Descartes Rene (31.03.1596 - 11.02.1650) - French philosopher, physicist, mathematician, mechanic. He created analytical geometry, algebraic symbols, mechanism, and the method of radical doubt.

Life stages

The scientist was born in the French city of Lae, which was later renamed Descartes. His parents belonged to an ancient noble family, but were not rich. The mother died when the boy was one year old. The father served as a judge, raising three children (Descartes was the most youngest son) was taught by my maternal grandmother.

The boy grew up frail, but was actively interested in everything that happened around him. He studied at the La Flèche institution, where his teacher was the mathematician Jean Francois. Even then, the young man developed a rejection of the philosophical foundations of that time. After completing his secondary education, Descartes studied law at the University of Poitiers. Then he served in the army, in connection with this he was in Holland, Hungary, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and participated in several battles related to the Thirty Years' War. During his military service, he met I. Beckman, who had a significant influence on the self-determination of the aspiring scientist. By nature, Descartes was silent, somewhat arrogant, preferred solitude, and was active only in communication with close people.

In his native country in 1628, Descartes was condemned by the Jesuits for freethinking, which is why he moved to Holland, where he completely devoted himself to scientific work for twenty years. All this time he communicates with the scientific community through his friend M. Mersenne, working in various directions - from anatomy to astronomy. He wrote his first work, “On the World,” in 1634, but the book was not published due to the persecution of Galileo by the church. In 1635, from a relationship with a maid, Descartes' daughter, Francine, was born, who died of scarlet fever at the age of five.

Descartes argues with the Swedish Queen Christina (copy of a painting by P. Dumenil, 1884)

The first published work, “Discourse on Method” in 1637, is considered the beginning of a new European philosophy. In 1644, the treatise “Principles of Philosophy” was published, in which Descartes formulated his main theses. The church still disapproved of the scientist’s work, and in 1649, at the invitation of the queen, he moved to Sweden, where he soon died of pneumonia. There is another version of the cause of his death - poisoning by Catholic ministers.

After his death, Descartes' works were prohibited from being read by the church, and his philosophy could not be taught on French soil. After his death, Descartes' remains were reburied in Paris only 17 years later, in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Despite the fact that at the end of the 18th century it was decided to transfer the scientist’s ashes to the Pantheon, he still rests in the abbey.

Contribution to science

Descartes criticized scholasticism and laid the foundation for a completely new philosophy, the main meaning is the duality of soul and body, material and ideal. His teaching laid the foundations for such methods of cognition as rationalism and mechanism.

Descartes' rationalistic and skeptical worldview contributed to the emergence philosophical direction Cartesianism. In his works, he proves the existence of God, talks about love and hatred, and lays the foundations of ethics. Descartes' teachings influenced the views of such thinkers as Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Pascal and others.

The main rationalistic requirements according to Descartes are as follows:

• take as a basis only what is true and obvious, start with provisions the truth of which there can be no doubt;
• any problem must be broken down into what is necessary for it successful solution number of parts;
• move from the most known, proven to the least known and unproven;
• Any omissions in logical chain, the results and conclusions must be double-checked.

The scientist worked hard to study living organisms, which he considered complex machines. He recognized the presence of a soul only in humans. Studied the structure of organs reflex mechanisms. Descartes gave the concept of reflex, identified voluntary and involuntary movements, which made it possible to further develop this direction physiology.

Reflex diagram, "Treatise on Man"

He considered mathematics to be the basis of all sciences, universal method knowledge. In the appendix “Geometry” to the “Discourse on Method”, Descartes outlined the foundations of analytical geometry, which allows the study of figures by means of algebra. For the first time he used the coordinate method, mathematical notations that are used in modern science, discovered the concept of function. "Geometry" was a reference book for many scientists and had a powerful influence on mathematical work in the second half of the 17th century. Many mathematical terms are named after him (Cartesian sheet, Cartesian tree, Cartesian oval, Cartesian product, coordinate system).

In physics, Descartes' views were based on the concept of moving matter; he did not recognize emptiness and atoms. Contributed to the development of knowledge about motion, heat, magnetism and other processes. In optics, he formulated the law of light refraction, thanks to which it became possible to significantly improve optical instruments, which in turn advanced astronomy and microscopy. He was recognized as the leading mathematician and optician of his time. A lunar crater and an asteroid are named after Descartes.

Descartes's drawing of observing a rainbow, 1637

Curious facts

• Descartes was so sickly child that even in a strict Jesuit school he was allowed to get up later than the rest of the students.
• The Swedish Queen Christina, who was a fan of the scientist, persuaded him to move to Stockholm, where she forced him to get up at five in the morning and teach her science. Descartes' fragile health could not bear such stress and the harsh northern climate.
• The coordinate system discovered by Descartes reduced the number of duels in France. In those days, there were often bloody disputes over seats in the theater; the designation of rows and seats minimized the proceedings.
• During the reburial in France, it was discovered that Descartes' skull had disappeared, which had been passed from hand to hand, later appeared at a Swedish auction, and was then transferred to a Paris museum. There are also suggestions that collectors appropriated Descartes' jaw and finger.
• In the area of ​​the crater on the Moon, named after the scientist, strong magnetic anomalies and moonquakes are constantly observed.
• Russian academician I. Pavlov considered Descartes the predecessor of his research and erected a monument to him in the form of a bust next to his laboratory at the Institute of Physiology.

4. Outstanding thinkers: Rene Descartes and his contributions

into the theory of knowledge.

In the range of questions of philosophy that Descartes developed, the question of the method of cognition was of paramount importance. Like F. Bacon, Descartes saw the ultimate goal of knowledge in the dominance of man over the forces of nature, in the discovery and invention technical means, knowledge of causes and actions, in improving human nature itself. Descartes is looking for, of course, a reliable initial principle for all knowledge and a method by which it is possible, based on this principle, to build an equally reliable building of all science. He finds neither this principle nor this method in scholasticism. Therefore, the starting point of Descartes’ philosophical reasoning is doubt about the truth of generally accepted knowledge, covering all types of knowledge. However, like Bacon, the doubt with which Descartes began is not the conviction of an agnostic, but only a preliminary one. methodical technique. You can doubt whether the external world exists, and even whether my body exists, but my doubt itself, in any case, exists. Doubt is one of the acts of thinking. I doubt because I think. If, therefore, doubt is a reliable fact, then it exists only because thinking exists, since I myself exist as a thinker: “...I think, therefore I exist...”.

In the doctrine of knowledge, Descartes was the founder of rationalism, which emerged as a result of observation of the logical nature of mathematical knowledge. Mathematical truths, according to Descartes, are completely reliable, have universality and necessity, arising from the nature of the intellect itself. Therefore, Descartes assigned the final role in the process of cognition to deduction, by which he understood reasoning based on completely reliable initial positions (axioms) and consisting of a chain of also reliable logical conclusions. The reliability of the axioms is perceived by the mind intuitively, with complete clarity and distinctness. For a clear and distinct representation of the entire chain of links of deduction, the power of memory is needed. Therefore, directly obvious starting points, or intuitions, have an advantage over deductive reasoning. Armed with reliable means of thinking - intuition and deduction, the mind can achieve complete certainty in all areas of knowledge, if only it is guided by the true method.

Thus, an important part of Descartes' plan is not new science, which he developed, and his concept of the methods with which he was to conduct research. In his part-biographical, part-philosophical work, published in 1637, entitled Discourse on a Method for Rightly Directing Your Mind and Finding Truth in the Sciences, he sets out four rules which he claims are sufficient for to guide your mind:

“The first is to never accept as true anything that I do not clearly recognize as such, that is, to carefully avoid haste and prejudice and include in my judgments only what is presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that it cannot give to anyone in any way reason for doubt (i.e., admit as true only such provisions that seem true and distinct and cannot raise any doubts about their truth).

The second is to divide each of the difficulties I am considering into as many parts as necessary to better resolve them (i.e., dismember each complex problem into the particular problems or tasks that constitute it).

The third is to arrange your thoughts in a certain order, starting with the simplest and easily cognizable objects, and ascend little by little, as if by steps, to the knowledge of the most complex, allowing for the existence of order even among those that in the natural course of things do not precede each other (i.e. i.e., methodically move from the known and proven to the unknown and unproven).

And the last thing is to make lists everywhere so complete and reviews so comprehensive as to be sure that nothing is missed” (i.e., do not allow any omissions in the logical links of the study).

First of all, Descartes' method is a questioning method. In other words, it is a method of proving what you already know, or improving your knowledge by systematizing it. Descartes' rules of mind should serve as a guide for a person who is trying to solve any problem or analyze any phenomenon. In other words, he takes the point of view of a person who does not yet know something, but is trying to discover that something with the help of his mind, and not from the point of view of a teacher or expert who is absolutely sure that he knows something and is simply trying to explain it's for someone else.

Secondly, Descartes' method is a method of doubt. His first rule: “never accept as true anything that I do not clearly recognize as such.” What Descartes means is that we should refuse to accept something, no matter how certain we already are, no matter how many people believe it, no matter how obvious it may seem, until we can be absolutely sure of it. that this is 100% true. If there is the slightest, the most vague, the weakest doubt regarding the truth of such a fact, then we should not accept it.

When the method of questioning is combined with the method of doubt, a transformation of the very nature of philosophy begins. This transformation, called by some the epistemological turn, took a century and a half to complete, right up to Kant’s “critique of pure reason.” After this, all philosophy changed so much that the very questions that philosophers posed, as well as the answers they gave, bore very little resemblance to what was written before the “Reflections...”. The epistemological turn is a very simple but tricky concept.

The heart of the epistemological turn is nothing more than a reversal in the formulation of two fundamental questions of philosophy. From the time of the first pre-Socratic cosmologists to the era of Descartes, philosophers put first questions about what exists, about the nature of the Universe, and only then asked what can I know about what the nature of the Universe is. This means that philosophers believed that questions of existence have superiority and they more important than questions consciousness. Thus, in the philosophy that preceded Descartes, metaphysics took precedence over epistemology.

Descartes' two methods - the method of questioning and the method of doubt - are the result of a revision of the previous state of affairs. Taken in the literal sense of the word and carried out with a consistency and firmness that Descartes himself never achieved, these two methods forced philosophers to postpone questions of being until they resolved questions of knowledge. And this very fact of changing the meaning of questions about being so that by the time the revolution begun by Descartes took its course, led to the fact that the old type of metaphysics ended its existence, and the new type of epistemology took its place as the main philosophy.

As mentioned above, when Descartes summarized the evidence for his own existence on Latin, he used the phrase: “Cogito, ergo sum”, which means “I think, therefore I exist.” Thus, his proof became known in philosophical parlance as the Cogito - argument. The utterance or assertion of a statement is the decisive moment because it is the assertion that guarantees truth. The point is that if a statement is asserted, then someone must be making that assertion, and if I am asserting it, that someone must be me. Needless to say, I cannot use this evidence to assert the existence of anyone else. My assertion of any statement, true or false about myself or about anyone else, guarantees that I exist because I am the subject (that is, the one who asserts, that is, consciously thinks, this statement). And this is key point- a statement is a statement, and, therefore, it must be affirmed by someone.

In his first “Meditations...” Descartes doubts everything that is not known with certainty. He goes so far as to adopt such a strict criterion of certainty that, ultimately, nothing short of the assertion of his own existence can satisfy his requirements. Considering the diversity of his beliefs, Descartes further divides them into two large groups: those beliefs that he believed were known to him based on the evidence of his own feelings, and those beliefs which he believed to be known to him on the basis of thinking with the help of general concepts. Thus, through the argumentation in the first Meditation..., Descartes raises two main problems. The first is the issue of credibility. What criterion of truth should we accept as the standard to which we compare our knowledge? The second problem is the problem of sources of knowledge. If we know something, then the question arises: is our knowledge based on sources of sense, on abstract reasoning, or on some combination of both? The philosophy of the next 150 years after the publication of "Reflections..." was various variations these two main topics.

Descartes himself offered preliminary answers to questions about certainty and the sources of knowledge in the final part of the second “Meditations...”. Regarding the problem of reliability, he proposed two criteria, two tests of the reliability of reflection:

1. “...a clear and distinct sense that I am making an utterance, which in reality would not be sufficient to convince me that what I am saying is true.”

2. “...all the things that I feel, quite clearly and distinctly, are true.”

As for the sources of our knowledge, Descartes honestly and directly takes the side of reason, and not the side of the senses. This is exactly what one would expect from someone who dreamed of creating mathematical physics. Instead of observing and collecting data based on sight, hearing, smell and touch, Descartes prefers to create universal system science, based on logical and mathematical premises and justified by strict deduction. To convince his readers of the primacy of reason in the process of knowledge, Descartes uses what is called a “thought experiment.” In other words, he asks us to imagine with him a certain situation (in this case, him sitting near the fireplace with a piece of wax in his hand), and then he tries to make us see, through the analysis of the situation, that our methods of reasoning and knowledge must have certainty. character. Philosophers often resort to this kind of statement when they are trying to establish some general proposition rather than prove a specific fact. In modern science it is believed that thought experiment cannot be used as evidence. In reality he is rather simple tool exploration of the logical and conceptual relationships between various ideas, as it must be supplemented by careful calculations.

Rene Descartes is the greatest scientist and thinker, the founder of European rationalist philosophy. Descartes' philosophy became a fundamental teaching. The thinker's contribution to mathematics and psychology became fundamental for subsequent great discoveries.

Brief biography

Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1596 in France, in the province of Touraine. He came from a noble family, ancient but impoverished. He was a sickly child. Already in early age he showed great interest in science and was distinguished by his curiosity.

In 1606, his father sent Descartes to the Jesuit college of La Flèche. There he studied mathematics and other sciences. There he formed negative opinion about scholastic philosophy, and retained this attitude throughout his life. After completing his college studies, Descartes continued his education at the University of Poitiers. In 1616 he became a bachelor in law.

The following year Descartes entered the military service in order to find out the light. This year was decisive for him in scientific issues and views. He traveled extensively throughout Europe and took part in battles. Despite the lack of time, he did not abandon his studies in philosophy and science. In 1619, while in winter camp near Neuburg, Descartes decided to analyze existing philosophy and build it anew.

This decision was the reason for Descartes' resignation. He spent several years traveling in Germany, Italy, and Paris. In 1628, the philosopher moved to Holland and spent 20 years there. He devoted this time to writing the most significant works - “The World”, “Discourses on the Method...”, “The Origin of Philosophy”. Descartes for a long time refused to publish his works to avoid clashes with the clergy. The philosopher’s ideas were accused of freethinking, but there were also supporters of his teachings, including the Swedish Queen Christina. In 1649, she invited him to Sweden to teach her philosophy. Shortly after moving to Stockholm, Descartes fell ill with pneumonia. Weak in health and unaccustomed to the harsh climate, he died on February 11, 1650.

Doubt as a rationalistic method

The philosophy of Rene Descartes is one of the foundations of European culture. It is built on the search for irrefutable foundations of any knowledge. The thinker sought to achieve absolute truth, reliable and logically unshakable. The opposite approaches were:

• empiricism, based on sensory experience and content with relative truth;
• mysticism, based on supersensible, mystical knowledge.

Descartes, in his search for truth, did not rely on sensory experience, considering its reliability questionable. Evidence of the unreliability of empirical experience is in numerous deceptions of the senses. Also, Descartes did not rely on mystical knowledge. According to the philosopher, in the search for absolute truth, everything can be questioned. The only one irrefutable fact is our thinking. The fact of thinking convinces us of our existence. Descartes expressed this belief in the famous aphorism “I think, therefore I am.” This truth is irrefutable, and therefore is the first point on which Descartes’ worldview was built. In his opinion, humanity has no other criterion of clarity. Therefore, all philosophical positions should be built on it.

Thoughts about God and the material world

Descartes talked a lot about the existence of God and the nature of the material world. The belief in the existence of the material world is based on human sensory perception, but it cannot be established for certain whether people are deceived by their perception. Descartes sought a guarantee of the reliability of sensory perception. Such a guarantee is only the fact that the being who created man with his feelings and sensations is perfect and denies the idea of ​​​​deception.

Man recognizes himself as imperfect only in comparison with an all-perfect being - God. The thought of such a creature could only have been put into the minds of people by God himself. This means that the idea of ​​God as a perfect being is already proof of him. Another proof is that our own existence can only be explained by recognizing the existence of God. After all, if man had not been created by God, but had come from himself, he would have put into himself all the perfect qualities. The origin of man from his ancestors shows that there is a first cause - God.

The scientist’s reasoning was structured like this: God is a perfect being, and among his perfections is absolute truthfulness. This means that human sensory knowledge is true. After all, God could not deceive people, since deception contradicts the idea of ​​him as a perfect being.

The duality of material and ideal

Descartes worked a lot on the main issue of philosophy, and in his judgments demonstrated dualism - that is, the acceptance of two principles at once, material and ideal. But despite this, the scientist was a materialist in matters relating to explanations of nature. The universe is made of matter and movement, there is no divine power in it. He also talked about animals, calling them complex machines.

But as for man, here we're talking about about the immaterial soul and the participation of God. This concept contained the dualistic attitude of the scientist. Descartes believed that the activity of the human soul cannot be explained based on mechanical principles. Thinking is not identified with bodily organs, it is pure spirit. The plasticity and adaptability of the soul proves its divine origin. The main difference between human thinking is versatility, the ability to serve under various circumstances.

No less important difference man from machine (including from animals), Descartes believed the presence of meaningful speech. He reasoned that even weak-minded people could use meaningful speech. Deaf and mute people invent meaningful sign language. Animals, even if they are healthy and raised in ideal conditions, are incapable of such a thing. Animals have organs for speaking words, but they do not have the ability to think like humans.

Views on ethics and morality

The scientist's ethical views were based on the “natural light” of reason. Descartes expressed his thoughts on ethics in letters, essays and in his work “Discourse on Method”. In relation to the thinker, the influence of Stoicism is noticeable. The ideas of Stoicism were based on courage and firmness, manifested in life's trials. The Stoics equalized people before world law. They viewed moral actions as an act of self-preservation and the common good, and immoral actions as self-destruction.

Then, in letters to Princess Elizabeth, Descartes described own ideas ethics. He reasoned that spirit and matter are opposites, and a person needs to move away from the bodily aspects. The thinker described the idea of ​​the “infinity of the universe,” which consisted in elevation above the material, earthly, and in humility before the wisdom of God.

The scientist believed that highest form intellectual love (as opposed to passionate) lies in love for God, as for that infinite whole of which we are a part. Love, even disordered love, is higher than hate. The philosopher considered hatred an indicator of human weakness. He saw the essence of morality in the ability to love what is worthy of love. This gives a person true joy. Descartes condemned people who drowned their consciences with tobacco and alcohol.

Contribution to philosophy

Descartes took a courageous approach to questions of philosophy, insisting on a new attitude towards the truths on which science rests. He demanded that trust be abandoned sensory cognition(empiricism) to build new world philosophy. The foundations of science must withstand the test of radical doubt. He demonstrated clarity and simplicity of thinking, relying on the fact of human self-awareness as absolute truth. The thinker recognized metaphysics, but when analyzing nature, he leaned towards mechanism. Therefore, in the future, materialists referred to him, whose views he did not share.

The teachings and views of Descartes gave rise to many disputes among representatives of philosophy and theology. Opponents of his teachings were Hobbes, the Jesuit Valois, and Gassendi. They accused him of skepticism and atheism and persecuted him. But the thinker also had adherents of his theories in Holland and France.

Influence on various sciences

Descartes made undeniable contributions to physiological and psychological anthropology. Not all of his views later turned out to be correct, but some ideas were extremely important. A fundamental discovery in the field of psychology was his idea about reflexes and reflex activity. He also studied the nature of affects - bodily states that act as regulators of the psyche. The term "affects" is also used in modern world as certain emotional states.

Descartes made a number of important discoveries in mathematics. He became the founder of analytical geometry, created the method of indefinite coefficients, and worked on understanding the meaning of negative roots of equations. One of his most significant contributions is his way of showing the nature and properties of any curve using equations between a pair of coordinate variables. Descartes' work opened up new possibilities for scientists in geometry. On the basis laid by the thinker, brilliant and extremely important discoveries were built. The works “Geometry” and “Dioptrics” published by him explored the topics of refraction of light rays. Subsequently, this served as the foundation for the great discoveries of Newton and Leibniz.