René Descartes

René Descartes, born in 1596, was the son of a low-ranking noble in La Haye, France. His mother died when he was young, and he was first raised by his grandmother and then by a great uncle. Descartes began his studies at the Jesuit college at La Flèche before pursuing a law degree in Poitiers, though he would never practice law. Instead, the young Descartes found his calling in mathematics and philosophy, two subjects which he studied intently while spending a little more than a year in the Netherlands serving in a peacetime army. René Descartes traveled and lived throughout Europe from 1619–1628. During that time, he developed analytic geometry and the universal method of deductive reasoning, and befriended numerous mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers. Descartes eventually settled in the Netherlands, where he could study and write with less fear of persecution than in his home country of France and in other parts of Europe. Even in the Netherlands, however, Descartes was concerned for his safety and opted not to publish his book The World after the Catholic Church condemned Galileo Galilei for challenging the geocentric model of the universe. Two of Descartes’s most notable works include Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, in Which Is Proved the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul. In the latter, Descartes seeks to reconcile his Catholic faith with his strong belief in human reason, using such explorations into the human condition to explain his belief in God. He also puts forth the famous assertion, “Cogito ergo sum”: in English, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes rationalized that while he could not be entirely sure of anything else in the universe, he could, in fact, be assured of his own existence because he had the capacity to think and to reason. From that starting point, and using his philosophical method, more knowledge could be acquired. As a result, Descartes became known as “the father of modern philosophy.” In 1649, Descartes accepted a position at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden, where he tutored the young monarch in philosophy. His brief time in the country proved fairly miserable; Descartes was forced to rise early each morning to teach, a demanding schedule that ran counter to his preferred routine of sleeping in. On one such early morning in February 1650, Descartes fell ill and developed pneumonia. He died less than two weeks later on February 11, 1650.