René Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a French mathematician, philosopher and scientist. He is considered the father of modern Western philosophy, propounding a rationalist metaphysics as a rejection of the scholastic tradition. His best known philosophical st

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René Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a French mathematician, philosopher and scientist. He is considered the father of modern Western philosophy, propounding a rationalist metaphysics as a rejection of the scholastic tradition. His best known philosophical statement, "cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"), is Descartes' expression of belief in the intuition of ones own reality, a concept that laid the foundation for 17th century rationalism. Engraving from Vies des Savants Illustres (1876).

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