XVII Century · French Philosopher

René Descartes

1596 – 1650

Father of Modern Philosophy
Founder of Rationalism
Mathematician & Scientist
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Cogito, ergo sum I think, therefore I am
Discourse on the Method · 1637
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Biography

René Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, in La Haye en Touraine, France. Educated at the Jesuit college of La Flèche, he studied law at the University of Poitiers before devoting himself entirely to intellectual inquiry.

He spent much of his adult life in the Dutch Republic, where he produced his principal works — seeking to rebuild the foundations of knowledge through radical doubt and rigorous reason alone.

His death came in Stockholm in February 1650, summoned to Sweden by Queen Christina. He is buried, eventually, in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris.

Born
31 March 1596, La Haye en Touraine, France
Died
11 February 1650, Stockholm, Sweden
School
Rationalism, Mechanism, Foundationalism
Contributions
Analytic geometry, Cartesian coordinate system, Mind-body dualism
Influenced
Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, and Western philosophy at large
Core Philosophy

Three Pillars of Cartesian Thought

I
Methodical Doubt
Descartes systematically doubted all beliefs that could possibly be questioned — the senses, memory, even mathematics — stripping away the unreliable to discover what could be known with absolute certainty.
II
The Cogito
"Cogito, ergo sum" — the one proposition that survived radical doubt. The very act of doubting proves the existence of a thinking mind. This became the bedrock of modern Western philosophy.
III
Mind–Body Dualism
Descartes proposed that the mind (res cogitans — thinking substance) and body (res extensa — extended matter) are fundamentally distinct. This dualism shaped centuries of philosophical and scientific debate.
Major Works

His Written Legacy

1637
Discourse on the Method
His landmark essay outlining a rigorous method for acquiring knowledge through reason. Contains the first appearance of the famous Cogito argument in published form.
1641
Meditations on First Philosophy
His masterwork of metaphysics, presenting six meditations through which he dismantles uncertain beliefs and establishes foundations for science and philosophy through pure reason.
1644
Principles of Philosophy
A comprehensive survey of his philosophical and scientific system, intended as a textbook for universities to replace Aristotelian scholasticism with Cartesian mechanism.
1649
The Passions of the Soul
His final published work, examining human emotions as bodily mechanisms while exploring how the rational will can master the passions. Dedicated to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia.