Rene Descartes :: essays research papers

Rene DescartesRene Descartes was born March 31, 1596 in La Haye, Touraine. Descartes was theson of a minor nobleman and belonged to a family that had baffled a number oflearned men. At the age of eight, he was enrolled in the Jesuitic school of LaFleche in Anjou, where he remained for eight age. Besides the prevalent classicalstudies, he received instruction in math and in Scholastic philosophical system. RomanCatholicism exerted a strong influence on Descartes throughout his life. Upongraduation from school, he studied law at the University of Poitiers, graduatingin 1616. He never practiced law, however--in 1618 he entered the service ofPrince Maurice of Nassau at Breda, Netherlands, with the intention of followinga military career. In succeeding years Descartes served in other armies, buthis attention had already been attracted to the problems of mathematics andphilosophy to which he was to devote the breathe of his life. He made a tourto Italy in 1623-24, and spent the yea rs from 1624 to 1628 in France. While inFrance, he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and also experimented inoptics. In 1628, having exchange his properties in France, he moved to theNetherlands, where he spent most of the rest of his life. He lived for varyingperiods in a number of different cities in the Netherlands, including Amsterdam,Deventer, Utrecht, and Leiden.It was probably during the first years of his residence in theNetherlands that Descartes wrote his first major(ip) work, Essais philosophiques,published in 1637. The work contained four parts an essay on geometry,another on optics, a third on meteors, and Discours de la methode (Discourse onMethod), which described his philosophical theories. This was followed by otherphilosophical works, among them Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (Meditationson First Philosophy, 1641) and Principia Philosophiae (The Principles ofPhilosophy, 1644). The latter volume was dedicated to Princess Elizabeth Stuartof Bohemia, who lived in the Netherlands and with whom Descartes had formed adeep friendship. In 1649, Descartes was invited to the court of Queen Christinaof Sweden in Stockholm to stage the queen instruction in philosophy. The rigorsof the northern winter brought on the pneumonia that caused his terminal onFebruary 1, 1650.The most notable contribution that Descartes made to mathematics was the rationalisation of analytic geometry. He was the first mathematician to attemptto classify curves according to the types of equations that produce them. Healso made contributions to the theory of equations and succeeded in proving theimpossibility of trisecting the tippytoe and doubling the cube.