Renе Descartes. 2014

“It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.” 

“It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.” 

“Respect of others gives rise to respect yourself.”

“I think, therefore I am”

Renе Descartes – french philosopher, mathematician, physicist, physiologist and naturalist, years of life 1596-1650.

The philosophy of Descartes was named as cartesianism, he had the aim to build the general picture of nature, where all physical and other phenomena are explained as the result the movement of large and small entities, formed from a single matter. Descartes was a founder of rationalism theory in perception knowledge. Instead of implicit faith he put on the first place the force of human intellection as the mind that is able to cognize the nature.

Along with outstanding mathematical researches, he discovered the laws of light propagation, reflection and deflection, the idea of the ether as a vection of light, the explanation of the rainbow, laid the foundation for optics as a science. He explored the laws of impact, for the first time clearly formulated the law of inertia, developed a new hypothesis about the origin of the planets, created a physical theory of blood circulation.

WORKS “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” (1628); “Treatise on light” (1633); “Discourse on the Method” (1637); “Meditations on First Philosophy” (1641); “Principles of Philosophy” (1644); “Passions of the Soul” (1649).