Rene Descartes: Jesuit Educated

Educated in Catholic schools by the Jesuits at the Jesuit College of La Flèche between 1606 and 1614, Rene Descartes came of age during the scientific revolution. Observation and the empirical method had tumbled old belief systems and provoked crises in faith in individual identity. Doubts pervaded every aspect of life, and it was Descartes' destiny to grapple with and resolve them.

With everything in turmoil, how can people be sure they even exist? His answer, "I think, therefore I am," has reverberated through the centuries,

positing a radical and dualistic sense of self, based not on external authority, divine or regal, but on subjectivity.

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