René Descartes

Father of modern philosophy and analytic geometry

René Descartes, a polymath, was born on 31 March 1596 in La Haye en Touraine, France.^[1][2]

Last updated 2026-09-30 from the source article.

Quick Facts

Region

Western philosophy
Dutch philosophy
French philosophy

Era

17th-century philosophy; Age of Enlightenment

Born

31 March 1596

Birthplace

La Haye-en-Touraine, France

Died

11 February 1650

Place of death

Stockholm, Sweden

School of thought

Foundationalism
Innatism
Mechanism
Rationalism

Main interests

Epistemology
metaphysics
mathematics
physics
cosmology
ethics

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

Descartes's mother Jeanne Brochard died in May 1597, and he was raised by his grandmother and great-uncle.^[1][2] He earned a Baccalauréat and Licence in canon and civil law in 1616 at the University of Poitiers.^[3][2] In 1618 Descartes joined the Protestant Dutch States Army as a mercenary under Maurice of Nassau.^[4][5] While in Breda he met Isaac Beeckman, for whom he wrote the Compendium of Music.^[6][5]

On the night of 10–11 November 1619, Descartes had three dreams that he believed revealed a new philosophy to him.^[7][8][2] Descartes returned to the Dutch Republic in 1628 and wrote all his major work during his 20-plus years there.^[8][9] In 1637 he published Discours de la méthode, preceded by three essays including La Géométrie.^[9] He published Meditationes de Prima Philosophia in 1641 and Principia Philosophiae in 1644.^[10]

In 1649 Descartes moved to Sweden to tutor Queen Christina, where he contracted pneumonia and died on 11 February 1650.^[11][12][13]

What the cited sources add

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy account by Newman states that Descartes defines knowledge in terms of doubt and seeks unshakably certain conviction.^[14] Newman also notes that Descartes views Aristotle's foundationalist principles as incomplete for metaphysical inquiry.^[14] The Archania account explains that Descartes's project was deliberately cross-domain, seeking one disciplined method for metaphysics, mathematics, optics, mechanics, physiology, and cosmology.^[2] The same source notes that Descartes withheld The World after Galileo's condemnation because its cosmology conflicted with church-sensitive assumptions.^[2]

The Strange Remains account reports that Descartes's skull never made it back to France in 1666, as a Swedish soldier beheaded the corpse.^[15]

References

Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bruno, "Math and Mathematicians: The History of Math Discoveries Around the World; Vol. 1", U X L, 2003, p. 99; Bruno, "Math and Mathematicians: The History of Math Discoveries Around the World; Vol. 1", U X L, 2003, p. 99; "Scepticism, Scholasticism, and the origins of Descartes's philosophy (Chapter 2)", Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 27–54; Rodis-Lewis, "The Cambridge Companion to Descartes", Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 22 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
"René Descartes", Archania.org, 2 July 2026. facts only, no text reused. archania.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "All-history.org"; Clarke 2006 ; "Descartes, Rene Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy"; Bruno, "Math and Mathematicians: The History of Math Discoveries Around the World; Vol. 1", U X L, 2003, p. 100; Porter, "The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present", Harper Collins, 1999, p. 217; Bruno, "Math and Mathematicians: The History of Math Discoveries Around the World; Vol. 1", U X L, 2003, p. 100; Baird, "From Plato to Derrida", Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008, p. 373–77 (original not read by us en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bruno, "Math and Mathematicians: The History of Math Discoveries Around the World; Vol. 1", U X L, 2003, p. 100; Gaukroger 1995 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Smith, "Descartes' Life and Works", Fall 2010. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bruno, "Math and Mathematicians: The History of Math Discoveries Around the World; Vol. 1", U X L, 2003, p. 100; McQuillan, J. C. 2016. Early Modern Aesthetics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 45 . (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rothkamm, J., Institutio Oratoria: Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009), p. 40 . (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bruno, "Math and mathematicians : the history of math discoveries around the world; Vol. 1", U X L, 2003, p. 101 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bruno, "Math and mathematicians: the history of math discoveries around the world", U X L, 2003, p. 103; Bruno, "Math and mathematicians: the history of math discoveries around the world", U X L, 2003, p. 103; Descartes, Discourse on the Method (Zhubei: Hyweb Technology: 2011), p. 88 . (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Watson, "Meditations Definition, Mind-Body Dualism, Cogito, Ontological Argument, Cartesian Circle, & Facts Britannica", www.britannica.com; Swetz, "Mathematical Treasure: Descartes' Principia Philosophiae Mathematical Association of America", old.maa.org, November 2014 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bruno, "Math and mathematicians: the history of math discoveries around the world", U X L, 2003, p. 103; "Queen Christina of Sweden and her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical Libertine", Brill Publishers, 1991, p. 44–69; Bruno, "Math and mathematicians: the history of math discoveries around the world", U X L, 2003, p. 103–04; Smith, "Descartes' Life and Works", Fall 2010 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Queen Christina of Sweden and her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical Libertine", Brill Publishers, 1991, p. 44–69; "Queen Christina of Sweden and her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical Libertine", Brill Publishers, 1991, p. 44–69; Bruno, "Math and mathematicians: the history of math discoveries around the world", U X L, 2003, p. 104; The Correspondence of Dirck Rembrantsz van Nierof, (1610–1682), pp. 61, 84 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "René Descartes" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Il y a des preuves que René Descartes a été assassiné", L'Obs, 12 February 2010; ""Severity of winter seasons in the northern Baltic Sea between 1529 and 1990: reconstruction and analysis" by S. Jevrejeva (2001), p. 6, Table 3"; Smith, "Descartes' Life and Works", Fall 2010 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Newman, "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2016. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
"5 historical figures whose heads have been stolen", Strange Remains, 23 July 2015. facts only, no text reused. strangeremains.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article René Descartes (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.