(Descartes; 02-03; p.2)
Science and co-ordinates
René Descartes (1596 - 1650) made his way into
the history of philosophy as founding father of rationalism. His
well-known "je pense, donc je suis" stands as the basic
axiom of his philosophy as result of his method.
The Frenchman firstly doubted everything to make sure that he
will not unconsciously include some assumption in the basics of
his philosophy. This radical doubt lead him to an insight that
he could not reasonably doubt: that the act of doubting, in general
of thinking, is a striking prove of his existence.
Based on this fundamental certainty Descartes
tried to create his philosophy on definitions and reasoning alone,
not letting in speculation nor mysticism.
A modern idea of science thus had been created, making it once
again possible to separate science from its middle age convergence
with theology; both could develop as independent disciplines since.
Especially for the later emerging natural sciences,
this philosophical idea had been ground-breaking: physics, chemistry
and biology could make use of mathematical methods to describe
To give a visual representation of such relations, Descartes invented
the system of co-ordinates which has been given his name. Every
dot - e.g. as an expression of a result that had been measured
- could be given an exactly defined "address". (read