Réne Descartes
Serdar Metin
[email protected]
Cmpe 220 - Fall 2012
Bogazici University
René Descartes (1596-1650)
*Portrait: Frans Hals (1582-1666)
Life and Works
• Born
in La Haye en Touraine, Indre-et-Loire, France
• Studied grammar, rhetorics, Latin, Greek, Hebrew,
philosophy, mathematics, and theology at The Jesuit
College at La Flêche
• Studied Law at University of Poitiers
• Travelled throughout his life
• Spent most of his life in Holland
• Died in Stockholm, Sweeden
Life and Works
Discourse on the
Method (of Rightly
Conducting One's
Reason and of Seeking
Truth in the Sciences)
—  Published in 1637 in
French
—  Cosists of VI Parts
—  Part IV dedicated to
metaphysics
—  Je pense, donc je suis
(Cogit Ergo Sum)
— 
Life and Works
Meditations on First
Philosophy
—  First Published in 1641
in Latin
—  Translated to French
and Published in 1647
—  Methodological
Skepticism
—  The philosophical
proof for the existence
of the Christian God
— 
Life and Works
Principles of
Philosophy
—  First Published in1644
in Latin
—  Translated to French in
1647
—  Compilation of early
works, mainly from
Discourses and
Meditations
—  Chapter on physics
include Newton’s first
Law of Motion
— 
Life and Works
—  Dualism
—  Mind
& Body
—  The idea that soul interacts with body
rather than to direct it
—  Pineal Gland
◦  The only unilateral structure (not true)
◦  Located in between the ventricles
◦  Hydraulic reflex arc (also not true)
Contributions to Mathematics
Cartesian
Coordinate System
—  Cartesian Product
—  Representation of
points in a plane with
an ordered pair (x,y)
—  Representation of
geometrical objects
in algebraic terms
— 
Contributions to Mathematics
—  AxB
= { (a,b) | a∈ A and b ∈ B) }
—  AxB ≠ BxA
—  Basis for calculus (developped
independently by Isaac Newton and
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz)
—  Subscript convention
Thank You All
References
— 
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Descartes/
RouseBall/RB_Descartes.html
— 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
— 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations_on_First_Philosophy
— 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Method
— 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Philosophy
— 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum