Descartes

Descartes - Rules For The Direction of The Mind
Philosophy from Descartes


Descartes - His Philosophy and his life

René Descartes was born on March 31st 1595 in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), Indre-et-Loire, France and died on February 11th, 1650 at the age of 53 in Stockholm, Sweden.  This section of “All Philosophers” brings to the reader probably the most renowned work by one of the most forward thinking of the non-classical philosophers.

Descartes was from the Rationalism, Foundationalism and Cartesianism schools of tradition and his main interests were focussed in Science, Mathematics, Epistemology and Metaphysics.  Regarding mathematics, it was Descartes who founded Analytic Geometry, the link between algebra and geometry that was crucial to the invention of Calculus.  Descartes main influences were Aristotle, Ockham, Anselm, Sextus Empiricus, Aquinas, Suarez, Mersenne, Duns Scotus, Michel de Montaigne, Al-Ghazali and Plato.

Descartes Contributions to Philosophy include:

The writings of Descartes are still extremely influential, both in the fields of Philosophy and in Mathematics.  Known by many as both “The Father of Philosophy” and “The Father of Modern Mathematics,” his work is still central to modern the advancement of modern Mathematics and Philosophy.

Rules for the Direction of the Mind

Descartes began working on his most renowned work “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” in 1619.  This treatise set the basis for his later works on philosophy, science and mathematics.  Originally 36 rules were planned, however in the end a total of 21 were written.

Particularly important are the first 12 of the rules.  These are the rules that focus on scientific methodology generally.  Many analysts of Descartes consider these first 12 rules to be the beginnings of several principles that in later writings he was to expand on further.

 

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