René Descartes Biography and Facts

René Descartes was born on 31st March 1596 in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), France. He attended the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche. During his courses in this school, he learnt mathematics and physics. After graduating from this school in 1614, he pursued a Baccalauréat and Licence from the University of Poitiers in Canon law and Civil law. After graduating from the University of Poitiers, he moved to the French Capital, Paris.

In 1618, Descartes joined the Protestant Dutch States Army as a mercenary. He learnt military engineering during his tenure as a mercenary. He also worked on free fall, conical sections, catenary, and fluid statistics with Isaac Beeckman. They had a notion that it was essential to link mathematics and physics to have a greater understanding of both the subjects.

Discoveries of René Descartes

1. The Scientific Method

At the time, there was no scientific method to pursue science. If someone claimed something to be a discovery and had enough followers, it was difficult for others to question his discovery. Descartes followed a scientific framework of pursuing science which he shared with the rest of the world. His four principles behind the framework are:

• Scepticism is one of the very important aspects of his scientific method. It implies not accepting anything as true until all the doubts can be ruled out with reasonable clarifications
• It is easier to solve several smaller problems than one big problem. So, divide a problem into many smaller parts and then try to find a reasonable solution to the problem
• He suggested that scientific thoughts should be ordered in ascending order of complexity, starting with the simplest and ending with complex theories
• He believed that if scientists make detailed enumerations and general reviews, then nothing will be left out

2. Analytical Geometry

 One of the greatest discoveries of René Descartes was that Geometrical problems could be solved easily by converting them into Algebraic Equations. He proved that a curve could be expressed in terms of variables x and y on a 2-D plane and, therefore, it can also be formed as equations in algebra. Descartes also figured out how to find targets for curves, which is an essential part of Differential Calculus. Hence, you can say that Descartes’ discovery influenced Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz in inventing Calculus.

Descartes’s Philosophies

René Descartes’ biography would be incomplete without mentioning his contributions to philosophy. He is known to be one of the greatest philosophers of all time. At the beginning of his journey, he wanted to come up with some fundamental principles that one will believe to be true without any doubt. He started to use a method called methodological scepticism, which means that he would reject any principle that could be doubted. Then, if he could provide reasonable clarification for all the doubts, he reestablished the principle.

His first principle was, “I think; therefore I am. Simply put, it means that if someone is doubtful or sceptical of his existence, it is proof that he does exist since he did the doubting.

Descartes wanted to find the connection between mind and body and how the two interact. His theory was known as Body-Mind Dualism or Cartesian Dualism and was influential on subsequent Western Philosophers.

Descartes’ Psychology and Physiology

Descartes believed that human bodies have spirit animals. He also claimed that there are six passions of the soul, namely hate, sad, love, wonder, desire, and joy. According to him, the spirit animals affected the passions of the soul. 

He also had a theory on the body’s automatic responses to the external phenomenon (reflexes). He believed that external factors such as sound or touch affect the spirit animal via the nerves in the brain, which in turn cause the automatic response or the reflexes. According to Descartes’ psychology, this was the reason why humans don’t need to think for such automatic responses.

Facts About René Descartes

1. During his time in the army, he had a set of dreams that he believed were a message from God. He claims that God gave him the initial ideas about Philosophy, Analytical Geometry and the Scientific Method.
2. Descartes is considered to be the pioneer behind the general use of superscripts to denote exponents or powers. For e.g.: the 3 used in x3 to indicate x cube.
3. The Cartesian system of graphical representation is named after René Descartes. In Latin, Descartes is called Cartesius.
4. According to Descartes, Ethics was the most important science. 
5. Descartes agreed with Galileo Galilei’s theory that the sun was at the centre of the solar system. After learning about Galilei’s arrest, he did not publish the book with these theories to avoid the same fate. However, the book, Treatise on the World, was published in 1677 posthumously (25 years after his death).
6. Descartes exchanged letters with philosophical ideas with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia.
7. Although Descartes never married, he had a relationship with a servant girl in Amsterdam with whom he had a daughter.
8. Descartes believed that it was impossible to create a vacuum, but it was later found to be untrue when the first vacuum pump was created in 1654.

Conclusion 

René Descartes died of Pneumonia on 11th February 1650 in Stockholm, Sweden. Descartes’ principles of philosophy are a topic of discussion even in modern times. His accomplishment of linking algebra to geometry made the foundation for many modern mathematical chapters. The Scientific method framed by Descartes is used for many scientific experiments worldwide. A number of Descartes’ books were rejected by the Catholic Church, even though he identified himself as a devout Catholic.