View
218
Download
3
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
Emilangues
The Big Four © 2012 – SCÉRÉN – CNDP
RENE DESCARTES FRENCH (1596-1650)
René Descartes, (1834 – 1650), philosophe.
Huile sur toile d’après Frans Hals l’Ancien
(C) RMN – GP (Musée du Louvre. Paris) / Thierry Le Mage
DESCARTES’S BIOGRAPHY
Emilangues
The Big Four © 2012 – SCÉRÉN – CNDP
I. Presentation
The person a) Dates: birth and death
March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650
b) Where does he come from?
Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), Indre-et-Loire, France.
c) Did his family’s occupation show him the way? No, it didn’t.
He was one year old when his mother Jeanne Brochard died of tuberculosis. His father Joachim was a
judge in the High Court of Justice. At the age of eleven, he entered the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-
Grand at La Flèche. After graduation, he studied at the University of Poitiers, earning a Baccalauréat and
License in law in 1616, in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer.
d) Job, what age, where did he start?
On November 10, 1618, while walking through Breda (Holland), Descartes met Isaac Beeckman, who
sparked his interest in mathematics and the new physics, particularly the problem of the fall of heavy
bodies. On November 10, 1619, while traveling in Germany and thinking about using mathematics to
solve problems in physics, Descartes had a dream through which he "discovered the foundations of a
marvelous science". This became a pivotal point in young Descartes' life and the foundation on which he
developed analytic geometry. He lived in Holland until September 1649. In April 1629 he joined the
University of Franeker and the next year Leiden University.
The background e) The century.
17th
Enlightenment; great writers
f) What happened in political life and society at that time? (Wars, dictatorship, Church…)
The Thirty Years' War was fought between 1618 and 1648, principally on the territory of today's
Germany, and involved most of the major European continental powers. Although it was ostensibly a
religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the rivalry between the Habsburg dynasty and other
powers was a more central motive,
g) What happened in the scientific field at that time? (Main discoveries, state of knowledge,
contemporary people…)
In 1633, Galileo was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, debates about heliocentrism.
Pascal
Leibniz
II. His work
Works and discoveries h) What is he famous for? "Discourse on the Method" published in 1637
i) Which less famous work did he do?
He showed by using geometric construction and the law of refraction (also known as Descartes's law in
France) that the angular radius of a rainbow is 42 degrees (i.e. the angle subtended at the eye by the edge
of the rainbow and the ray passing from the sun through the rainbow's centre is 42°). He also
independently discovered the law of reflection, and his essay on optics was the first published mention of
this law.
Emilangues
The Big Four © 2012 – SCÉRÉN – CNDP
j) What books did he write? (Title, date…)
1618. Compendium Musicae. A treatise on music theory and the aesthetics of music written for
Descartes's early collaborator Isaac Beeckman.
1626–1628. Regulae ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the Direction of the Mind). Incomplete.
First published posthumously in 1684. The best critical edition, which includes an early Dutch
translation, is edited by Giovanni Crapulli (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966).
1630–1633. Le Monde (The World) and L'Homme (Man). Descartes's first systematic presentation
of his natural philosophy. Man was first published in Latin translation in 1662; The World in
1664.
1637. Discours de la méthode (Discourse on the Method). An introduction to the Essais, which
include the Dioptrique, the Météores and the Géométrie.
1637. La Géométrie (Geometry). Descartes's major work in mathematics. There is an English
translation by Michael Mahoney (New York: Dover, 1979).
1641. Meditationes de prima philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy), also known as
Metaphysical Meditations. In Latin; a French translation, probably done without Descartes's
supervision, was published in 1647. Includes six Objections and Replies. A second edition,
published the following year, included an additional objection and reply, and a Letter to Dinet.
1644. Principia philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy), a Latin textbook at first intended by
Descartes to replace the Aristotelian textbooks then used in universities. A French translation,
Principes de philosophie by Claude Picot, under the supervision of Descartes, appeared in 1647
with a letter-preface to Queen Christina of Sweden.
1647. Notae in programma (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet). A reply to Descartes's one-time
disciple Henricus Regius.
1647. The Description of the Human Body. Published posthumously.
1648. Responsiones Renati Des Cartes… (Conversation with Burman). Notes on a Q&A session
between Descartes and Frans Burman on 16 April 1648. Rediscovered in 1895 and published for
the first time in 1896. An annotated bilingual edition (Latin with French translation), edited by
Jean-Marie Beyssade, was published in 1981 (Paris: PUF).
1649. Les passions de l'âme (Passions of the Soul). Dedicated to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.
1657. Correspondence. Published by Descartes's literary executor Claude Clerselier. The third
edition, in 1667, was the most complete; Clerselier omitted, however, much of the material
pertaining to mathematics
His work’s influence in the history of science k) How was his work accepted? (Were people shocked? Was it criticized? Was it admired?
Was it published?)
In 1663, the Pope placed his works on the Index of Prohibited Books
l) Who took up his ideas and went further?
It is during his second stay in France (1647) that it will meet Pascal and that it will inspire the
experiments of Puy-de-Dome to him on the atmospheric pressure.
Descartes' theory provided the basis for the calculus of Newton and Leibniz, by applying infinitesimal
calculus to the tangent line problem, thus permitting the evolution of that branch of modern mathematics.
m) Has his work/has his work had technological or philosophical applications?
With Descartes, the mathematical tools allow the development of a new science:
Descartes' rule of signs is also a commonly used method in modern mathematics to determine possible
quantities of positive and negative zeros of a function.
Emilangues
The Big Four © 2012 – SCÉRÉN – CNDP
One of Descartes most enduring legacies was his development of Cartesian geometry, the algebraic
system taught in schools today.
He also created exponential notation, indicated by numbers written in what is now referred to as
superscript (x²).
III. Some anecdotes-famous words Cogito ergo sum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPrbWwoBM6E
IV. Your conclusion: for you, why can he be said an important person?
Sources : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Recommended