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 long time. Besides the usual classicalstudies, he certain instruction in math and in Scholastic doctrine. Romanuniversality exerted a strong influence on Descartes throughout his life. Upongraduation from school, he studied law at the University of Poitiers, graduatingin 1616. He never near 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, thohis attention had already been attracted to the problems of mathematics andphilosophy to which he was to devote the tarry of his life. He make a pilgrimageto Italy in 1623-24, and spent the years from 1624 t o 1628 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 locomote 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 jump years of his residence in theNetherlands that Descartes wrote his first major take form, 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 wad was dedicated to Princess Elizabeth Stuartof Bohemia, who lived in the Ne therlands and with whom Descartes had formed adeep friendship. In 1649, Descartes was invited to the hail of Queen Christinaof Sweden in Stockholm to give the queen instruction in philosophy. The rigorsof the northern winter brought on the pneumonia that caused his death onFebruary 1, 1650.The most storied contribution that Descartes made to mathematics was thesystematization 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 angle and doubling the cube.