Rene Descartes
Biography
Philosopher René Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, in La Haye en Touraine, he was the youngest of three children. However, his mother died when he was 1 year old. His father is a council member in the provincial parliament. He was extensively educated, first at a Jesuit college at age 8. Descartes was a good and diligent student, the subject that he studied is rhetoric and logic and also the mathematical arts which included the music and astronomy. Descartes later added theology and medicine to his studies. Descartes a very influential teacher. A year after graduating from Poitiers, Descartes credited a series of three very powerful dreams or visions with determining the course of his study for the rest of his life. He is also called as the "Father of modern philosophy" for his unique ideas. Descartes never married, but he did have a daughter, Francine, born in the Netherlands in 1635. Francine’s mother was a maid in the home where he was staying. But she did of a fever at the age of 5. Descartes lived in the Netherlands for more than 20 years but died in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 11, 1650. He also become the tutor of Queen Christina in philosophy. Descartes’ approach of combining mathematics and logic with philosophy to explain the physical world turned metaphysical when confronted with questions of theology; it led him to a contemplation of the nature of existence and the mind-body duality, identifying the point of contact for the body with the soul at the pineal gland.
