Descartes Publishes Discourse on Method

1637

A French philosopher living in quiet Dutch lodgings published a slim book in French, not Latin, arguing that true knowledge must begin with systematic doubt. Cogito, ergo sum, he wrote. I think, therefore I am. Western philosophy would need, from that moment, a different starting point, and the division between mind and matter that Descartes proposed would haunt thinkers for centuries.