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 produced a number oflearned men. At the age of eight, he was enrolled in the Jesuit school of LaFleche in Anjou, where he remained for eight years. Besides the usual classicalstudies, he received affirmation in math and in Scholastic philosophy. RomanCatholicism exerted a strong influence on Descartes throughout his life. Upongraduation from school, he studied equity 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 succeed 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 rest of his life. He made a travelto Italy in 1623-24, and spent the years from 1624 to 16 28 in France. While inFrance, he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and also experimented inoptics. In 1628, having sold 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 freshman years of his residence in theNetherlands that Descartes wrote his first major 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 devote 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 give the queen instruction in philosophy. The rigorsof the northern pass brought on the pneumonia that caused his death onFebruary 1, 1650.The most notable contribution that Descartes made to mathematics was thesystematization of analytic geometry. He was the first mathematician to attemptto classify curves consort to the types of equations that produce them. Healso made contributions to the theory of equations and succeeded in proving theimpossibility of trisecting the angle and doubling the cube.