René Descartes
René Descartes (/deɪˈkɑːrt/ day-KART or UK: /ˈdeɪkɑːrt/ DAY-kart; French: [ʁəne dekaʁt] ; [note 3][11] 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)[12][13]: 58 was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, and later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age.[14] Although he served a Protestant state and was later counted as a deist by critics, Descartes was Roman Catholic.[15][16]
"Descartes" redirects here. For other uses, see Descartes (disambiguation).
René Descartes
31 March 1596
11 February 1650 (aged 53)
- Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand (1607–1614)
- University of Poitiers (LL.B., 1616)
- University of Franeker (no degree)
- Leiden University (no degree)
Untitled LL.B. thesis (1616)
- Cogito ergo sum
- Method of doubt
- Subjectivity
- Method of normals
- Analytic geometry
- Cartesian coordinate system
- Imaginary number
- Mind–body problem
- Cartesian dualism
- Cartesian circle
- Foundationalism
- Mathesis universalis
- Folium of Descartes
- Deus deceptor[9]
- Dream argument
- Conservation of momentum (quantitas motus)
- Balloonist theory
- Descartes' Rule of Signs
- Wax argument
- Trademark argument
- Causal adequacy principle
- Res cogitans/res extensa distinction
- Conatus
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Many elements of Descartes' philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the schools on two major points. First, he rejected the splitting of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejected any appeal to final ends, divine or natural, in explaining natural phenomena.[17] In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of God's act of creation. Refusing to accept the authority of previous philosophers, Descartes frequently set his views apart from the philosophers who preceded him. In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, an early modern treatise on emotions, Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic "as if no one had written on these matters before." His best known philosophical statement is "cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"; French: Je pense, donc je suis), found in Discourse on the Method (1637, in French and Latin, 1644) and Principles of Philosophy (1644, in Latin, 1647 in French).[note 4] The statement has either been interpreted as a logical syllogism or as an intuitive thought.[18]
Descartes has often been called the father of modern philosophy, and is largely seen as responsible for the increased attention given to epistemology in the 17th century.[19][note 5] He laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Spinoza and Leibniz, and was later opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. The rise of early modern rationalism—as a systematic school of philosophy in its own right for the first time in history—exerted an influence on modern Western thought in general, with the birth of two rationalistic philosophical systems of Descartes (Cartesianism) and Spinoza (Spinozism). It was the 17th-century arch-rationalists like Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz who have given the "Age of Reason" its name and place in history. Leibniz, Spinoza,[20] and Descartes were all well-versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed to science as well.[21]
Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytic geometry—used in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution.
Physics[edit]
Philosophy, metaphysics, and physics[edit]
Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences.[139] For him, philosophy was a thinking system that embodied all knowledge, as he related in a letter to a French translator:[93]
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Meteorology[edit]
Within Discourse on the Method, there is an appendix in which Descartes discusses his theories on Meteorology known as Les Météores. He first proposed the idea that the elements were made up of small particles that join together imperfectly, thus leaving small spaces in between. These spaces were then filled with smaller much quicker "subtile matter".[153] These particles were different based on what element they constructed, for example, Descartes believed that particles of water were "like little eels, which, though they join and twist around each other, do not, for all that, ever knot or hook together in such a way that they cannot easily be separated."[153] In contrast, the particles that made up the more solid material, were constructed in a way that generated irregular shapes. The size of the particle also matters, if the particle was smaller, not only was it faster and constantly moving, it was more easily agitated by the larger particles, which were slow but had more force. The different qualities, such as combinations and shapes, gave rise to different secondary qualities of materials, such as temperature.[154] This first idea is the basis for the rest of Descartes' theory on Meteorology.
While rejecting most of Aristotle's theories on Meteorology, he still kept some of the terminology that Aristotle used such as vapors and exhalations. These "vapors" would be drawn into the sky by the sun from "terrestrial substances" and would generate wind.[153] Descartes also theorized that falling clouds would displace the air below them, also generating wind. Falling clouds could also generate thunder. He theorized that when a cloud rests above another cloud and the air around the top cloud is hot, it condenses the vapor around the top cloud, and causes the particles to fall. When the particles falling from the top cloud collided with the bottom cloud's particles it would create thunder.[154] He compared his theory on thunder to his theory on avalanches. Descartes believed that the booming sound that avalanches created, was due to snow that was heated, and therefore heavier, falling onto the snow that was below it.[154] This theory was supported by experience "It follows that one can understand why it thunders more rarely in winter than in summer; for then not enough heat reaches the highest clouds, in order to break them up."[154]
Another theory that Descartes had was on the production of lightning. Descartes believed that lightning was caused by exhalations trapped between the two colliding clouds. He believed that in order to make these exhalations viable to produce lightning, they had to be made "fine and inflammable" by hot and dry weather.[154] Whenever the clouds would collide it would cause them to ignite creating lightning, if the cloud above was heavier than the bottom cloud it would also produce thunder.
Descartes also believed that clouds were made up of drops of water and ice, and believed that rain would fall whenever the air could no longer support them. It would fall as snow if the air was not warm enough to melt the raindrops. And hail was when the cloud drops would melt, and then freeze again because cold air would refreeze them.[153][154]
Descartes did not use mathematics or instruments (as there were not any at the time) to back up his theories on Meteorology and instead used qualitative reasoning in order to deduce his hypothesis.[153]
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