The French Philosopher Rene Descartes

The French Philosopher Rene Descartes The French philosopher Rene Descartes lived from 1596-1650. He was the

son of an aristocrat and traveled throughout Europe studying a

wide-variety of subjects including math, science, law, medicine,

religion, and philosophy. Descartes was greatly influenced by other

thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment.

Descartes was a rationalist. Like many philosophers, novelists, and

poets of his time, he questioned his own existence, and his reason for

being, man's purpose in the scheme of the universe. Descartes set

forth a number of philosophical trends. The questions he asks is where

do I fit? Decartes was concerned with how we come to ourselves, our

identity. He wished to discover truths where there could be no doubt.

He believed in a dualism of mind and body, that they were two separate

parts. This allowed him to uncover the only truth he could not deny "I

think, therefore I am." In Philosophy Now, Paula Rothenberg Struhl and

Karsten J. Struhl claim: However, Descartes argues that there is one

thing that is absolutely certain. I cannot doubt the existence of the

self that has these doubts. Thus, for Descartes, "I think, therefore I

am" is the fundamental axiom from which all philosophy must begin. The

"I" that thinks is defined simply as a thinking thing, and from this,

it follows that the essential nature of the self is the mind, as

distinct from the body. (Struhl, Paula Rothenberg, and Struhl Karsten

J., editors, Philosophy Now. Random House: 1980, P. 87)

Descartes develops a correspondence theor...

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I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the

Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by

philosophical rather than theological argument, that is, the questions

of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. (Qtd in

Ockman, William)

In so doing, he develops a new philosophical way of looking at the

world. Instead of viewing things only objectively, Descartes throws in

the subjective. This type of philosophy became the basis for all

future philosophic discussion up until present day. The American

pragmatists, who were scientists first, like Descartes, used Descartes

to develop a philosophy of science. A philosophy where no truths are

fully accepted but those that can be proven by future results.

Descartes would most likely agree with this philosophical science.