Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was the greatest of French philosophers and the father of modern philosophy. Also a great mathematician, he founded the subject of analytic geometry and introduced the use of Cartesian coordinates. He rejected the elaborate and confused concepts of scholasticism in favor of clear and distinct ideas. In his search for a sure foundation for knowledge he employed the method of universal doubt, questioning everything, accepting nothing. The first indubitable idea he discovered was "I think, therefore I am," and from this he deduced everything else. He believed that there are certain innate ideas that are inherent rather than acquired by sense experience, putting him at odds with John Locke and the empiricist philosophers of the Enlightenment. His rationalistic approach to philosophy and science was dominant until the Twentieth century.