Descartes: A Biography

Although René Descartes' (1596-1650) is best remembered today for writing "I think, therefore, I am," his unique contribution to the history of ideas was his effort to construct a philosophy that would be sympathetic to the new sciences that emerged in the seventeenth century. In four major publications, he fashioned a philosophical system that accommodated the needs of these new sciences, thereby earning the unrelenting hostility of both Catholic and Calvinist theologians, who relied on th...