Rene Descartes contributions: to mathematics, to psychology, to philosophy, to ecology, to education. Introduction. The father of modern western philosophy is René Descartes, who was born in 1596 and died in 1650.
He did many great things, but his main contribution was in contemporary philosophy, and his preparatory work is still famous and taught to students in many universities of the world. He made many statements, developed concepts and formulated theories fundamental to Western philosophy.
His most well-known phrase, “I think, therefore I am”, is so motivational. He was well known in philosophy, and he was also famous in science and mathematics. René Descartes created the Cartesian coordinate system, the basis for the development of calculus.
They created analytic geometry; his work on optics and other parts of physics is not hidden from the world. The ten significant accomplishments of Rene Descartes shows his great work on science, philosophy, and mathematics.
Rene Descartes is the founder of modern philosophy because he left the Scholastic Aristotelianism, adopted the first current version of mind-body dualism, offered various suggestions for the mind-body problems and promoted the new scientific experiments.
He applies an authentic system of systematic doubt and rejects the knowledge of senses, authority and laws based on intuitions. His words “Cogito, ergo sum,” in Latin and “Je pense, donc Je Suis” in French are well known.
He offered a metaphysical dualism different from the radically between mind, thinking and matter and promoted thinking ways in three dimensions. He was a rationalist with Descartes’s metaphysics, and his central ideas were based on populations of God, weight and mind.
At the same time, his physiology and physics ideas were based on mechanistic, empiricist and sensory experience. Joachim Descartes, René’s, was a lawyer at Brittany’s Court of Justice. Jeanne Brochard’s mother was the daughter of Lieutenant-General of Poitiers, and he had two elder siblings.
His mother died with a fourth child after one year of René’s birth. His father struggled a lot and worked six months as a lawyer about 200 miles from their home. The great uncle and grandmother look after him because his father remarried. Though his father lives in Rennes permanently, there was great bonding between them.
Rene Descartes suffered a lot from permanent cough and poor health, and doctors say he will not survive. His father arranged a nurse for him who regularly takes care of him, and in his adult life, he thinks that his nurse saves his life that’s why he arranged a regular pension for him.
He joined the school at the age of ten. Due to this delicate health, he was permitted to wake up late and enter the school. He learned theology, philosophy, Greek, and Latin for eight years at La Flèche. He learned physics and math in the final two years. He was a curious boy and asked endless questions and thought that the physics of Aristotle was wrong.
He learned a lot from the work of Galileo. That’s why he inspired his discovery about Jupiter’s moons. Galileo overturned Aristotle’s physics, but his career was still unpublished, and he was in discussion with Catholic Church. There is the following contribution of René in different fields.
Contributions to mathematics
Descartes contributed a lot to mathematics. René Descartes traveled to Holland in 1618 for his setup. There he met Isaac Beeckman, who was a thirty-year-old medicine student. He was shocked at Descartes’s knowledge of math. He showed the following facts in mathematics. He taught mathematics and algebra and their application to many problems.
He was applying mathematics to the tuning of lute strings and more precise spacing. He also offers algebraic formulas for checking water level when we hinder the way of water with heavy objects. If a pencil falls in a vacuum, he draws a geometric graph to show the accelerating speed of falling of that pencil in the next two hours.
He also proposed the men’s birth in airborne and standing to a pining top. He applied algebraic equations in 1618 to solve geometric problems. After that, Descartes invented analytic geometry.
He tried to offer a philosophical foundation on the development of Copernicus and Galileo’s work for the new mechanical physics. He divided everything in matter and mind and created a dualistic intelligent system. According to those rules, the reason does not follow physical laws, but another matter obeys its laws.
The philosophical system developed by Descartes is Cartesian philosophy. This development was based on assertions and skepticism that states all reliable knowledge is based on logical analysis.
The most Scientific Revolution was based upon subsequent philosophical thought. He published many treatises about mathematics. He published his top-class work in 1637 based on Seeking Truth in the Sciences and reasoning.
He also explains everything in motion and matter. He contained three appendices, one titled La Géometrie, one on meteorology and one on optics. In La Géometrie, he described coordinate geometry and Cartesian Coordinates. In the system of René Descartes, he united geometry and algebra-based on analytic geometry.
Rene Descartes’s contributions to psychology
René Descartes was the first who described the concept of emotions. His famous quote “I think therefore I am” explains his focus on cognition on the human experience. Descartes is famous for his idea of dualism in psychology. This theory shows that there are two realms to existence. Our first physical realm sees the things around us.
This realm is called the “realm of matter and energy” that is scientific and can be researched, and experts can describe it in a “mechanical” way. While our second release is related to the mind, it is “transcendent” to the physical environment, and you cannot measure it in material ways.
Dualism theory separates the non-physical release, and science allows scientific research to conduct without hitting religious groups. But, the main issue with dualism is it ignores the mind entirely and focuses on the action of humans. It researches the reason in a non-scientific way, which is an issue for psychologists.
It is also considered that these researches were a way to modern behavioral psychology. It stimulates the concept of stimulus-response because it is based on people’s behavior. Modern behavioral psychologists support this idea because the brain affects a lot on the behavior of humans and studying reactions.
He keeps a mechanistic view of the brain and believes that our body behaves according to physics and works precisely. Descartes proposed that the human body and mind interact with the pineal gland.
He thinks that tube-like structures in our body are responsible for our behavior because they cause cerebrospinal fluid to create a reaction. Many people opposed the ideas of Descartes because he opposed the contributions of Plato, but his work is still taught all over the world.
Rene Descartes’s contributions to philosophy
The first modern philosopher was Descartes, and he was often called the father of modern philosophy because his thoughts were more significant than those present in the Platto in thoughts. He offered a substantial connection between algebra and geometry. He used algebraic equations to solve geometrical problems.
He was the first figure who made a significant movement in philosophy known as rationalism. It was a method of understanding the ideas and world based on attaining knowledge. His ideas were different in the early 17th century and created great understanding because old thoughts were based on feelings, while he used the reasoning ways to understand the philosophy.
Rene Descartes’s contributions to ecology
Descartes was an all-rounder, and he takes part in all great pieces of knowledge. Besides philosophy, he worked a lot on science and ecology. He developed analytic geometry, created the Cartesian coordinate system, and created a base for the development of calculus. In the field of optics, his contribution is still alive.
He used the same scientific method as Francis Bacon used and left the old traditions because he used logic to describe the human body and its behavior affected by ecology.
He opposed the rules of ecology by the Church and formulated new ways. He used mathematics to build work for others; that’s why he is called the founder of analytical geometry. He made advanced things in optics with the study of reflection and refraction.
Rene Descartes contributions to education
Descartes formulated many methods to contribute to education. First of all, he made a method of learning. This method consisted of different rules such as solving problems by proceeding from, accepting nothing as authentic and dividing issues into parts to learn more and more. He thought that scientific methods could reveal the truth of the world.
He believes that religious institutions stop the students from asking more questions; that’s why science education is more necessary to teach them new things according to their mental level.
He thinks that different levels of education, such as mathematics and science, can contribute a lot to introducing more and more to students. All in all, he was a true philosopher who changed the world’s thinking.
Read also: Antonie van leeuwenhoek contributions; Rene Descartes Discoveries
External resources: Standford.edu
This post is also available in:
English 
Français (French) 
Deutsch (German) 
Nederlands (Dutch) 
Svenska (Swedish) 
Italiano (Italian)
