Rene Descartes(some important dude)

Rene Descartes was born March 31, 1596 in France. He died February 11, 1650 in Sweden. When he was one year old his mom died of tuberculosis. His father, Joachim, was a judge in the high court of justice. When he turned eleven he entered the Jesuit College, Royal Henry-Le-Grand, at La Fleche. After he graduated from there he studied at the University of Poitiers. Then he earned a license in law in 1616. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but he wanted to become a scientist.

He wrote many popular books when he was a adult, but two of his most famous ones are: Meditations on First Philosophy, and Discourse on the Method. In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes asked questions to get the reader thinking about the possibility of knowledge. In Discourse on the Method, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism. His most famous saying was “Cogito ergo sum” which means, “I think therefore I am”. Also “You can not doubt that I am a thinking being”. Rene Descartes grew up Catholic and so did his family. He was Catholic his whole life and followed the rules of the church and rarely disobeyed their rules. He believed that the body works like a machine, that it has the material properties of extensions and motion, and that follows the law of motion. Rene Descartes had always been a frail individual, and he would do most of his mornings in bed, and that is were he did most of his thinking. He was also known for his work in producing the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies. Descartes based his entire philosophical approach to science on these methods of reasoning: accept truth as only clear, distinct ideas that can not be doubted, breaking a problem down into parts, deducing one conclusion from another, and conducting a systematic synthesis of all things.