Rene Descartes was born in La Haye, Touraine (France) in March of fifteen ninety-six. During the course of his life, he made many significant contributions to the progress of science, because of these achievements, he is known as the father of modern philosophy. He was a distinguished physicist, physiologist, astronomer, meteorologist, and mathematician. But he is most well known one of the most highly original philosophers of modern times. His practice was to dismiss the works of Aristotle, and start with a fresh approach. He was a skeptic to say the least, he doubted everything, and his goal was to uncover all the layers of assumed truths in order to find the definite truths. In the fashion of Socrates, Decartes recognized how little he did know, and tried not to profess any more. Though this was not always true (it turned out that he was very proud and sometimes unwilling to be corrected), his philosophy can be paralleled to Socrates.
Descartes was a student at La Fleche in Anjou at the age of eight. He studied the classics, logic, medicine, and traditional Aristotelian philosophy until 1612. From La Fleche he went to the University of Poitiers, where he received a degree in law. Between 1616 and 1620 Descartes took a slight interest in Public service when he joined the military. From 1616-1619 he was enrolled in the military school at Breda, and then later in 1619 he joined the Bavarian army (a region of Europe now part of Germany). Between 1620 and 1628 he traveled Europe visiting Bojemia, Germany, Holland, France, and Italy. After much travel he retired to Holland to live the remaining twenty years years of his life.
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Descartes was a devout Catholic, this caused him to work his way into a logical trap when he tried to prove that god is responsible for both the good and the bad in life. He is clearly distressed in his works regarding the topic, and ultimately gives up by blaming so called "demons" for being the source of evil in the world.
