René Descartes
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Who Was René Descartes?
René Descartes was extensively educated, first at a Jesuit college at 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 incorporated the contemplation of the nature of existence and of knowledge itself, hence his most famous observation, “I think; therefore I am.”
Early Life
Descartes was born on March 31, , in La Haye en Touraine, a small town in central France, which has since been renamed after him to honor its most famous son. He was the youngest of three children, and his mother, Jeanne Brochard, died within his first year of life. His father, Joachim, a council member in the provincial parliament, sent the children to live with their maternal grandmother, where they remained even after he remarried a few years later. But he was very concerned with good education and sent René, at age 8, to boarding school at the Jesuit college of Henri IV in La Flèche, several miles to the north, for seven years.
Descartes was a good student, although it is thought that he might have been sickly, since he didn’t have to a
Rene Descartes ( – ) French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes is considered the founder of modern philosophy for successfully challenging many of the accepted wisdom of the medieval scholastic traditions of Aristotelian philosophy. Descartes promoted the importance of using human reason to deduct the truth. This principle of reason was an important aspect of the Enlightenment and the development of modern thought. His work in mathematics was important for the later work of Isaac Newton.
Early Life Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine, France on 31 March His family were Roman Catholics, though they lived in a Protestant Huguenots area of Poitou. His mother died when he was one year old, and he was brought up by his grandmother and great uncle.
The young Descartes studied at a Jesuit College in La Flèche, where he received a modern education, including maths, physics and the recent works of Galileo. After college, he studied at the University of Poitiers to gain a degree in law.
In , he travelled to Paris in order to practise as a lawyer &#; according to the wishes of his father. But, Descartes was restless in practising law, he travelled freque
René Descartes
Quick Info
La Haye (now Descartes),Touraine, France
Stockholm, Sweden
Biography
René Descartes was a philosopher whose work, La GéométrieⓉ, includes his application of algebra to geometry from which we now have Cartesian geometry.René Descartes' parents were Joachim Descartes () and Jeanne Brochard (). Joachim, the son of the medical doctor Pierre Descartes (), studied law and was a counsellor in the Parliament of Brittany which sat at Rennes. Jeanne was the daughter of the military man René Brochard who formed part of the garrison stationed at Poitiers. One of Jeanne's brothers, also named René Brochard, became one of René Descartes' two godfathers; René Descartes was named after his godfather René Brochard. Jeanne's widowed mother, Jeanne Sain Brochard, lived at La Haye, near Tours, and it was in her home that René was born. Joachim and Jeanne Descartes were married
Who was René Descartes?
René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed The Father of Modern Philosophy, and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system — allowing reference to a point in space as a set of numbers, and allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system — was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the scientific revolution and has been described as an example of genius. He refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers and also refused to accept the obviousness of his own senses.
Famous Quotes:
- Cogito ergo sum
- To know what people really think, pay regard to wha
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