French · b. 1596
René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician often called the father of modern philosophy, author of the Meditations and the Discourse on Method, famous for 'I think, therefore I am.'
René Descartes sought to rebuild knowledge on certain foundations by systematically doubting everything that could be doubted, arriving at the one indubitable truth of his own thinking existence — cogito, ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am.”
His Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy laid the groundwork for modern rationalist philosophy and the mind-body problem that still occupies thinkers today. As a mathematician, he founded analytic geometry and gave his name to the Cartesian coordinate system.
Descartes is celebrated as a founder of modern philosophy and a pivotal figure in the scientific revolution, whose method and questions continue to define Western thought.
by René Descartes
Descartes's account of how he came to doubt everything that could be doubted and arrived at the one certainty that could not be doubted — I think, therefore I am (cogito ergo sum). The founding document of modern Western philosophy, written in French rather than Latin to be readable by non-specialists.
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