René Descartes
1596-1650 · Rationalism · Household name
Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician who threw out every belief he could find a reason to doubt, hunting for one that survived. Even a demon feeding him lies could not fake the fact that he was doing the thinking: I think, therefore I am. He then split mind off from matter into two kinds of thing, leaving the puzzle of how the two ever touch. He and Fermat invented analytic geometry, each alone.
Signature
The position Descartes is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain
- Perception
- Indirect Realism
Positions on the 9 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Mechanistic (5 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (100 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (13 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (88 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (92 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Mastery (21 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
11 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Descartes refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Knowledge
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Indirect Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal First Cause
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?