René Descartes

(1596-1650)
Who is Rene Descartes?
 René Descartes was born on March
Academic 31, 1596, in La Haye en Touraine,
France. He was extensively
educated, first at a Jesuit college at

Philosopher age 8, then earning a law degree at

22, but an influential teacher set him
on a course to apply mathematics
and logic to understanding the
natural world. This approach
Mathematician incorporated the contemplation of
the nature of existence and of
knowledge itself, hence his most
Scientist famous observation,
therefore I am.”
“I think;
 Father of
Modern
Western
Philosophy
 Philosophy
• Comes from the two Greek words, philo,
meaning “to love” and sophia , meaning
“wisdom”
• “Love of wisdom”
Nature of knowledge
Reliability of appearance

Ignorance of the world

Methods we can use to examine
and extend our own knowledge
We push our doubts to the extremes,
to the point of absurdity, where they
will rebound and give us indubitable
truth

Meditations of First Philosophy (1641)

I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world —
no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Doesn’t it follow that I
don’t exist? No, surely I must exist if it’s me who is
convinced of something. But there is a deceiver, supremely
powerful and cunning whose aim is to see that I am always
deceived. But surely I exist, if I am deceived. Let him
deceive me all he can, he will never make it the case that I
am nothing while I think that I am something. Thus having
fully weighed every consideration, I must finally conclude
that the statement “I am, I exist” must be true whenever I
state it or mentally consider it.
Meditation II: on the Nature of the Human Mind,
Which Is Better Known Than the body
Suppose someone
deceives you, how could
you know from what you
merely believe, what is
true or false?
Suppose someone
He is not now
deceives you, how
dreaming and that could
you know from what you
there is really is
merely believe, what is
a
world “out
true or false? there”
And, although I possess a body with which I am very
intimately conjoined, yet because, on the one side, I have
a clear and distinct idea of myself inasmuch as I am only a
thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other,
I possess a distinct idea of body, inasmuch as it is only an
extended and unthinking thing, it is certain that this
is entirely an absolutely distinct from my body, and can exist
without it.

Meditation VI (1984)