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RENÉ DESCARTES & ROBERT BOYLE
By: Esther Jun and Danese Contreras
RENE DESCARTES
“FATHER OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY”
• A French philosopher, mathematician, and writer..
• He presented a geometrical point using a pair of ordered numbers, are now called coordinate geometry to
start the time of modern mathematics.
• Descartes’ ideas is considered one of the most important in philosophical history. The idea of “cogito ergo
sum" translates from Latin to "I think, therefore I am”. He used this as a foundation to come to more certainties.
• He was famous for the Cartesian plane, which allowed a reference to a point in space as a set of numbers, and
allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system, it
was named after him.
• He is also credited as the father of analytical geometry.
• In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, a volume on the early modern version of what are now
commonly called emotions, Descartes refers to the topic "as if no one had written on these matters before".
Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, or in earlier philosophers
like Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differs from the schools on two major points which are: First, he
rejects the splitting of corporeal substance into matter and form and also he rejects any appeal to final ends,
divine or natural, in explaining natural phenomena. In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of God's
act of creation.
Books by Rene Descartes
Discovery of coordinate planes
ROBERT BOYLE
• He was a Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor.
• Known as the first modern chemist, also one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of
the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method.
•
Boyle's law; which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the
absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed
system.
• In the book, The Christian Virtuoso, which he explained that the study and dominion of nature
is a duty that God has given to humankind. His basis for this was the command given in
Genesis 1:28. Which is said that God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in
number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and
over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
• Robert Boyle showed that science and faith in God can exist side by side. He praised his
Creator for all the scientific discoveries he had made, and urged others to do so as well.
• He recognized that the universe works by the laws of nature that God set up for its order and
control.
Books by Robert Boyle
Boyle's air pump
Boyle's self-flowing flask, a
perpetual motion machine,
appears to fill itself
through siphon action
("hydrostatic perpetual
motion") and involves the
"hydrostatic paradox“.
Discoveries by Robert Boyle
QUESTIONS
1. What does René Descartes mean when he says “I think, therefore I
am”?
2. Why is the Cartesian plane so important?
3. What did Boyle’s Law have to do with science?
4. What did the book The Christian Virtuoso, explain about the nature
and God with humankind?
5. What do René Descartes and Robert Boyle have in common about the
creator God?