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Philosophy 35
A. Lotoski
René Descartes
1596-1650
“I think, therefore I am.”
René Descartes practiced his craft by doubting everything, because he was interested in
what he knew for certain. How did he know he was not dreaming through life and
actually existed? What could he trust as exact or true? These questions nearly drove
Descartes to insanity, but in the end he came to his now famous answer: “I think,
therefore I am.”
Historical context:
Born on March 31, 1596 in La Haye, France, René Descartes grew up during a period of
strong philosophical and social transition in Europe. This transition involved the shift
from a medieval world-view that emphasized absolute faith in religion, to a rational one
that focused on proved truths and scientific thought. Naturally, the Church felt very
threatened by these changes which were driven by the work of scientists, mathematicians
and philosophers. Galileo, who believed the earth revolved around the sun (against the
Church’s view that the entire universe revolved around the earth) was imprisoned his
whole life for spreading views that went against the church! Although Descartes was
involved in thinking up new ideas about the mind and body, he was aware of not
upsetting the Church, and even moved from France to Holland where rulers were more
tolerant of people who came up with theories that questioned the Church’s.
From 1606 until 1614, Descartes attended La Fleche, a Jesuit college in Anjou. He spent
the following two years in Paris studying mathematics, and being introduced to
fashionable French society. In 1616, he began the study of law at University of Poitiers,
but in 1617, set out for the Netherlands where he volunteered in the Dutch army. Over the
following eleven years Descartes travelled throughout Europe, settling in the Netherlands
in 1628. He completed two additional years of education in the Dutch cities of Franeker
and Leyden. Descartes later claimed that his formal education provided little of substance,
and that only mathematics provided any real knowledge.
Descartes published his major philosophical work, "A Discourse on Method, Meditations
on First Philosophy" in 1641, the year before Galileo died and Isaac Newton was born.
Because he lived at a time when traditional ideas were being questioned, he sought to
devise a method for reaching the truth. This concern and his method of systematic doubt
had an enormous impact on the subsequent development of philosophy.
In Descartes' view, the universe was created by God on whose power everything depends.
He thought of God as resembling the human mind in that both the mind and God think,
but have no physical being. But he believed that God is unlike the human mind in that
God is infinite and does not depend on a creator for His existence.
In addition to his accomplishments as a philosopher Descartes was an outstanding
mathematician, inventing analytic geometry and attempting to devise the simple universal
laws that governed all physical change.
Descartes rejected religious influence in his scientific and philosophical studies.
Throughout his life and afterwards his work was condemned by the Catholic Church, and
was officially prohibited in 1663. Nonetheless, Descartes was a devout Catholic, and
influenced by the Reformation's challenge of Church authority, and he often used a
vocabulary influenced by scholastic thought. As long as he felt an idea was in line with
his thoughts on clear reasoning he was glad to borrow it. He saw reason as the
foundation and guide in the pursuit of truth, and he was relentless in his search for
absolute certainty.
Descartes is considered a revolutionary figure, especially for his attempts to change the
relationship between philosophy and theology, and integrate philosophy with the new
forms of science. He is respected for his attempts to create a form of philosophical
argument akin to science or mathematics, his emphasis on perspective of consciousness
in epistemology, and his work on methodology. Descartes has been influential to
philosophers throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
Brilliant in math and the sciences, René Descartes made immense contributions to the
fields of geometry and physics. His greatest contribution was to Western philosophy,
however. After much contemplation, Descartes became absolutely certain that whether
dreaming or awake, he was definitely THINKING. As a thinking being, Descartes
concluded that he must exist. Based on this premise, Descartes offered the Western
world the idea that reality is based on the experience of the mind and the body. Today
this probably seems like common sense, but it wasn't'’ always the case. René Descartes
“I think, therefore I am”
simple and revolutionary idea that
is now a
mainstay of Western life. Sometimes he is referred to as the “father of modern
philosophy”.
If you would be a real seeker after truth,
it is necessary that at least once in your life
you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
—Descartes
http://www.egs.edu/resources/descartes.html