Descartes, RenÉ(1596–1650)
In Discourse on Method (1637), his first published work, French philosopher and scientist René Descartes combined an intellectual autobiography with a popular presentation of the system he was to develop more rigorously in his Meditations (1641) and Principles of Philosophy (1644). Meditations begins with a radical attempt to doubt all past beliefs, but finds a proposition that resists doubt in the existence of the self as a thinking thing. It then uses this initial certainty as a basis for arguing that God exists, that mind and body are distinct, and that we can achieve certainty in the sciences if we assent only to clear and distinct ideas, provided we have first shown that God would not deceive us about those ideas. The Principles uses the metaphysics and epistemology laid out in the Meditations as the foundation for an ambitious attempt to provide a scientific account of the entire world.
Childhood and Formal Education (1596–1618)
Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, in the village of La Haye, in Touraine, at the home of his maternal grandmother, with whom he lived after his mother's death in 1597. His father, Joachim Descartes, was a member of the gentry and a councilor in the parliament of Brittany whose duties required him to spend several months each year in Rennes.
This is a free page. This page contains 201 words. This
article contains 32,250 words (approx. 108 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Descartes, René (1596–1650) Access Pass.
