René Descartes

René Descartes, often known as the "Father of Modern Philosophy," was a theoretical scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. He was important for his contributions to mathematics, such as the Cartesian plane, but his main significance is as a philosopher; Cartesian philosophy broke radically with philosophy at the time and has shaped many of the debates in philosophy up until the present day. At the time of publication, Descartes had an immense and subtly detailed philosophical system, outlined in his 1637 work Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences. The Meditations, therefore, are in large part an explication of this work, intending to be an accessible entrance into his system rather than the bulk of the argument itself. Nonetheless, The Meditations also often draw on this system without explaining the references, such as when Descartes talks about the anatomy of...