Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Descartes

(René Descartes)

1596 – 1650 CE

Though remaining a Catholic, solidifying the dualistic view in Western thought as well as "Cogito ergo sum" belief in a separate self; Descartes emphasized methodic doubt and the impossibility of externally based intellectual certainty undermining faith in belief and Church doctrine. This sparked a thought revolution that created the modern era. He developed analytic geometry (using x, y, and z for unknowns) and using superscripts for powers or exponents, discovered the law of reflection, and the basis for the development of calculus. Known as the “father of modern philosophy,” he changed the course of Western philosophy and his influence continues to this day.

Lineages

Eras

Western

The Age of Reason: The Enlightenment (1620 – 1800 CE)

Chinese

Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644 CE)
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE)

Quotes by Descartes

Quotes about Descartes (3 quotes)

“This mistake began with Descartes. Such destruction is the penalty for the crime of thinking that nature exists because man exists and of sacrificing nature for man.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka 福岡 正信 1913 – 2008 CE
from Road Back to Nature

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“Descartes—born to discover the errors of antiquity but also to substitute his own in their place, and dragged along by that systematic spirit which blinds the greatest men—imagined he had demonstrated that the soul was the same thing as thought.”

— Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet 1694 – 1778 CE via Naves
from Philosophical Letters (1730)

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“Descartes was a philosopher, a mathematician, and a man of science. In philosophy and mathematics, his work was of supreme importance... he resolved to make himself doubt everything that he could manage to doubt.”

— Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970 CE
“20th century Voltaire”
from History of Western Philosophy

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