Too often when we study philosophical work and the thinkers who posited these works, we are inclined to forget that the theories they advanced from took place in a time very different from our own. For starters, there were no such thing as computers or condos downtown Toronto. In fact, there was no real downtown Toronto at all. Studying without putting the philosophy in context with its time can lead to false conclusions about what the philosopher is positing, or why it is that that particular intellectual formed ideas as he or she did.
Putting thoughts and philosophers into a historical context becomes particularly important with early modern philosophers, as much of the philosophy we ascribe to today is a direct result of the works of these thinkers, which in turn were a result of the times in which they lived. This is comparable to saying for a person in a real estate career, the location of that real estate says the most about it. Rene Descartes is a particularly apt illustration of this; Descartes stated several times as though he would like to write on his ideas as though the theories he was presenting had never been written before. In the absence of works of import on his topics, then, one must look at the events that were to impact his development, and what better way than through a brief look at a biography of the man?
Early Life and Education
Rene Descartes was born in 1596 in the village of La Haye en Touraine in the province of Indre-e-Loire, France (his birth place has since been re-christened Descartes). His father was a judge in the French High Court of Justice, and wanted his son to pursue a career in law, much like himself. Descartes' educational path was sped up considerably by the death of his mother who passed when young Rene was only a year old. His father pushed him hard, in fact entering young Descartes into College at the tender age of eight. While before the invention of manufacturing equipment like an automatic strapping machine opened the door for children working at a young age, this was still very young to be attending college!
Rene Descartes would enter the University of Poitiers in accordance with his father's wishes after his college graduation, and earn a degree in law in 1616, at the age of twenty. At this point, however, Descartes junior departed from his father's wishes and became a mercenary. His reason for this radical change, in his own words, was to discover truth not through books but through experiences on his own and through others. This made about as much sense to his father as if today someone got a law degree and then gave it up to operate a pin mixer all day.
Introduction to Higher Thought
During his travels, Descartes met and became friends with several influential thinkers in the fields of physics and mathematics. People who would later pave the way for the invention of everything from the television to a pressure calibrator. In particular, Descartes took an interest in the relationship between mathematics and nature, a relationship, which was to influence all of his subsequent work in the philosophical arena.
A return to France in 1622 was followed six years later by a move to the Netherlands, where Descartes spent the next two decades and where he would write most of his historical works. The year he left the Netherlands, in order to act as teacher to the Queen of Sweden, was also the year of his death, 1650. It is believed that he contracted pneumonia.
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