Descartes
...was not only a philosopher, but also a mathematician, physiologist, and physicist. Looked at by many as the "father of modern science", he created a new way of thinking about science and philosophy. His ideas were far different from the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that the rest of the world was so accustomed to believing, as he created a new relationship between philosophy and theology. Descartes new ideas, and more specifically his argument for universal doubt, challenged all other philosophical theories.
In his first two books of Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes expresses the radical doubt that he possesses and the disbelief he has of the philosophical ideas of Aristotle and the Church. The Cartesian Method of Doubt is the system he created in which he examines those things that he thinks to be true and set aside all those beliefs of which there might be some doubt. As a philosopher, he brings up the question, what is certain and what is not? And if something were certain, who would make it certain? Descartes elaborates on this topic a great deal in his first Meditation.
Unsatisfied with the methods of philosophy at the time, Rene Descartes masterminded a new method in which mathematical processes were applied to all aspects of life in order to achieve perfect certainty in human knowledge. According to Descartes himself, "I will, nevertheless, make an effort, and try anew the same path on which I had entered yesterday, that is, proceed by casting aside all that admits of the slightest doubt, not less than if I had discovered it to be absolutely false; and I will continue always in this track until I shall find something that is certain, or at least, if I can do nothing more, until I shall know with certainty that there is nothing certain" (Rene Descartes, Meditation II). In the first book of the Meditation, Descartes...
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