Rene Descartes
... for the Direction of the Mind which was his first major philosophical treatise on the proper method for pursuing either science or rational theology. Over the next decade, Descartes alternated spending time in Paris with the circle of mathematicians and physicists and traveling the world. In 1628 Cardinal de Berulle, the founder of the Oratorians, met Descartes, and was so much impressed by his conversation that he urged him the duty of devoting his life to the examination of truth. Descartes agreed, and to better secure himself from interruption moved to Holland. There for twenty years he lived, giving up all his time to philosophy and mathematics. Descartes' died in 1650 of pneumonia while in Stockholm. It has been said that his pneumonia was brought on by the fact that Descartes was sometimes required to give the Queen lessons on philosophy as early as five in the morning no matter how unpleasant the weather conditions were. However, it is also said that Descartes acquired his fatal malady as a result of nursing his friend and a French ambassador (who had pneumonia) back to health. Philosophical Theories/Position Descartes is one of the most important Western philosophers of the past few centuries. During his lifetime, he was just as famous as an original physicist, physiologist, and mathematician. Descartes attempted to restart philosophy in a fresh direction by refusing to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that had dominated philosophical thought throughout the Medieval period. He wanted to fully integrate philosophy with the "new" sciences and change the relationship between philosophy and theology. The two most widely known of Descartes' philosophical ideas are those of a method of hyperbolic doubt, and the argument that, though he may doubt, he cannot doubt that he exists. Not only did Descartes refuse to accept the authority of previous philosophers, he also refused to accept the obviousness of his own senses. In the search for a foundation for philosophy, whatever he thought could be doubted was rejected. Descartes only trusted what clearly and distinctly could be seen to go beyond any doubt which meant he needed to peel away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the truth. What was most important for Descartes was, first, that he showed that knowledge is genuinely possible, and, second, that, more particularly, a mathematically based scientific knowledge of the material world was possible. Descartes was hugely influential on individual, and key, philosophers throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries (Spinoza, Malbranche, Locke, Leibniz, etc.) and was therefore called the “father” of modern philosophy. Even philosophers who rejected his thought spent a great deal of time and energy studying his ideas. However, despite his ...