Rene Descartes: Philosophy in the 17th Century

The Crisis of the 17th Century

René Descartes lived in a period marked by uncertainty and confusion arising from the crisis suffered by the man of the seventeenth century. The old skills were no longer valid and were discussed and questioned by the intellectuals of the time. Two main causes contributed to this malaise and confusion: the scientific revolution and the loss of religious unity.

• The scientific revolution dismantled theories that had been maintained for centuries, like the geocentric, Aristotelian theories, or the scholastic method.
• The loss of religious unity led Christian Europe to be divided into three groups: Catholic, Protestant, and Anglican. This division was the cause of many conflicts for centuries, such as the Thirty Years' War.

Rationalism vs. Empiricism

The philosophy of the time tried to approach the method and the mathematical certainty with which science had made progress. Its mission was to create a base on which new scientific theories could relate and be consistent, to create a new world view. Two schools of thought emerged about how to do this: rationalism and empiricism. Both strands were based on the mathematical method and the observation of reality and valued the role of reason and experience in attaining knowledge.

However, rationalism, initiated by Descartes himself, gave reason the leading role, while empiricism, initiated by Thomas Hobbes, focused on experience as the foundation of knowledge.

Main Features of Rationalist Philosophy

Several key features characterized rationalist philosophy:

1. Complete trust in human reason, arguing that only it can reach the truth.
2. The affirmation of the existence of innate ideas, a trait that Plato also claimed, suggesting that knowledge is somehow present in the human soul.
3. The search for a suitable method to access knowledge.
4. The proposal of a metaphysics based on the idea of substance, which reduces Aristotle's division to three principles: substance, attributes, and modes.
5. Mechanism, which argues that reality is a giant mechanism that can be analyzed and understood.

The Context of Rationalism

The rationalists were located mainly in Holland, Germany, and France. France was the hegemonic state at the time and was led by King Louis XIV's absolutism. After the Thirty Years' War, which pitted Catholics and Protestants against each other, the Spanish Empire lost most of its possessions, among which was the Netherlands. The Netherlands then began a period of great prosperity, progress, and tolerance.

Descartes' Most Prominent Works

Descartes' most prominent works were:

• Meditations on First Philosophy: A work in which the author rejects any belief that is not absolutely true and then tries to establish what can be known with certainty.
• Rules for the Direction of the Mind: Sets forth his vision for the foundation of knowledge.
• Discourse on Method: Expounds his theory and method for attaining knowledge and explains some knowledge gained through it.

Descartes claimed that the goal of his philosophy was to build the foundation that rationalists and empiricists were trying to give to science.

Descartes' Influence

The influence of Descartes on a philosophy that was outdated and useless for the time was enormous. He innovated and created a method that allowed for progress and adapted philosophy to the new currents. His confidence in reason remains to this day and has great importance in our society and its method. On the other hand, Cartesian individualism also remains rooted in our society, in which the individual must define their identity in a world dominated by advertising and big business.