Rene Descartes !596-1650 French philosopher and mathematician

Descartes--a figure of the late renaissance--is famous both as a mathematician (for his invention of analytic geometry) and as the first important modern philosopher. He was a contemporary of the mathematicians Fermat and Pascal and of the scientists Galileo and Harvey. Shakespeare diedwhen Descartes was 20.

Descartes was born into a noble and moderately well off family. Because he was frail as a child, he was allowed to stay in bed in the morning as late as he liked. He continued this practice throughout his life and later claimed that these long silent mornings of meditation were the sources of his philosophy and mathematics.

In his early 20s and fully recovered from his early frailty, Descartes mixed the reflective life of the mathematician and philosopher with the very active life of the soldier. In his decade-long military career, he distinguished himself in battle. His appearance was much more the soldier and gentleman than the philosopher. He wore the most fashionalble clothes of the time with a sword and a broad-brimmed, ostrich-plumed hat.

An important feature of Descartes' philosophic method was his systematic critique of all accepted belief. This critique led him to what he felt was a basic and undeniable belief, which he experssed in the dictum Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). Despite his use of the technique of systematic doubt in his philosophical investigations, Descartes was a faithful catholic. He prayed to the Holy Virgin for help with his investigation and promised to carry out a pilgrimage for her if it was successful. In fact, he carried out that pilgrimage.

In 1634, Descartes was about to publish a major work on science, Le Monde, in which he supported the views of Copernicus. At that time, word came to Paris that Galileo had been arrested by the inquisition and forced to recant his support for Copernican theory. Decartes decided that it would be wiser to delay the publicationof his work until after his death.