Philosopher
René
Descartes
(1596-1650)
is
often credited with being
the “Father of Modern Philosophy.” This title is justified due both to
his
break with the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy prevalent
at his
time and to his development and promotion of the new, mechanistic
sciences. His
fundamental break with Scholastic philosophy was twofold. First,
Descartes
thought that the Scholastics’ method was prone to doubt given their
reliance on
sensation as the source for all knowledge. Second, he wanted to replace
their
final causal model of scientific explanation with the more modern,
mechanistic
model.
