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Widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy, Descartes sought to look beyond established ideas and create a thought system based on reason. In this profound work he meditates on doubt, the human soul, God, truth and the nature of existence itself. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves � and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives � and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
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Meditations on First Philosophy(1641) andPrinciples of Philosophy(1644), main works of French mathematician and scientistRené Descartes, considered the father of analytic geometry and the founder of modern rationalism, include the famous dictum "I think, therefore I am."A set of two perpendicular lines in a plane or three in space intersect at an origin in Cartesian coordinate system. Cartesian coordinate, a member of the set of numbers, distances, locates a point in this system. Cartesian coordinates describe all points of a Cartesian plane.From given sets, {X} and {Y}, one can construct Cartesian product, a set of all pairs of elements (x,y), such thatxbelongs to {X} andybelongs to {Y}.Cartesian philosophers includeAntoine Arnauld.René Descartes, a writer, highly influenced society. People continue to study closely his writings and subsequently responded in the west. He of the key figures in the revolution also apparently influenced the named coordinate system, used in planes and algebra.Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of thePassions of the Soul, a treatise on the early version of now commonly called emotions, he goes so far to assert that he writes on his topic "as if no one had written on these matters before." Many elements in lateAristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or earlier like SaintAugustine of Hippoprovide precedents. Naturally, he differs from the schools on two major points: He rejects corporeal substance into matter and form and any appeal to divine or natural ends in explaining natural phenomena. In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of act of creation of God.Baruch Spinozaand BaronGottfried Wilhelm von Leibnizlater advocated Descartes, a major figure in 17th century Continent, and the empiricist school of thought, consisting ofThomas Hobbes,John Locke,George Berkeley, andDavid Hume, opposed him. Leibniz and Descartes, all well versed like Spinoza, contributed greatly. Descartes, the crucial bridge with algebra, invented the coordinate system and calculus. Reflections of Descartes on mind and mechanism began the strain of western thought; much later, the invention of the electronic computer and the possibility of machine intelligence impelled this thought, which blossomed into theTuringtest and related thought. His stated most in §7 of part I and in part IV ofDiscourse on the Method.
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