Descartes
Profoundly influenced by Euclid, Descartes was a rationalist who invented the foundationalist system of philosophy. He used the method of doubt, now called Cartesian doubt, to systematically doubt everything he could possibly doubt, until he was left with what he saw as purely indubitable truths. Using these self-evident propositions as his axioms, or foundations, he went on to deduce his entire body of knowledge from them. The foundations are also called a priori truths. His most famous proposition is I think, therefore I am, or Cogito ergo sum.
Read more about this topic: First Principle
Famous quotes containing the word descartes:
“One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.”
—René Descartes (1596–1650)
“it is not possible for there to be in us any thought of which, at the moment it is in us, we are not conscious.”
—René Descartes (1596–1650)
“... moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false.”
—René Descartes (1596–1650)