Cartesianism

Cartesianism is the philosophical and scientific system of Rene Descartes and its development by other seventeenth century thinkers, most notably Francois Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza. Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences. Cartesians view the mind as wholly separate from the corporeal body, and the question of how mind and body interact remained a persistent difficulty, with different Cartesians giving different answers. Descartes held that all existence consists of three substances, matter, mind and God. The system is a form of rationalism, holding that scientific knowledge can be derived a priori from innate ideas through deductive reasoning, and so is opposed to both Aristotelianism and empiricism. It was popular among university teachers in the Netherlands and in France, but made little headway in Italy and England.