René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher and mathematician, often called the father of modern philosophy. In the Discourse on the Method and the Meditations he sought a certain foundation for knowledge in the thinking self, and he invented analytic geometry.
Works
Discourse on the Method
La Flèche
René Descartes was born on 31 March 1596 at La Haye, in Touraine, now named Descartes in his honour. He studied at the Jesuit college of La Flèche, then law at Poitiers.
In 1618 he joined the army of Maurice of Nassau in the Dutch Republic, where he met the scientist Isaac Beeckman, who turned him towards mathematics and physics.
The Dutch years
On 10 November 1619, in a heated room in Germany, he had three dreams that he took as a sign of his vocation to found a new science. From 1628 he lived in the Dutch Republic for twenty years, moving often.
He gave up publishing his treatise The World when he learned of Galileo's condemnation in 1633. The Discourse on the Method appeared in 1637, the Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641 and the Principles of Philosophy in 1644.
Stockholm
Descartes corresponded with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia on the relation between mind and body. In 1649 Queen Christina of Sweden invited him to Stockholm to teach her philosophy.
Obliged to give lessons at five in the morning in a harsh winter, he fell ill with pneumonia and died on 11 February 1650. His remains were brought back to France in 1667.
Anecdotes
The stove-heated room
Descartes says in the Discourse that he found his method while shut up all day alone in a stove-heated room in Germany, in the winter of 1619.
The wandering skull
Descartes's skull was separated from his body when his remains were moved. It is kept at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, while the rest lies in the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Frequently asked questions
What does Descartes's famous principle mean?
That even if he doubts everything, the fact that he is doubting, and therefore thinking, proves that he exists.
What is analytic geometry?
The use of algebra to describe geometric figures with coordinates, the 'Cartesian' coordinates named after Descartes.
Where did Descartes die?
In Stockholm, at the court of Queen Christina, in February 1650.