René Descartes

1596-1650 · French · Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics

I think, therefore I am.

Educated by Jesuits at La Flèche and briefly trained in law, Descartes spent years as a soldier before settling in Holland in 1628 to pursue one project: reject everything admitting the slightest doubt, find what cannot be rejected, and rebuild philosophy as certain as geometry. When Galileo was condemned in 1633, he suppressed his own physics treatise. He died in Stockholm in 1650, summoned by Queen Christina, felled by pneumonia.

Topics René Descartes addresses

• the cogito (cogito, ergo sum)
• the Method of Doubt
• the Real Distinction (mind and body)
• res cogitans (thinking thing)
• res extensa (extended thing)
• clear and distinct ideas
• the malicious demon
• the dream argument
• the wax example
• substance, attribute, mode
• the trademark argument for God
• the ontological argument
• the causal argument for God
• the Cartesian Circle
• objective vs formal reality
• innate ideas
• the natural light
• the four rules of method
• intuition and deduction
• simple natures
• mathesis universalis
• analytical geometry
• the order of reasons
• mind-body union

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