René Descartes
"Cogito ergo sum"
Background
- French mathematician, philosopher & author
- Lived 17th century Dutch Republic
- Was a bit of a rebel; differed from his predescessors
PHILOSOPHY
- Dualism; mind and body
- Rationalism with doubt
- Foundationalism with certainty
Discourse on the Method
- Philosophical & autobiographical treatise
- Published in 1637
- 6 sections cover wide range of topics
- Includes morals and maxims
- Incorporates God into metaphysics
- Tackled the problem of skepticism
- The truth is incontrovertible, and all truths are linked
Principles of PHILOSOPHY
- Synopsis of Discourse & Meditations
- Basically a precursor to Newton's Laws of Motion
- Concept of philosophy; only God is perfectly wise
- Degrees of knowledge; 4 levels along with a higher 5th
- Tree model of philosophy
- Roots are metaphysics
- Trunk is physics
- Branches are other sciences
- Fruits are the wisdom of philosophy
Mathematical legacy
- Heavily impacted mathematics
- Ideas and concepts still used to this day
- Based off of Euclid and Aristotle
- Work gave others a platform to invent new maths
The Cartesian plane goes beyond math
La Géométrie establishes geometric principles
Descartes Rule of Sines
- Determine the number of + & - real roots of a polynomial
- Genius piece of work saved time on my math test