René Descartes

Deemed the first modern philosopher, René Descartes utilized science and mathematics to explain and predict events in the physical world. His famous words “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”) were the starting point from which he went on to examine the basis for knowledge. He argued for the duality of human beings, that is, as composed of two substances: mind and matter.

Hulton Deutsch

Appears in these articles

Philosophy, Western; Enlightenment, Age of; Mathematics; Consciousness; Dualism; Rationalism; Descartes, René; Cognition

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