René Descartes was born at La Haye near Tours on 31 March 1596. He was educated at the Jesuit
Collège de La Flèche in Anjou, and at the University of Poitiers, ...
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René Descartes was born at La Haye near Tours on 31 March 1596. He was educated at the Jesuit
Collège de La Flèche in Anjou, and at the University of Poitiers, where he took a Licentiate in Law in
1616. Two years later he entered the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau in the Netherlands, and met a
local schoolmaster, Isaac Beeckman, who fostered his interest in mathematics and physics. After further
travels in Europe he settled in Paris in 1625, and came into contact with scientists, theologians, and
philosophers in the circle of the Minim friar Marin Mersenne. At the end of 1628 Descartes left for the
Netherlands, which he made his home until 1648; he devoted himself to carrying forward the mathematical,
scientific, and philosophical work he had begun in Paris. When he learned of the condemnation of Galileo
for heresy in 1633, he abandoned his plans to publish a treatise on physics, and under pressure from his
friends consented to have the
Discourse on the Method printed, with three accompanying
essays on topics in which he had made discoveries. In 1641 his
Meditations on First
Philosophy appeared, setting out the metaphysical underpinnings of his physical theories;
these were accompanied by objections written by contemporary philosophers, and Descartes’s replies to
them. His writings provoked controversy in both France and the Netherlands, where his scientific ideas
were banned in one university; his works, however (including the
Principles of
Philosophy of 1644), continued to be published, and to bring him notoriety and renown. In
1648 he accepted an invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden to settle in Stockholm; it was there he
died of pneumonia on 11 February 1650.
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