René Descartes was born on March 31, 1596 in Touraine, France. He was educated by the Jesuits of La Flèche and then embarked on a brief career in military service with Prince Maurice in Holland and Bavaria. He is one of the most important and influential thinkers in human history and is sometimes called the founder of modern philosophy. In addition to his accomplishments as a philosopher Descartes was an outstanding mathematician, inventing analytic geometry and attempting to devise the simple universal laws that governed all physical change. During a twenty-year period of secluded life in Holland, he produced the body of work that secured his philosophical reputation.
In 1637 Descartes finally presented (in French) his rationalist vision of the progress of human knowledge in the Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa Raison et chercher la Vérité dans les Sciences (Discourse on Method). A few years later, he offered (in Latin) a more formal exposition of his central tenets in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy) (1641). Descartes later attempted a more systematic exposition of his views in the Principia Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy) (1644) and an explanation of human emotion in Les Passions de L'Ame (The Passions of the Soul).
His method of systematic doubt had an enormous impact on the subsequent development of philosophy. Descartes introduced the now famous Latin phrase "cogito ergo sum," or in English "I think, therefore I am."
He moved to Sweden in 1649, but died the following year.
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Descartes René (1596 - 1650)
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