Descartes also based his ethics on his rationalistic, mechanistic way of thinking. In contrast, he developed an aristocratic character study in his work "De passionibus animae". In his philosophy, Descartes called for breaking away from preconceived opinions and using one's own reason. He recognized doubt as a suitable instrument for critically examining one's own thinking. With regard to logic, he proposed a total of four rules: 1. perception of the evident, 2. breaking down the whole into its parts, 3. starting the investigation with the smallest and simplest and 4. no omissions. With his philosophy he intended to create access to a closed mechanistic world system. It served him to clarify the principles and determine the criteria for knowledge.
Descartes was convinced that all natural phenomena could be rationally understood and explained. It is due to his rationalism that man began to systematically dominate nature. This is the basis for the development of modern technology. Descartes made further contributions to the fields of dynamics, optics and astronomy. Descartes' other major works include the titles "Rules for the Guidance of the Spirit" (1628), "Discours de la méthode, pour bien conduire la raison et chercher la vérité dans les sciences" (1641), "Meditations on First Philosophy" or "Philosophical Principles" (1644). In the fall of 1649, Queen Christine of Sweden summoned him to Stockholm.
René Descartes died of pneumonia on February 11, 1650 in Stockholm. Descartes' philosophy still has an impact on the modern age and is considered the beginning of modern philosophy.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth
- I think that even in us all the motions of our limbs which accompany our passions are caused not by the soul but simply by the machinery of the body. The wagging of a dog's tail is only a movement accompanying a passion, and so is to be sharply distinguished, in my view, from speech, which alone shows the thought hidden in the body.
- He lived well who hid well.
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