Rene Descartes' Life and His Impact on the Modern Philosophy

Philosopher, physicist and polymath, René Descartes was one of the most important figures in history due to his contributions to mathematics and physics, as well as being considered by many as the “father of modern philosophy.” He is perhaps most famous for the quote “I think, therefore I am”, a deceptively simple yet radical statement that defined human existence, and laid the groundwork for later philosophers to come. Truly one of the brightest minds of his time, he meshed the rational, mathematical and scientific, with his philosophy and religion to come to a greater understanding of the world around him.

Born on March 31, 1596, in La Haye en Touraine, France, Descartes was the youngest of three children. His mother, Jeanne Brochard, tragically died after giving birth, leaving him with his father Joachim, a member of the provincial parliament. Unable to care for his children and balance his work, he sent them to live with their grandmother and great uncle. His father eventually remarried, however, he was concerned about René ’s education and sent him to a boarding school at the Jesuit College of Henri IV at the age of eight years old. A bright but sickly young boy, he was able to avoid the school's rigorous class schedule and was allowed extra time to sleep in.

At the Jesuit College, he had been introduced to mathematics, logic, and rhetoric, and this is where he developed his love for rational thought and the “mathematical arts”, which included music, astronomy metaphysics and philosophy (Watson). René would eventually pursue a baccalaureate in law at the University of Poitiers. The pressure of his workload leads to a nervous breakdown, prompting him to travel for some time. During this brief leave, he traveled to the Netherlands and joined the Dutch Army. There, he spent fifteen months studying more mathematics and military engineering. The most important thing that happened to him while in the Dutch army, however, was his crossing paths with Dutch physicist and mathematician Isaac Beeckman. Together they worked on what they called “physico-mathematica”, the application of mathematics to physical processes (Hatfield).

In the year 1619, while stationed in Germany, René experienced three vivid visions, in which he claims a divine spirit had visited him. These visions had altered his outlook on life, and lead to his idea of applying the natural sciences to philosophy (“René Descartes”). Shortly after his intense visions, he developed analytical geometry and a method of deductive reasoning that was based on mathematical principles (Watson). In 1620, René left the Dutch Army and spent eight years traveling across northern and southern Europe. In his pursuit of knowledge and understanding, René investigated reports of those who claimed to have esoteric knowledge about the world. He became particularly interested in the mathematician Johann Faulhaber, who was a member of a mystic group called the Rosicrucians. René adopted some of the parts of the Rosicrucian philosophy, and live in seclusion for the greater part of his life. He studied medicine, provided medical services for free to those in need, and tried to increase human longevity. Although the Rosicrucians had a magical aspect of their philosophy, René completely rejected this facet of their lifestyle and focused solely on science and logic. He wrote several medical papers, which he left with a Rosicrucian physician, however, none of his medical writings during this period of his life survive today.

Descartes would eventually settle down in the Netherlands in 1628, where he would live for the next twenty-two years. During his time in the Netherlands, he moved around constantly, having eighteen different residences. While living in the Netherlands, René worked on two separate topics, astronomy and metaphysics During the summer of 1629, he had investigated reports in Rome of parhelia, or “mock suns”, which are an optical illusion in which bright balls of light appears on the left and right side the sun and form a halo around it.(Hatfield) This investigation was interrupting his previous work on the first draft of his treatise Meditations, but while trying to explain this natural phenomenon he was inspired to write a treatise explaining all-natural phenomena through physics. The treatise, titled The World, consisted of three smaller treatises. The first one, the Treatise on Light, was about the visible and physical world. The second one, Treatise on Man sought to explain the physiology of humans. The last treatise was suppose to be about the soul, however, there are no surviving works of this treatise, and it is believed he never completed it.(Hatfield) Hearing of the persecution of Galileo at the hands of the Italian inquisition, René did not publish his work immediately in fear of being branded a heretic for his ideas, which were at odds with the Catholic Church's doctrine.

René had suppressed his ideas regarding the nature of the universe, but he still anonymously publish some of his philosophical ideas. In his essay, Discourse, he introduces the idea of starting new again, doubting everything that was once believed to be a self-evident truth, such as one’s existence. Another important idea that René discusses is mind-body dualism, the belief in the separation of the mind and the body as distinct entities. Attached to this essay were two other essays, Meteorology and Dioptrics. In Meteorology, René presents his hypothesis on the behavior of physical matter and then applies this idea to natural phenomena such as the rainbow, wind, lightning, clouds and the aforementioned parhelia. In Dioptrics, he explains the mechanics of light refraction, the first paper of its kind.

In René ’s The World and Meteorology, he differed wildly from the scientific consensus on the nature of matter. In the traditional Aristotelian thought, the four elements of earth, wind, fire, and air held “substantial forms”, the qualities of hot, cold, wet and dry, in which all higher forms of matter would be composed of (Hatfield). René rejected this view of physical matter. He proposed a corpuscularian theory for matter, which supposes that all matter consisted of an extremely small unit of matter. This differed from the ancient greek atomism, which believed that atoms existed between voids where they constantly collided with each other. René did not believe such voids of matter could exist, and unlike the greek idea of atomism, he believed that the small particles that makeup matter are infinitely divisible and constantly move in a circular motion (Skirry).

Although René never married, he had a daughter in 1635, with his housemaid. René named her daughter Francine and had her baptized. Although many assert that her daughter was illegitimate, her name is in a baptism registry for legitimate births. He had great plans for his daughter and wanted to give her a quality education in France. When Francine was just five, however, she would succumb to Scarlet Fever, an event that deeply affected René, throwing him into a depression. René did not believe repressing his feelings would prove himself more of a man. Unlike many philosophers of his time who bottled up their emotions, René let them free and wept at his daughter's untimely death.

In 1639, René wrote Meditations On First Philosophy, which would be a more thorough version of his treatise Discussions. The treatise detailed his ideas on metaphysics, such as the relationship between the mind and body, the role of God in creating and conserving matter, and the way we perceive the world through our senses.(Hatfield) He sent his work to many prominent philosophers and theologians, such as Thomas Hobbes and Antoine Arnauld to garner feedback for his work. René would make their criticisms a part of his work, and then add his replies to their critiques to lend his ideas greater credibility. Most of the discussion he had with his colleagues was cooperative and turned out to be quite fruitful, which was unusual in a time where dogmatic belief was the norm. When he finalized his work in 1641, he published it in Latin rather than a local vernacular language, because this treatise, in particular, was dedicated to the Jesuit order.

Descartes built upon his work on the physiological system of humans and started to work on Description of the Human Body in the mid-1640s. In this work, he attempted to explain and understand embryonic development. While writing this work, he was writing letters to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia about metaphysics in his work Meditations. During their correspondence, they shifted to the subject of human passion and emotion, which inspired Descartes's next work. In 1649, he would go on to write Passions of the Soul, which contained René ’s ideas about the origin of human behavior and provided a theory of emotions. His theory states that stimulation of the senses results in a physiological response that informs a person’s mental state. Later that year, Descartes would be invited to the Swedish Royal Court by Queen Christina. He acted as the queen’s philosophy teacher and worked to establish the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. The Queen ordered the then 53-year-old René to teach her lessons at five o’clock every morning, even though it was well known as the time that he regularly slept until eleven o’clock in the morning. After delivering the statutes of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science to the queen at five o'clock in the morning, he fell ill with pneumonia on February 1st. By February 11lth, he finally succumbed to his illness and died.

The nature of pneumonia and the way it can manifest are varied. Pneumonia can be the result of a bacterial infection, a viral disease, fungi, and other microorganisms. The most common form of pneumonia comes from airborne bacteria known as Streptococcus pneumoniae (Seladi-Schulman). When an individual is infected either through a viral or bacterial infection, that person becomes another vector for the disease. Those infected spread pneumonia through coughing, sneezing, saliva, and contaminating surfaces that they touch. When someone has pneumonia from inhaling fungal spores, however, they are not contagious. The only way to contract a fungal form of this disease is through the environment (Seladi-Schulman). The term pneumonia is essentially a catch-all term for a variety of infections that all generate the same symptoms of respiratory fluid build-up.

While the lungs and the body can usually filter out these germs, preventing infection in the lungs, these germs can at times overpower the immune system. Pneumonia isn’t particularly lethal, but in cases of the young, elderly or those with a compromised immune system, complications can cause death. Being that René was relatively old, in his early fifties, and he was exposed to the severe cold of the Scandinavian winter, his immune system could not mount an effective defense against the infection. The infection itself results in the air sacs of the lungs being filled with fluid. There is a laundry list of symptoms including fever, sweating, loss of appetite, difficulty breathing, chills, sharp chest pains, bluish color in the lips and fingernails, yellow, green or bloody mucus and delirium. This fluid buildup can result in the creation of lung abscesses that need to be drained with surgery, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, which leads to respiratory syndrome usually in a matter of days. In some cases it can cause bacteria to enter the bloodstream, potentially spreading the infection to other organs. What starts as a simple respiratory infection could lead to far more serious, life-threatening conditions if left unchecked.

While Descartes was alive, there were no effective medical treatments against pneumonia, as antibiotics would not be invented for almost another three centuries. In severe cases of the disease, a person may be sustained through a breathing tube and receive intravenous fluid therapy alongside the usage of antibiotics. For the average adult, however, the disease can resolve itself in the span of a few days to a few weeks. As a result, the treatment for adults focuses on controlling symptoms rather than treating the root cause. Some strains of pneumonia are also preventable through a vaccine, although they are only given to the young and the elderly. René Descartes’ ideas had a profound effect on the scientific, philosophical, and mathematical landscape of the western world. The mind-body theory that he developed created, alongside his method of deductive reasoning, created the logical framework for modern philosophy. His work in mathematics would provide a strong foundation for the creation of calculus, as Sir Isaac Newton would build off of many of Descartes's innovations. He provided many important contributions to physics, especially in the field of optics, and his theory on the nature of matter was ahead of its time. Despite his Catholic upbringing, he never acted dogmatically and his philosophy of God differed from the Church as they were compatible with his scientific framework of reasoning. Overall, René Descartes is perhaps one of history's most important thinkers, that spearheaded the transition from the Renaissance to the Modern era.