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Descartes is considered the founder of modern early modern rationalism, which Baruch de Spinoza, Nicolas Malebranche and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz continued in a critical-constructive manner. His rationalistic thinking is also called Cartesianism. From him comes the famous dictum "cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am."), which forms the basis of his metaphysics, but also introduced self-consciousness as a genuine philosophical subject. The assumption that the thinking soul is the source of cognition has three implications: First, the source of all cognition is no longer to be sought in the tracing of God's thoughts; second, the thinking self makes the body an object of the body world like others (body-soul dualism); third, laws of motion apply in the realm of bodies, which is not broken by any intervention of the soul in what is happening (mechanistic worldview). However, the questions remain open how the world of bodies affects the thinking I via the sense organs and how the will can affect the world of bodies (according to Descartes, it can at most change the direction of the movement of the bodies, whose momentum, however, remains the same).
Descartes' view concerning the existence of two mutually interacting, mutually different "substances" in man - mind and matter - is known today as Cartesian dualism and is in contrast to the various variants of monism as well as to the dualistic natural philosophy of Isaac Newton, who teaches the interaction of active immaterial "forces of nature" with absolutely passive matter (see Newton's Laws, First Law of Motion).
Descartes is the founder of analytic geometry, which combines algebra and geometry. His scientific works - his rejection of the principle of gravitation or his theory of vortices - were early refuted by Newtonian physics;[1] however, they are not to be underestimated, since Descartes was one of the most important and strictest representatives of mechanicism, which replaced the older Aristotelian physics.
His ethos of duty and self-conquest influenced the literature of 17th century French classicism, especially Pierre Corneille, Nicolas Boileau, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, and Jean de La Bruyère.
Descartes' view concerning the existence of two mutually interacting, mutually different "substances" in man - mind and matter - is known today as Cartesian dualism and is in contrast to the various variants of monism as well as to the dualistic natural philosophy of Isaac Newton, who teaches the interaction of active immaterial "forces of nature" with absolutely passive matter (see Newton's Laws, First Law of Motion).
Descartes is the founder of analytic geometry, which combines algebra and geometry. His scientific works - his rejection of the principle of gravitation or his theory of vortices - were early refuted by Newtonian physics;[1] however, they are not to be underestimated, since Descartes was one of the most important and strictest representatives of mechanicism, which replaced the older Aristotelian physics.
His ethos of duty and self-conquest influenced the literature of 17th century French classicism, especially Pierre Corneille, Nicolas Boileau, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, and Jean de La Bruyère.