René Descartes

René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician and scientific thinker who made methodical doubt central to modern philosophy. Discourse on the Method presents his search for a dependable way of reasoning through a compact, partly autobiographical argument. Meditations on First Philosophy turns that method into a more concentrated inquiry, moving from distrust of the senses toward the thinking self and the foundations of knowledge. Principles of Philosophy extends the project into a systematic account of metaphysics and nature, while The Passions of the Soul tests the relation between mind, body and emotion. His mathematical work joined algebraic techniques to geometry, reflecting the same pursuit of ordered demonstration. Discourse on the Method offers the most accessible route into his intellectual project; Meditations on First Philosophy provides the deeper encounter with its metaphysical stakes.