Descarte

René Descartes
Portrait after Frans Hals, 1648
Born	(1596-03-31)31 March 1596 La Haye en Touraine, Kingdom of France
Died	11 February 1650(1650-02-11) (aged 53) , Swedish Empire
Nationality	French
Education	Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand (1607–1614) University of Poitiers (LL.B., 1616) University of Franeker Leiden University
Era	17th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Rationalism Cartesianism
Main interests	Metaphysics, epistemology, mathematics, physics, cosmology
Notable ideas	Cogito ergo sum Method of doubt Method of normals Cartesian coordinate system Cartesian dualism Foundationalism Mathesis universalis Folium of Descartes Dream argument Evil demon Conservation of momentum (quantitas motus) Wax argument Trademark argument
Influences Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Alhazen, Al-Ghazali,Averroes, Avicenna, Anselm, Augustine, Stoics, Aquinas, Ockham, Suárez, Mersenne, Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne, Golius, Beeckman, Harvey,Viète,Duns Scotus,Teresa of Ávila
Influenced Virtually all subsequent Western philosophy, especially Spinoza, Leibniz, John Locke, Nicolas Malebranche, Jacques-Bénigne BossuetBlaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Edmund Husserl, Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek, David Chalmers, Claude Levi-Strauss
Signature

René Descartes (/deɪˈkɑːrt/, UK also /ˈdeɪkɑːrt/;French: [ʁəne dekaʁt]; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; adjectival form: "Cartesian"; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Dubbed the father of modern Western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. A native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years (1629–49) of his life in the Dutch Republic after serving for a while in the Dutch States Army of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the United Provinces. He is generally considered one of the most notable intellectual representatives of the Dutch Golden Age.

Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system (see below) was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, used in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution.