French philosopher and mathematician who founded modern philosophy through radical methodological doubt, the cogito, and the substance dualism of mind and body.
Methodological doubt: systematically doubt everything to find an indubitable foundation. Cogito ergo sum: the thinking thing cannot doubt its own existence. Mind-body dualism: mind (res cogitans) and body (res extensa) are distinct substances. Invented analytic geometry. Mechanistic physics of the material world.
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