RENE DESCARTES

RENE DESCARTES

• French philosopher (1596-1650)
• Rene did not agree with Frances Bacon's and his ideas.

WHAT WERE HIS BELIEFS?

• He believed in deductive though.
• This is also known as rationalism.
• Rationalism used reason to go from general principles to specific principles.

HIS FAMOUS QUOTE...

RENE

• He stripped away his belief in everything except his own existence.
• He doubted every idea that was brought up during the medieval era.
• He showed this by writing in French instead of Latin.

DISCOURSE ON METHOD

• In 1637 he wrote the discourse on method.
• He reduced everything into 2 factors, mind and matter.

WHAT DID THESE 2 ELEMENTS DO?

• Mind involved soul and spirit.
• Matter was believed to be made of infinite number of particles, operating as mechanism.
• Relied less on religion and more on explanation.

RENES ALSO...

• Renes was also a mathematician and did a legendary experiment of presenting a geometrical point using a pair of ordered numbers.
• (Now called coordinate geometry)