René Descartes

"Descartes" redirects here. For other uses, seeDescartes (disambiguation).

René Descartes
Portrait afterFrans Hals
Born	31 March 1596(1596-03-31) La Haye en Touraine,Touraine,Kingdom of France(now Descartes, Indre-et-Loire)
Died	11 February 1650(1650-02-12)(aged 53) Stockholm,Swedish Empire
Education	Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand(1607–1614) University of Poitiers(LL.B., 1616) University of Franeker(no degree) Leiden University(no degree)
Children	Francine Descartes
Era	17th Century Age of Enlightenment
Region	Western philosophy Dutch philosophy French philosophy
School	Rationalism Cartesianism Mechanism Innatism Foundationalism Conceptualism Augustinianism Indirect realism Correspondence theory of truth Corpuscularianism Theological voluntarism
Thesis	Untitled LL.B. thesis(1616)
Main interests	Epistemology,metaphysics,mathematics,physics,cosmology,ethics
Notable ideas	See list Cogito ergo sum Method of doubt Subjectivity Method of normals Analytic geometry Cartesian coordinate system Imaginary number Mind–body problem Cartesian dualism Interactionism Trialism Cartesian circle Foundationalism Mathesis universalis Folium of Descartes Deus deceptor Dream argument Conservation of momentum(quantitas motus) Balloonist theory Descartes' Rule of Signs Wax argument Trademark argument Causal adequacy principle Res cogitans/res extensadistinction Conatus
Signature

René Descartes(/deɪˈkɑːrt/day-KARTorUK:/ˈdeɪkɑːrt/DAY-kart;French:[ʁənedekaʁt];31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)was aFrench philosopher,scientist,andmathematician,widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence ofmodern philosophyandscience.Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields ofgeometryandalgebraintoanalytic geometry.Descartes spent much of his working life in theDutch Republic,initially serving theDutch States Army,and later becoming a central intellectual of theDutch Golden Age.Although he served aProtestant stateand was later counted as adeistby critics, Descartes wasRoman Catholic.

Many elements of Descartes' philosophy have precedents in lateAristotelianism,therevived Stoicismof the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers likeAugustine.In hisnatural philosophy,he differed from theschoolson two major points. First, he rejected the splitting ofcorporeal substanceintomatterand form; second, he rejected any appeal tofinal ends,divine or natural, in explaining natural phenomena.In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom ofGod's act of creation.Refusing to accept the authority of previous philosophers, Descartes frequently set his views apart from the philosophers who preceded him. In the opening section of thePassions of the Soul,anearly moderntreatise on emotions, Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic "as if no one had written on these matters before." His best known philosophical statement is "cogito, ergo sum"(" I think, therefore I am "; French:Je pense, donc je suis), found inDiscourse on the Method(1637, in French and Latin, 1644) andPrinciples of Philosophy(1644, in Latin, 1647 in French).The statement has either been interpreted as a logicalsyllogismor as an intuitive thought.

Descartes has often been called the father of modern philosophy, and is largely seen as responsible for the increased attention given toepistemologyin the 17th century.He laid the foundation for 17th-century continentalrationalism,later advocated bySpinozaandLeibniz,and was later opposed by theempiricistschool of thought consisting ofHobbes,Locke,Berkeley,andHume.The rise of early modern rationalism—as a systematic school of philosophy in its own right for the first time in history—exerted an influence on modernWestern thoughtin general, with the birth of two rationalistic philosophical systems of Descartes (Cartesianism) and Spinoza (Spinozism). It was the 17th-century arch-rationalists like Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz who have given the "Age of Reason"its name and place in history. Leibniz, Spinoza,and Descartes were all well-versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed to science as well.

Descartes'Meditations on First Philosophy(1641) continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; theCartesian coordinate systemis named after him. He is credited as the father of analytic geometry—used in the discovery of infinitesimalcalculusandanalysis.Descartes was also one of the key figures in theScientific Revolution.

Coat of arms of the Descartes family.

Life

Early life

The house where Descartes was born inLa Haye en Touraine

René Descartes was born inLa Haye en Touraine,Province of Touraine(nowDescartes,Indre-et-Loire), France, on 31 March 1596.In May 1597, his mother Jeanne Brochard, died a few days after giving birth to a still-born child.Descartes' father, Joachim, was a member of theParlement of RennesatRennes.René lived with his grandmother and with his great-uncle. Although the Descartes family was Roman Catholic, thePoitouregion was controlled by the ProtestantHuguenots.In 1607, late because of his fragile health, he entered theJesuitCollège Royal Henry-Le-GrandatLa Flèche,where he was introduced to mathematics and physics, includingGalileo's work.While there, Descartes first encountered hermetic mysticism. After graduation in 1614, he studied for two years (1615–16) at theUniversity of Poitiers,earning aBaccalauréatandLicenceincanonandcivil lawin 1616,in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer.From there, he moved to Paris.

Graduation registry for Descartes at theUniversity of Poitiers,1616

InDiscourse on the Method,Descartes recalls:

I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting courts and armies, mi xing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way to derive some profit from it.

Army service

See also:§ Mechanical philosophy

In accordance with his ambition to become a professional military officer in 1618, Descartes joined, as amercenary,theProtestantDutch States ArmyinBredaunder the command ofMaurice of Nassau,and undertook a formal study ofmilitary engineering,as established bySimon Stevin.Descartes, therefore, received much encouragement in Breda to advance his knowledge of mathematics.In this way, he became acquainted withIsaac Beeckman,the principal of aDordrechtschool, for whom he wrote theCompendium of Music(written 1618, published 1650).

While in the service of theCatholicDukeMaximilian of Bavariafrom 1619,Descartes was present at theBattle of the White MountainnearPrague,in November 1620.

According toAdrien Baillet,on the night of 10–11 November 1619 (St. Martin's Day), while stationed inNeuburg an der Donau,Descartes shut himself in a room with an "oven" (probably acocklestove)to escape the cold. While within, he had three dreams,and believed that a divine spirit revealed to him a new philosophy. However, it is speculated that what Descartes considered to be his second dream was actually an episode ofexploding head syndrome.Upon exiting, he had formulatedanalytic geometryand the idea of applying the mathematical method to philosophy. He concluded from these visions that the pursuit of science would prove to be, for him, the pursuit of true wisdom and a central part of his life's work.Descartes also saw very clearly that all truths were linked with one another, so that finding a fundamental truth and proceeding with logic would open the way to all science. Descartes discovered this basic truth quite soon: his famous "I think, therefore I am."

Career

France

In 1620, Descartes left the army. He visitedBasilica della Santa Casain Loreto, then visited various countries before returning to France, and during the next few years, he spent time in Paris. It was there that he composed his first essay on method:Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii(Rules for the Direction of the Mind).He arrived inLa Hayein 1623, selling all of his property to invest inbonds,which provided a comfortable income for the rest of his life.Descartes was present at thesiege of La RochellebyCardinal Richelieuin 1627 as an observer.There, he was interested in the physical properties of the great dike that Richelieu was building and studied mathematically everything he saw during the siege. He also met French mathematicianGirard Desargues.In the autumn of that year, in the residence of the papalnuncioGuidi di Bagno,where he came withMersenneand many other scholars to listen to a lecture given by the alchemist, Nicolas de Villiers, Sieur de Chandoux, on the principles of a supposed new philosophy,CardinalBérulleurged him to write an exposition of his new philosophy in some location beyond the reach of the Inquisition.

Netherlands

InAmsterdam,Descartes lived at Westermarkt 6 (Maison Descartes, left).

Title page of "Principia philosophiae"(Principles of Philosophy), 1656

Descartes returned to theDutch Republicin 1628.In April 1629, he joined theUniversity of Franeker,studying underAdriaan Metius,either living with a Catholic family or renting theSjaerdemaslot.The next year, under the name "Poitevin", he enrolled atLeiden University,which at the time was a Protestant University.He studied both mathematics withJacobus Golius,who confronted him withPappus's hexagon theorem,andastronomywithMartin Hortensius.In October 1630, he had a falling-out with Beeckman, whom he accused of plagiarizing some of his ideas. In Amsterdam, he had a relationship with a servant girl, Helena Jans van der Strom, with whom he had a daughter,Francine,who was born in 1635 inDeventer.She was baptized a Protestantand died of scarlet fever at the age of 5.

Unlike many moralists of the time, Descartes did not deprecate the passions but rather defended them;he wept upon Francine's death in 1640.According to a recent biography by Jason Porterfield, "Descartes said that he did not believe that one must refrain from tears to prove oneself a man."Russell Shortospeculates that the experience of fatherhood and losing a child formed a turning point in Descartes' work, changing its focus from medicine to a quest for universal answers.

Despite frequent moves,he wrote all of his major work during his 20-plus years in the Netherlands, initiating a revolution in mathematics and philosophy.In 1633, Galileo was condemned by theItalian Inquisition,and Descartes abandoned plans to publishTreatise on the World,his work of the previous four years. Nevertheless, in 1637, he published parts of this work in three essays:"Les Météores" (The Meteors), "La Dioptrique"(Dioptrics) andLa Géométrie(Geometry), preceded by an introduction, his famousDiscours de la méthode(Discourse on the Method).In it, Descartes lays out four rules of thought, meant to ensure that our knowledge rests upon a firm foundation:

The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.

InLa Géométrie,Descartes exploited the discoveries he made withPierre de Fermat.This later became known as Cartesian Geometry.

Descartes continued to publish works concerning both mathematics and philosophy for the rest of his life. In 1641, he published a metaphysics treatise,Meditationes de Prima Philosophia(Meditations on First Philosophy), written in Latin and thus addressed to the learned. It was followed in 1644 byPrincipia Philosophiae(Principles of Philosophy), a kind of synthesis of theDiscourse on the MethodandMeditations on First Philosophy.In 1643, Cartesian philosophy was condemned at theUniversity of Utrecht,and Descartes was obliged to flee to the Hague, settling inEgmond-Binnen.

Between 1643 and 1649 Descartes lived with his girlfriend at Egmond-Binnen in an inn.Descartes became friendly with Anthony Studler van Zurck, lord ofBergenand participated in the design of his mansion and estate.He also metDirck Rembrantsz van Nierop,a mathematician andsurveyor.He was so impressed by Van Nierop's knowledge that he even brought him to the attention ofConstantijn Huygensand Frans van Schooten.

Christia Mercersuggested that Descartes may have been influenced by Spanish author and Roman Catholic nunTeresa of Ávila,who, fifty years earlier, publishedThe Interior Castle,concerning the role of philosophical reflection in intellectual growth.

Descartes began (through Alfonso Polloti, an Italian general in Dutch service) a six-year correspondence withPrincess Elisabeth of Bohemia,devoted mainly to moral and psychological subjects.Connected with this correspondence, in 1649 he publishedLes Passions de l'âme(The Passions of the Soul), which he dedicated to the Princess. A French translation ofPrincipia Philosophiae,prepared by Abbot Claude Picot, was published in 1647. This edition was also dedicated to Princess Elisabeth. Inthe preface to the French edition,Descartes praised true philosophy as a means to attain wisdom. He identifies four ordinary sources to reach wisdom and finally says that there is a fifth, better and more secure, consisting in the search for first causes.

Sweden

Descartes in conversation withQueen ChristinainStockholm

By 1649, Descartes had become one of Europe's most famous philosophers and scientists.That year,Queen Christina of Swedeninvited him to her court to organize a new scientific academy and tutor her in his ideas about love.Descartes accepted, and moved to theSwedish Empirein the middle of winter.Christina was interested in and stimulated Descartes to publishThe Passions of the Soul.

He was a guest at the house ofPierre Chanut,living onVästerlånggatan,less than 500 meters from CastleTre KronorinStockholm.There, Chanut and Descartes made observations with aTorricellianmercury barometer.ChallengingBlaise Pascal,Descartes took the first set of barometric readings in Stockholm to see ifatmospheric pressurecould be used in forecasting the weather.

Death

Descartes arranged to give lessons to Queen Christina after her birthday, three times a week at 5 am, in her cold and draughty castle. However, by 15 January 1650 the Queen had actually met with Descartes only four or five times.It soon became clear they did not like each other; she did not care for hismechanical philosophy,nor did he share her interest inAncient Greek languageandliterature.On 1 February 1650, he contractedpneumoniaand died on 11 February at Chanut.

"Yesterday morning about four o'clock a.m. has deceased here at the house of His Excellency Mr. Chanut, French ambassador, Mr. Descartes. As I have been informed, he had been ill for a few days with pleurisy. But as he did not want to take or use medicines, a hot fever appears to have arisen as well. Thereupon, he had himself bled three times in one day, but without operation of losing much blood. Her Majesty much bemoaned his decease, because he was such a learned man. He has been cast in wax. It was not his intention to die here, as he had resolved shortly before his death to return to Holland at the first occasion. Etc."

The cause of death was pneumonia according to Chanut, butperipneumoniaaccording to Christina's physician Johann van Wullen who was not allowed to bleed him.(The winter seems to have been mild,except for the second half of January which was harsh as described by Descartes himself; however, "this remark was probably intended to be as much Descartes' take on the intellectual climate as it was about the weather." )

(left) The tomb of Descartes (middle, with detail of the inscription), in theAbbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés,Paris; (right) memorial to Descartes, erected in the 1720s, in the Adolf Fredriks kyrka

E. Pieshas questioned this account, based on a letter by the Doctor van Wullen; however, Descartes had refused his treatment, and more arguments against its veracity have been raised since.In a 2009 book, German philosopher Theodor Ebert argues that Descartes was poisoned by Jacques Viogué, a Catholic missionary who opposed his religious views.As evidence, Ebert suggests thatCatherine Descartes,the niece of René Descartes, made a veiled reference to the act of poisoning when her uncle was administered "communion" two days before his death, in herReport on the Death of M. Descartes, the Philosopher(1693).

As a Catholicin a Protestant nation, he was interred in the churchyard of what was to becomeAdolf Fredrik Churchin Stockholm, where mainly orphans had been buried. His manuscripts came into the possession ofClaude Clerselier,Chanut's brother-in-law, and "a devout Catholic who has begun the process of turning Descartes into a saint by cutting, adding and publishing his letters selectively."In 1663, thePopeplaced Descartes' works on theIndex of Prohibited Books.In 1666, sixteen years after his death, his remains were taken to France and buried inSaint-Étienne-du-Mont.In 1671,Louis XIVprohibited all lectures inCartesianism.Although theNational Conventionin 1792 had planned to transfer his remains to thePanthéon,he was reburied in theAbbey of Saint-Germain-des-Présin 1819, missing a finger and the skull.His skull is in theMusée de l'Hommein Paris.

Philosophical work

René Descartes at work

Further information:Cartesianism

In hisDiscourse on the Method,he attempts to arrive at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt. To achieve this, he employs a method called hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt, also sometimes referred to as methodological skepticism orCartesian doubt:he rejects any ideas that can be doubted and then re-establishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge.Descartes built his ideas from scratch which he does inThe Meditations on First Philosophy.He relates this to architecture: the top soil is taken away to create a new building or structure. Descartes calls his doubt the soil and new knowledge the buildings. To Descartes, Aristotle'sfoundationalismis incomplete and his method of doubt enhances foundationalism.

Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single first principle: he thinks. This is expressed in the Latin phrase inthe Discourse on Method"Cogito, ergo sum"(English:" I think, therefore I am ").Descartes concluded, if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting; therefore, the very fact that he doubted proved his existence. "The simple meaning of the phrase is that if one is skeptical of existence, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist."These two first principles—I think and I exist—were later confirmed by Descartes' clear and distinct perception (delineated in his Third Meditation fromThe Meditations): as he clearly and distinctly perceives these two principles, Descartes reasoned, ensures their indubitability.

Descartes concludes that he can be certain that he exists because he thinks. But in what form? He perceives his body through the use of the senses; however, these have previously been unreliable. So Descartes determines that the only indubitable knowledge is that he is athinking thing.Thinking is what he does, and his power must come from his essence. Descartes defines "thought" (cogitatio) as "what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it". Thinking is thus every activity of a person of which the person is immediatelyconscious.He gave reasons for thinking that waking thoughts are distinguishable fromdreams,and that one's mind cannot have been "hijacked" by anevil demonplacing an illusory external world before one's senses.

And so something that I thought I was seeing with my eyes is grasped solely by the faculty of judgment which is in my mind.

In this manner, Descartes proceeds to construct a system of knowledge, discardingperceptionas unreliable and, instead, admitting onlydeductionas a method.

Mind–body dualism

Further information:Mind–body problemandMind–body dualism

L'homme(1664)

Descartes, influenced by theautomatonson display at theChâteau de Saint-Germain-en-Layenear Paris, investigated the connection between mind and body, and how they interact.His main influences fordualismweretheologyandphysics.The theory on the dualism of mind and body is Descartes' signature doctrine and permeates other theories he advanced. Known asCartesian dualism(or mind–body dualism), his theory on the separation between the mind and the body went on to influence subsequent Western philosophies.InMeditations on First Philosophy,Descartes attempted to demonstrate the existence ofGodand the distinction between the human soul and the body. Humans are a union of mind and body;thus Descartes' dualism embraced the idea that mind and body are distinct but closely joined. While many contemporary readers of Descartes found the distinction between mind and body difficult to grasp, he thought it was entirely straightforward. Descartes employed the concept ofmodes,which are the ways in which substances exist. InPrinciples of Philosophy,Descartes explained, "we can clearly perceive a substance apart from the mode which we say differs from it, whereas we cannot, conversely, understand the mode apart from the substance". To perceive a mode apart from its substance requires an intellectual abstraction,which Descartes explained as follows:

The intellectual abstraction consists in my turning my thought away from one part of the contents of this richer idea the better to apply it to the other part with greater attention. Thus, when I consider a shape without thinking of the substance or the extension whose shape it is, I make a mental abstraction.

According to Descartes, two substances are really distinct when each of them can exist apart from the other. Thus, Descartes reasoned that God is distinct from humans, and the body and mind of a human are also distinct from one another.He argued that the great differences between body (an extended thing) and mind (an un-extended, immaterial thing) make the twoontologicallydistinct. According to Descartes' indivisibility argument, the mind is utterly indivisible: because "when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish any part within myself; I understand myself to be something quite single and complete."

Moreover, in TheMeditations,Descartes discusses a piece ofwaxand exposes the single most characteristic doctrine of Cartesian dualism: that the universe contained two radically different kinds of substances—the mind or soul defined asthinking,and the body defined as matter and unthinking.TheAristotelian philosophyof Descartes' days held that the universe was inherently purposeful or teleological. Everything that happened, be it the motion of thestarsor the growth of atree,was supposedly explainable by a certain purpose, goal or end that worked its way out within nature. Aristotle called this the "final cause", and these final causes were indispensable for explaining the ways nature operated. Descartes' theory of dualism supports the distinction between traditional Aristotelian science and the new science ofKeplerand Galileo, which denied the role of a divine power and "final causes" in its attempts to explain nature. Descartes' dualism provided the philosophical rationale for the latter by expelling the final cause from the physical universe (orres extensa) in favor of the mind (orres cogitans). Therefore, while Cartesian dualism paved the way for modernphysics,it also held the door open for religious beliefs about the immortality of thesoul.

Descartes' dualism of mind and matter implied a concept of human beings. A human was, according to Descartes, a composite entity of mind and body. Descartes gave priority to the mind and argued that the mind could exist without the body, but the body could not exist without the mind. In TheMeditations,Descartes even argues that while the mind is a substance, the body is composed only of "accidents".But he did argue that mind and body are closely joined:

Nature also teaches me, by the sensations of pain, hunger, thirst and so on, that I am not merely present in my body as a pilot in his ship, but that I am very closely joined and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit. If this were not so, I, who am nothing but a thinking thing, would not feel pain when the body was hurt, but would perceive the damage purely by the intellect, just as a sailor perceives by sight if anything in his ship is broken.

Descartes' discussion on embodiment raised one of the most perple xing problems of his dualism philosophy: What exactly is the relationship of union between the mind and the body of a person?Therefore, Cartesian dualism set the agenda for philosophical discussion of themind–body problemfor many years after Descartes' death.Descartes was also arationalistand believed in the power ofinnate ideas.Descartes argued the theory of innate knowledge and that all humans were born with knowledge through the higher power of God. It was this theory of innate knowledge that was later combated by philosopherJohn Locke(1632–1704), an empiricist.Empiricismholds that all knowledge is acquired through experience.

Physiology and psychology

InThe Passions of the Soul,published in 1649,Descartes discussed the common contemporary belief that the human body contained animal spirits. These animal spirits were believed to be light and roaming fluids circulating rapidly around the nervous system between the brain and the muscles. These animal spirits were believed to affect the human soul, or passions of the soul. Descartes distinguished six basic passions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness. All of these passions, he argued, represented different combinations of the original spirit, and influenced the soul to will or want certain actions. He argued, for example, that fear is a passion that moves the soul to generate a response in the body. In line with his dualist teachings on the separation between the soul and the body, he hypothesized that some part of the brain served as a connector between the soul and the body and singled out thepineal glandas connector.Descartes argued that signals passed from the ear and the eye to the pineal gland, through animal spirits. Thus different motions in the gland cause various animal spirits. He argued that these motions in the pineal gland are based on God's will and that humans are supposed to want and like things that are useful to them. But he also argued that the animal spirits that moved around the body could distort the commands from the pineal gland, thus humans had to learn how to control their passions.

Descartes advanced a theory on automatic bodily reactions to external events, which influenced 19th-centuryreflextheory. He argued that external motions, such as touch and sound, reach the endings of the nerves and affect the animal spirits. For example, heat from fire affects a spot on the skin and sets in motion a chain of reactions, with the animal spirits reaching the brain through the central nervous system, and in turn, animal spirits are sent back to the muscles to move the hand away from the fire.Through this chain of reactions, the automatic reactions of the body do not require a thought process.

Above all, he was among the first scientists who believed that the soul should be subject to scientific investigation. He challenged the views of his contemporaries that the soul wasdivine,thus religious authorities regarded his books as dangerous.Descartes' writings went on to form the basis for theories onemotionsand howcognitiveevaluations were translated into affective processes. Descartes believed the brain resembled a working machine and that mathematics, and mechanics could explain complicated processes in it.In the 20th century,Alan Turingadvancedcomputer sciencebased onmathematical biologyas inspired by Descartes. His theories on reflexes also served as the foundation for advancedphysiological theories,more than 200 years after his death. The physiologistIvan Pavlovwas a great admirer of Descartes.

On animals

Descartes denied that animals had reason or intelligence.He argued that animals did not lack sensations or perceptions, but these could be explained mechanistically.Whereas humans had a soul, or mind, and were able to feelpainandanxiety,animals by virtue of not having a soul could not feel pain or anxiety. If animals showed signs of distress then this was to protect the body from damage, but the innate state needed for them tosufferwas absent.Although Descartes's views were not universally accepted, they became prominent in Europe and North America, allowing humans to treat animals with impunity. The view that animals were quite separate from humanity and merelymachinesallowed for themaltreatment of animals,and was sanctioned in law and societal norms until the middle of the 19th century.The publications ofCharles Darwinwould eventually erode the Cartesian view of animals.Darwin argued that the continuity between humans and other species suggested the possibility of animal suffering.

Moral philosophy

For Descartes,ethicswas a science, the highest and most perfect of them. Like the rest of the sciences, ethics had its roots in metaphysics.In this way, he argues for the existence of God, investigates the place of man in nature, formulates the theory of mind–body dualism, and defendsfree will.However, as he was a convinced rationalist, Descartes clearly states that reason is sufficient in the search for the goods that individuals should seek, andvirtueconsists in the correct reasoning that should guide their actions. Nevertheless, the quality of this reasoning depends on knowledge and mental condition. For this reason, he said that a complete moral philosophy should include the study of the body.He discussed this subject in the correspondence withPrincess Elisabeth of Bohemia,and as a result wrote his workThe Passions of the Soul,that contains a study of thepsychosomaticprocesses and reactions in man, with an emphasis on emotions or passions.His works about human passion and emotion would be the basis for the philosophy of his followers (seeCartesianism), and would have a lasting impact on ideas concerning what literature and art should be, specifically how it should invoke emotion.

Descartes andZenoboth identifiedsovereign goodswith virtue. ForEpicurus,the sovereign good was pleasure, and Descartes says that, in fact, this is not in contradiction with Zeno's teaching, because virtue produces a spiritual pleasure that is better than bodily pleasure. RegardingAristotle's opinion thathappiness (eudaimonia)depends on both moral virtue and also on the goods of fortune such as a moderate degree of wealth, Descartes does not deny that fortunes contributes to happiness, but remarks that they are in great proportion outside one's own control, whereas one's mind is under one's complete control.The moral writings of Descartes came at the last part of his life, but earlier, in hisDiscourse on the Method,he adopted three maxims to be able to act while he put all his ideas into doubt. Those maxims are known as his"Provisional Morals".

Religion

In the third and fifthMeditation,Descartes offersproofsof a benevolent God (thetrademark argumentand theontological argumentrespectively). Descartes has faith in the account of reality his senses provide him, since he believed that God provided him with a working mind andsensory systemand does not desire to deceive him. From this supposition, however, Descartes finally establishes the possibility of acquiring knowledge about the world based on deduction and perception. Regardingepistemology,therefore, Descartes can be said to have contributed such ideas as a conception of foundationalism and the possibility thatreasonis the only reliable method of attaining knowledge. Descartes, however, was very much aware that experimentation was necessary to verify and validate theories.

Descartes invokes hiscausal adequacy principleto support his trademark argument for the existence of God, quoting Lucretius in defence:"Ex nihilo nihil fit",meaning "Nothing comes from nothing"(Lucretius).Oxford Referencesummarises the argument, as follows, "that our idea of perfection is related to its perfect origin (God), just as a stamp or trademark is left in an article of workmanship by its maker."In the fifth Meditation, Descartes presents a version of the ontological argument which is founded on the possibility of thinking the "idea of a being that is supremely perfect and infinite," and suggests that "of all the ideas that are in me, the idea that I have of God is the most true, the most clear and distinct."

Descartes considered himself to be a devout Catholic,and one of the purposes of theMeditationswas to defend the Catholic faith. His attempt to ground theological beliefs on reason encountered intense opposition in his time.Pascalregarded Descartes' views as a rationalist and mechanist, and accused him ofdeism:"I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy, Descartes did his best to dispense with God. But Descartes could not avoid prodding God to set the world in motion with a snap of his lordly fingers; after that, he had no more use for God," while a powerful contemporary,Martin Schoock,accused him ofatheistbeliefs, though Descartes had provided an explicit critique of atheism in hisMeditations.The Catholic Church prohibited his books in 1663.

Descartes also wrote a response toexternal world skepticism.Through this method of skepticism, he does not doubt for the sake of doubting but to achieve concrete and reliable information. In other words, certainty. He argues that sensoryperceptionscome to him involuntarily, and are not willed by him. They are external to his senses, and according to Descartes, this is evidence of the existence of something outside of his mind, and thus, an external world. Descartes goes on to argue that the things in the external world are material by arguing that God would not deceive him as to the ideas that are being transmitted, and that God has given him the "propensity" to believe that such ideas are caused by material things. Descartes also believes a substance is something that does not need any assistance to function or exist. Descartes further explains how only God can be a true "substance". But minds are substances, meaning they need only God for it to function. The mind is a thinking substance. The means for a thinking substance stem from ideas.

Descartes steered clear of theological questions, restricting his attention to showing that there is no incompatibility between his metaphysics and theological orthodoxy. He avoided trying to demonstrate theological dogmas metaphysically. When challenged that he had not established the immortality of the soul merely in showing that the soul and the body are distinct substances, he replied, "I do not take it upon myself to try to use the power of human reason to settle any of those matters which depend on the free will of God."

Mathematics

xfor unknown; exponential notation

Main article:Exponentiation § History

Descartes "invented the convention of representing unknowns in equations byx,y,andz,also known bya,b,andc".He also" pioneered the standard notation "that usessuperscriptsto show the powers or exponents; for example, the 2 used in x²to indicate x squared.

Analytic geometry

Main article:Analytic geometry

See also:Equation § Analytic geometry,andAlgebraic geometry § History

A Cartesian coordinates graph, using his inventedxandyaxes

One of Descartes' most enduring legacies was his development of Cartesian oranalytic geometry,which uses algebra to describe geometry; theCartesian coordinate systemis named after him. He was first to assign a fundamental place for algebra in the system of knowledge, using it as a method to automate or mechanize reasoning, particularly about abstract, unknown quantities.European mathematicians had previously viewed geometry as a more fundamental form of mathematics, serving as the foundation of algebra. Algebraic rules were given geometric proofs by mathematicians such asPacioli,Cardano,TartagliaandFerrari.Equations ofdegreehigher than the third were regarded as unreal, because a three-dimensional form, such as a cube, occupied the largest dimension of reality. Descartes professed that the abstract quantitya²could represent length as well as an area. This was in opposition to the teachings of mathematicians such asFrançois Viète,who insisted that a second power must represent an area. Although Descartes did not pursue the subject, he precededGottfried Wilhelm Leibnizin envisioning a more general science of algebra or "universal mathematics", as a precursor tosymbolic logic,that could encompass logical principles and methods symbolically, and mechanize general reasoning.

Influence on Newton's mathematics

Current popular opinion holds that Descartes had the most influence of anyone on the youngIsaac Newton,and this is arguably one of his most important contributions. Descartes' influence extended not directly from his original French edition ofLa Géométrie,however, but rather fromFrans van Schooten's expanded second Latin edition of the work.Newton continued Descartes' work oncubic equations,which freed the subject from fetters of the Greek perspectives. The most important concept was his very modern treatment of single variables.

The basis of calculus

Descartes' work provided the basis for thecalculusdeveloped byLeibnizandNewton,who applied the infinitesimal calculus to thetangent line problem,thus permitting the evolution of that branch of modern mathematics.Hisrule of signsis also a commonly used method to determine the number of positive and negative roots of a polynomial.

Physics

Philosophy, metaphysics, and physics

Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop thenatural sciences.For him, philosophy was a thinking system that embodied all knowledge, as he related in a letter to a French translator:

Thus, all Philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics is the root, Physics the trunk, and all the other sciences the branches that grow out of this trunk, which are reduced to three principals, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and Ethics. By the science of Morals, I understand the highest and most perfect which, presupposing an entire knowledge of the other sciences, is the last degree of wisdom.

Mechanics

Mechanical philosophy

Main article:Mechanism (philosophy) § Mechanical philosophy

See also:§ Army service,andCorpuscularianism

The beginning to Descartes' interest in physics is accredited to the amateur scientist and mathematicianIsaac Beeckman,whom he met in 1618, and who was at the forefront of a new school of thought known asmechanical philosophy.With this foundation of reasoning, Descartes formulated many of his theories onmechanical and geometric physics.It is said that they met when both were looking at a placard that was set up in the Breda marketplace, detailing a mathematical problem to be solved. Descartes asked Beeckman to translate the problem from Dutch to French.In their following meetings Beeckman interested Descartes in his corpuscularian approach to mechanical theory, and convinced him to devote his studies to a mathematical approach to nature.In 1628, Beeckman also introduced him to many ofGalileo's ideas.Together, they worked onfree fall,catenaries,conic sections,andfluid statics.Both believed that it was necessary to create a method that thoroughly linked mathematics and physics.

Anticipating the concept of work

Although the concept of work (in physics) was not formally used until 1826, similar concepts existed before then.In 1637, Descartes wrote:

Lifting 100 lb one foot twice over is the same as lifting 200 lb one foot, or 100 lb two feet.

Conservation of motion

Main article:Momentum § History of the concept

InPrinciples of Philosophy(Principia Philosophiae) from 1644 Descartes outlined his views on the universe. In it he describes his threelaws of motion.(Newton's own laws of motionwould later be modeled on Descartes' exposition.)Descartes defined "quantity of motion" (Latin:quantitas motus) as the product of size and speed,and claimed that the total quantity of motion in the universe is conserved.

If x is twice the size of y, and is moving half as fast, then there's the same amount of motion in each.

[God] created matter, along with its motion... merely by letting things run their course, he preserves the same amount of motion... as he put there in the beginning.

Descartes had discovered an early form of the law ofconservation of momentum.He envisioned quantity of motion as pertaining to motion in a straight line, as opposed to perfect circular motion, as Galileo had envisioned it.Descartes' discovery should not be seen as the modern law of conservation of momentum, since had no concept of mass as distinct from weight or size, and since he believed that it is speed rather than velocity that is conserved.

Planetary motion

Descartes'vortex theoryof planetary motion was later rejected by Newton in favor of hislaw of universal gravitation,and most of the second book of Newton'sPrincipiais devoted to his counterargument.

Optics

Descartes also made contributions to the field ofoptics.He showed by using geometric construction and thelaw of refraction(also known as Descartes' law, or more commonlySnell's lawoutside France) that the angular radius of arainbowis 42 degrees (i.e., the angle subtended at the eye by the edge of the rainbow and the ray passing from the sun through the rainbow's centre is 42°).He also independently discovered thelaw of reflection,and his essay on optics was the first published mention of this law.

Meteorology

WithinDiscourse on the Method,there is an appendix in which Descartes discusses his theories onMeteorologyknown asLes Météores.He first proposed the idea that the elements were made up of small particles that join together imperfectly, thus leaving small spaces in between. These spaces were then filled with smaller much quicker "subtile matter".These particles were different based on what element they constructed, for example, Descartes believed that particles of water were "like little eels, which, though they join and twist around each other, do not, for all that, ever knot or hook together in such a way that they cannot easily be separated."In contrast, the particles that made up the more solid material, were constructed in a way that generated irregular shapes. The size of the particle also matters, if the particle was smaller, not only was it faster and constantly moving, it was more easily agitated by the larger particles, which were slow but had more force. The different qualities, such as combinations and shapes, gave rise to different secondary qualities of materials, such as temperature.This first idea is the basis for the rest of Descartes' theory on Meteorology.

While rejecting most ofAristotle's theories on Meteorology, he still kept some of the terminology that Aristotle used such as vapors and exhalations. These "vapors" would be drawn into the sky by the sun from "terrestrial substances" and would generate wind.Descartes also theorized that falling clouds would displace the air below them, also generating wind. Falling clouds could also generate thunder. He theorized that when a cloud rests above another cloud and the air around the top cloud is hot, it condenses the vapor around the top cloud, and causes the particles to fall. When the particles falling from the top cloud collided with the bottom cloud's particles it would create thunder.He compared his theory on thunder to his theory on avalanches. Descartes believed that the booming sound that avalanches created, was due to snow that was heated, and therefore heavier, falling onto the snow that was below it.This theory was supported by experience "It follows that one can understand why it thunders more rarely in winter than in summer; for then not enough heat reaches the highest clouds, in order to break them up."

Another theory that Descartes had was on the production of lightning. Descartes believed that lightning was caused by exhalations trapped between the two colliding clouds. He believed that in order to make these exhalations viable to produce lightning, they had to be made "fine and inflammable" by hot and dry weather.Whenever the clouds would collide it would cause them to ignite creating lightning, if the cloud above was heavier than the bottom cloud it would also produce thunder.

Descartes also believed that clouds were made up of drops of water and ice, and believed that rain would fall whenever the air could no longer support them. It would fall as snow if the air was not warm enough to melt the raindrops. And hail was when the cloud drops would melt, and then freeze again because cold air would refreeze them.

Descartes did not use mathematics or instruments (as there were not any at the time) to back up his theories on Meteorology and instead used qualitative reasoning in order to deduce his hypothesis.

Historical impact

Emancipation from Church doctrine

Cover ofMeditations

Descartes has often been dubbed the father of modernWestern philosophy,the thinker whose approaches has profoundly changed the course of Western philosophy and set the basis formodernity.The first two of hisMeditations on First Philosophy,those that formulate the famous methodic doubt, represent the portion of Descartes' writings that most influenced modern thinking.It has been argued that Descartes himself did not realize the extent of this revolutionary move.In shifting the debate from "what is true" to "of what can I be certain?", Descartes arguably shifted the authoritative guarantor of truth from God to humanity (even though Descartes himself claimed he received his visions from God)—while the traditional concept of "truth" implies an external authority, "certainty" instead relies on the judgment of the individual.

In ananthropocentricrevolution, the human being is now raised to the level of a subject, an agent, anemancipatedbeing equipped with autonomous reason. This was a revolutionary step that established the basis of modernity, the repercussions of which are still being felt: the emancipation of humanity from Christianrevelationaltruth andChurch doctrine;humanity making its own law and taking its own stand.In modernity, the guarantor of truth is not God anymore but human beings, each of whom is a "self-conscious shaper and guarantor" of their own reality.In that way, each person is turned into a reasoning adult, a subject and agent,as opposed to a child obedient to God. This change in perspective was characteristic of the shift from the Christian medieval period to the modern period, a shift that had been anticipated in other fields, and which was now being formulated in the field of philosophy by Descartes.

This anthropocentric perspective of Descartes' work, establishing human reason as autonomous, provided the basis for theEnlightenment's emancipation from God and the Church. According toMartin Heidegger,the perspective of Descartes' work also provided the basis for all subsequentanthropology.Descartes' philosophical revolution is sometimes said to have sparked modernanthropocentrismandsubjectivism.

Contemporary reception

In commercial terms, TheDiscourseappeared during Descartes' lifetime in a single edition of 500 copies, 200 of which were set aside for the author. Sharing a similar fate was the only French edition of TheMeditations,which had not managed to sell out by the time of Descartes' death. A concomitant Latin edition of the latter was, however, eagerly sought out by Europe's scholarly community and proved a commercial success for Descartes.

Although Descartes was well known in academic circles towards the end of his life, the teaching of his works in schools was controversial. Henri de Roy (Henricus Regius,1598–1679), Professor of Medicine at the University of Utrecht, was condemned by the Rector of the university,Gijsbert Voet(Voetius), for teaching Descartes' physics.

According to philosophy professorJohn Cottingham,Descartes'sMeditations on First Philosophyis considered to be "one of the key texts of Western philosophy". Cottingham said that theMeditationsis the "most widely studied of all Descartes' writings".

According toAnthony Gottlieb,a former senior editor ofThe Economist,and the author ofThe Dream of ReasonandThe Dream of Enlightenment,one of the reasons Descartes andThomas Hobbescontinue to be debated in the second decade of the twenty-first century, is that they still have something to say to us that remains relevant on questions such as, "What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and our ideas of God?" and "How is government to deal with religious diversity."

In her 2018 interview with Tyler Cowen,Agnes Callarddescribed Descartes' thought experiment in theMeditations,where he encouraged a complete, systematic doubting of everything that you believe, to "see what you come to". She said, "What Descartes comes to is a kind of real truth that he can build upon inside of his own mind."She said thatHamlet's monologues— "meditations on the nature of life and emotion" —were similar to Descartes' thought experiment. Hamlet/Descartes were "apart from the world", as if they were "trapped" in their own heads.Cowen asked Callard if Descartes actually found any truths through his thought experiment or was it just "an earlier version of the contemporary argument that we're living in a simulation, where the evil demon is the simulation rather thanBayesian reasoning?"Callard agreed that this argument can be traced to Descartes, who had said that he had refuted it. She clarified that in Descartes' reasoning, you do" end up back in the mind of God "—in a" universe God has created "that is the" real world "...The whole question is about being connected to reality as opposed to being a figment. If you're living in the world God created, God can create real things. So you're living in a real world."

Purported Rosicrucianism

The membership of Descartes to theRosicruciansis debated.

The initials of his name have been linked to the R.C.acronymwidely used by Rosicrucians.Furthermore, in 1619 Descartes moved toUlmwhich was a well renowned international center of the Rosicrucian movement.During his journey in Germany, he met Johannes Faulhaber who had previously expressed his personal commitment to join the brotherhood.

Descartes dedicated the work titledThe Mathematical Treasure Trove of Polybius, Citizen of the Worldto "learned men throughout the world and especially to the distinguished B.R.C. (Brothers of the Rosy Cross) in Germany". The work was not completed and its publication is uncertain.

Bibliography

Writings

• 1618.Musicae Compendium.A treatise on music theory and the aesthetics of music, which Descartes dedicated to early collaborator Isaac Beeckman (written in 1618, first published—posthumously—in 1650).
• 1626–1628.Regulae ad directionem ingenii(Rules for the Direction of the Mind). Incomplete. First published posthumously in Dutch translation in 1684 and in the original Latin at Amsterdam in 1701 (R. Des-Cartes Opuscula Posthuma Physica et Mathematica). The best critical edition, which includes the Dutch translation of 1684, is edited by Giovanni Crapulli (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966).
• c. 1630.De solidorum elementis.Concerns the classification ofPlatonic solidsand three-dimensionalfigurate numbers.Said by some scholars to prefigureEuler's polyhedral formula.Unpublished; discovered in Descartes' estate in Stockholm 1650, soaked for three days in the Seine in a shipwreck while being shipped back to Paris, copied in 1676 by Leibniz, and lost. Leibniz's copy, also lost, was rediscovered circa 1860 in Hannover.
• 1630–1631.La recherche de la vérité par la lumière naturelle(The Search for Truth by Natural Light) unfinished dialogue published in 1701.
• 1630–1633.Le Monde(The World) andL'Homme(Man). Descartes' first systematic presentation of his natural philosophy.Manwas published posthumously in Latin translation in 1662; andThe Worldposthumously in 1664.
• 1637.Discours de la méthode(Discourse on the Method). An introduction to theEssais,which include theDioptrique,theMétéoresand theGéométrie.
• 1637.La Géométrie(Geometry). Descartes' major work in mathematics. There is an English translation by Michael Mahoney (New York: Dover, 1979).
• 1641.Meditationes de prima philosophia(Meditations on First Philosophy), also known asMetaphysical Meditations.In Latin; a second edition, published the following year, included an additional objection and reply, and aLetter to Dinet.A French translation by theDuke of Luynes,probably done without Descartes' supervision, was published in 1647. Includes sixObjections and Replies.
• 1644.Principia philosophiae(Principles of Philosophy), a Latin textbook at first intended by Descartes to replace the Aristotelian textbooks then used in universities. A French translation,Principes de philosophieby Claude Picot, under the supervision of Descartes, appeared in 1647 with a letter-preface to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia.
• 1647.Notae in programma(Comments on a Certain Broadsheet). A reply to Descartes' one-time disciple Henricus Regius.
• 1648.La description du corps humain(The Description of the Human Body). Published posthumously by Clerselier in 1667.
• 1648.Responsiones Renati Des Cartes...(Conversation with Burman). Notes on a Q&A session between Descartes and Frans Burman on 16 April 1648. Rediscovered in 1895 and published for the first time in 1896. An annotated bilingual edition (Latin with French translation), edited by Jean-Marie Beyssade, was published in 1981 (Paris: PUF).
• 1649.Les passions de l'âme(Passions of the Soul). Dedicated to PrincessElisabeth of the Palatinate.
• 1657.Correspondance(three volumes: 1657, 1659, 1667). Published by Descartes' literary executorClaude Clerselier.The third edition, in 1667, was the most complete; Clerselier omitted, however, much of the material pertaining to mathematics.

In January 2010, a previously unknown letter from Descartes, dated 27 May 1641, was found by the Dutch philosopher Erik-Jan Bos when browsing throughGoogle.Bos found the letter mentioned in a summary of autographs kept byHaverford CollegeinHaverford, Pennsylvania.The college was unaware that the letter had never been published. This was the third letter by Descartes found in the last 25 years.

• 
  Handwritten letter by Descartes, December 1638
• 
  Principia philosophiae,1644

Collected editions

• Oeuvres de Descartesedited by Charles Adam andPaul Tannery,Paris: Léopold Cerf, 1897–1913, 13 volumes; new revised edition, Paris: Vrin-CNRS, 1964–1974, 11 volumes (the first 5 volumes contains the correspondence). [This edition is traditionally cited with the initialsAT(for Adam and Tannery) followed by a volume number in Roman numerals; thusATVII refers toOeuvres de Descartesvolume 7.]
• Étude du bon sens, La recherche de la vérité et autres écrits de jeunesse (1616–1631)edited by Vincent Carraud and Gilles Olivo, Paris: PUF, 2013.
• Descartes,Œuvres complètes,new edition by Jean-Marie Beyssade and Denis Kambouchner, Paris: Gallimard, published volumes:
  • I:Premiers écrits. Règles pour la direction de l'esprit,2016.
  • III:Discours de la Méthode et Essais,2009.
  • VIII.1:Correspondance, 1edited by Jean-Robert Armogathe, 2013.
  • VIII.2:Correspondance, 2edited by Jean-Robert Armogathe, 2013.
• René Descartes. Opere 1637–1649,Milano, Bompiani, 2009, pp. 2531. Edizione integrale (di prime edizioni) e traduzione italiana a fronte, a cura di G. Belgioioso con la collaborazione di I. Agostini, M. Marrone, M. SaviniISBN978-88-452-6332-3.
• René Descartes. Opere 1650–2009,Milano, Bompiani, 2009, pp. 1723. Edizione integrale delle opere postume e traduzione italiana a fronte, a cura di G. Belgioioso con la collaborazione di I. Agostini, M. Marrone, M. SaviniISBN978-88-452-6333-0.
• René Descartes. Tutte le lettere 1619–1650,Milano, Bompiani, 2009 IIa ed., pp. 3104. Nuova edizione integrale dell'epistolario cartesiano con traduzione italiana a fronte, a cura di G. Belgioioso con la collaborazione di I. Agostini, M. Marrone, F.A. Meschini, M. Savini e J.-R. ArmogatheISBN978-88-452-3422-4.
• René Descartes, Isaac Beeckman, Marin Mersenne. Lettere 1619–1648,Milano, Bompiani, 2015 pp. 1696. Edizione integrale con traduzione italiana a fronte, a cura di Giulia Beglioioso e Jean Robert-ArmogatheISBN978-88-452-8071-9.

Early editions of specific works

• Discours de la methodeArchived4 March 2016 at theWayback Machine,1637
• Renati Des-Cartes Principia philosophiæArchived9 April 2016 at theWayback Machine,1644
• Le monde de Mr. Descartes ou le traité de la lumiereArchived4 March 2016 at theWayback Machine,1664
• GeometriaArchived24 October 2020 at theWayback Machine,1659
• Meditationes de prima philosophiaArchived24 October 2020 at theWayback Machine,1670
• Opera philosophicaArchived27 October 2020 at theWayback Machine,1672

Collected English translations

• 1955.The Philosophical Works,E.S. Haldaneand G.R.T. Ross, trans. Dover Publications. This work is traditionally cited with the initialsHR(for Haldane and Ross) followed by a volume number in Roman numerals; thusHRII refers to volume 2 of this edition.
• 1988.The Philosophical Writings of Descartesin 3 vols.Cottingham, J.,Stoothoff, R.,Kenny, A.,and Murdoch, D., trans. Cambridge University Press. This work is traditionally cited with the initialsCSM(for Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch) orCSMK(for Cottingham, Stoothoff, Murdoch, and Kenny) followed by a volume number in Roman numeral; thusCSMII refers to volume 2 of this edition.
• 1998.René Descartes: The World and Other Writings.Translated and edited byStephen Gaukroger.Cambridge University Press. (This consists mainly of scientific writings, on physics, biology, astronomy, optics, etc., which were very influential in the 17th and 18th centuries, but which are routinely omitted or much abridged in modern collections of Descartes'philosophicalworks.)

Translation of single works

• 1628.Regulae ad directionem ingenii. Rules for the Direction of the Natural Intelligence. A Bilingual Edition of the Cartesian Treatise on MethodArchived16 August 2021 at theWayback Machine,ed. & trans. G. Heffernan (Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998).
• 1633.The World, or Treatise on LightArchived21 June 2021 at theWayback Machine,tr. byMichael S. Mahoney.
• 1633.Treatise of Man,tr. by T. S. Hall. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972.
• 1637.Discourse on the Method, Optics, Geometry and Meteorology,trans.P. J. Olscamp,Revised edition (Indianapolis:Hackett,2001).
• 1637.The Geometry of René DescartesArchived16 August 2021 at theWayback Machine,trans. D. E. Smith & Marcia Latham (Chicago:Open Court,1925).
• 1641.Meditations on First Philosophy,tr. by J. Cottingham, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Latin original. Alternative English title:Metaphysical Meditations.Includes sixObjections and Replies.A second edition published the following year, includes an additionalObjection and Replyand aLetter to Dinet.HTML Online Latin-French-English EditionArchived27 August 2006 at theWayback Machine.
• 1644.Principles of PhilosophyArchived30 September 2020 at theWayback Machine,trans. V. R. Miller & R. P. Miller: (Dordrecht/Boston/London:Kluwer Academic Publishers,1982).
• 1648.Descartes' Conversation with Burman,tr. by J. Cottingham, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
• 1649.Passions of the SoulArchived16 August 2021 at theWayback Machine,trans. S. H. Voss (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989). Dedicated toElisabeth of the Palatinate.
• 1619–1648.René Descartes, Isaac Beeckman, Marin Mersenne. Lettere 1619–1648,ed. by Giulia Beglioioso and Jean Robert-Armogathe, Milano, Bompiani, 2015 pp. 1696.ISBN978-88-452-8071-9

See also

• 3587 Descartes,asteroid
• Bucket argument
• Cartesian circle
• Cartesian materialism(not a view that was held by or formulated by Descartes)
• Cartesian plane
• Cartesian product
• Cartesian product of graphs
• Cartesian theater
• Cartesian tree
• Descartes (crater)andHighlandson the Moon (Apollo 16landing site)
• Descartes number
• Descartes Prize
• Descartes-Huygens Prize
• Descartes' theorem(4 tangent circles)
• Descartes' theorem on total angular defect
• Folium of Descartes
• List of things named after René Descartes
• Paris Descartes University

References

Sources

• Clarke, Desmond(2006).Descartes: A Biography.Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-82301-2.
• Cottingham, John; Williams, B., eds. (1996). "Sixth Meditation: The existence of material things, and the real distinction between mind and body".Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Replies.Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 50–62.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511805028.012.ISBN978-0521558181.
• Tyler Cowen (host),Agnes Callard(guest) (11 April 2018)."Agnes Callard on the Theory of Everything".Medium viaMercatus Center(Podcast). Conversations with Tyler Cowen. No. 38.Retrieved25 January2023.
• Farrell, John. "Demons of Descartes and Hobbes."Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau(Cornell UP, 2006), chapter 7.
• Gaukroger, Stephen(1995).Descartes: An Intellectual Biography.Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-823994-9.
• Gillespie, A. (2006).Descartes' Demon: A Dialogical Analysis of 'Meditations on First Philosophy.'Theory & Psychology,16, 761–781.
• Gottlieb, Anthony (2016).The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy.Allen Lane. p. 301.ISBN978-0871404435.
• Grayling, A. C.(2005).Descartes: The Life of René Descartes and Its Place in His Times,The Free Press, London.ISBN978-0-74323-147-3.
• Heidegger, Martin[1938] (2002)The Age of the World PictureinOff the Beaten TrackArchived21 November 2020 at theWayback Machinepp. 57–85
• Monnoyeur, Françoise (November 2017),Matière et espace dans le système cartésien,Paris, Harmattan, 266 pp.ISBN978-2-343-13394-2.
• Moreno Romo, Juan Carlos,Vindicación del cartesianismo radical,Anthropos, Barcelona, 2010.
• Moreno Romo, Juan Carlos (Coord.),Descartes vivo. Ejercicios de hermenéutica cartesiana,Anthropos, Barcelona, 2007.
• Negri, Antonio(2007)The Political Descartes,Verso.
• Sasaki Chikara (2003).Descartes' Mathematical ThoughtArchived5 March 2021 at theWayback Machine.(Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 237.) xiv + 496 pp., bibl., indexes. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Serfati, Michel, 2005, "Géometrie" inIvor Grattan-Guinness,ed.,Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics.Elsevier: 1–22.
• Watson, Richard A. (2007). Cogito, Ergo Sum: a life of René Descartes. David R Godine. 2002, reprint 2007.ISBN978-1-56792-335-3.Was chosen by the New York Public library as one of "25 Books to Remember from 2002"
• Frisinger, H. Howard. “Chapter 3.” The History of Meteorology: To 1800, American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA, 1983, pp. 37–40.ISBN978-0882020365
• Martin, Craig. “Chapter 6.” Renaissance Meteorology: Pomponazzi to Descartes, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2011.ISBN978-1421401874

External links

General

• The Correspondence of René DescartesinEMLO
• Works by René DescartesatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about René DescartesatInternet Archive
• Works by René DescartesatLibriVox(public domain audiobooks)
• Detailed biography of Descartes at MacTutor
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913)."René Descartes".Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• John Cottingham translation ofMeditationsandObjections and Replies.
• René Descartes (1596–1650)Published inEncyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition(1996)
• A site containing Descartes' main works, including correspondence, slightly modified for easier reading
• Descartes Philosophical Writings tr. by Norman Kemp Smithat archive.org
• Studies in the Cartesian philosophy (1902) by Norman Kemp Smithat archive.org
• The Philosophical Works Of Descartes Volume II (1934)at archive.org
• Descartes featured on the 100 French Franc banknote from 1942.Archived16 April 2009 at theWayback Machine
• Free scores by René Descartesat theInternational Music Score Library Project(IMSLP)
• René Descartesat theMathematics Genealogy Project
• Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi su Descartes e il Seicento
• Livre Premier,La Géométrie,online and analyzed by A. Warusfel,BibNum[click "à télécharger" for English analysis]

Bibliographies

• Bibliografia cartesiana/Bibliographie cartésienne on-line (1997–2012)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Descartes
• Life and works
• Epistemology
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Ethics
• Modal Metaphysics
• Ontological Argument
• Theory of Ideas
• Pineal Gland
• Law Thesis

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Descartes
• Descartes: Ethics
• Descartes: Mind-Body Distinction
• Descartes: Scientific Method

Other

• Bernard Williams interviewed about Descartes onMen of ideas
• Baldassarri, Fabrizio (March 2019)."The mechanical life of plants: Descartes on botany".The British Journal for the History of Science.52(1): 41–63.doi:10.1017/S000708741800095X.ISSN0007-0874.