| 1596 |
0 |
Descartes born at La Haye (now Descartes) near Tours |
| 1606 |
10 |
Begins as a boarder at the Jesuit college of La Flèche |
| 1614-1615 |
18 |
Leaves La Flèche and moves to Paris. Studies law, and perhaps some medicine, at the University of Poitiers, taking his baccalauréat and licence in civil and canon law in November 1616 |
| 1618 |
22 |
Joins the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau. Meets Isaac Beeckman, who rekindles his interest in scientific matters. Writes Compendium Musicae |
| 1619 |
23 |
Begins the year working intensively on mathematical and mechanical problems under Beeckman’s encouragement and guidance. Extant writings from this period include fragments on the mathematical description of free fall, and the hydrostatic paradoxes, which represents Descartes’ first excursion into micro-mechanical explanation. Early in he studies proportional compasses, and begins to formulate a theory of proportional magnitudes which will ultimately lead him in the direction of algebra. He spends the later part of the year stationed at Ulm. Here he begins to formulate a general theory of method |
| 1620 |
|
Begins work on his Rules for the Direction of the Native Intelligence, completing the first 11 Rules, then abandoning the project. He works intensively in geometry, and discovers some fundamental results in co-ordinate geometry |
| 1625-1626 |
|
Settles in Paris, and works on geometrical optics: he may have discovered the law of refraction as early as 1626 |
| 1626-1628 |
|
Resumes work on the Rules, the focus now being on questions of the mechanistic construal of perceptual cognition, and the problem of legitimating mathematical operations. He finally abandons the Rules in 1628. At the end of 1628, he settles in the Netherlands |
| 1629-1630 |
|
Begins work on a number of metaphysical questions, as well as devising a machine for grinding hyperbolic lenses. From August onwards, other projects are gradually abandoned as he tries to explain the meteorological phenomenon of parhelia, which by the end of has grown into an attempt to account for ‘the whole physical world’ |
| 1630-1632 |
|
The Dioptrics and the Meteors are completed in draft. While in Amsterdam he visits butchers’ shops daily to retrieve pieces for dissection. In May 1632, he moves to Deventer, partly to avoid interruptions to his work, as he works intensely on physical optics, the laws of motion, and the outlines of a cosmology. The unfinished draft of the Treatise on Light dates from 1632 |
| 1632-1633 |
|
Turns to the Treatise on Man, setting out a mechanistic physiology and a theory of the body as an automaton. Between July and November, he prepares his treatises for publication, only to hear in November of the Inquisition’s condemnation of Galileo, at which point, in obvious despair, he abandons plans to publish |
| 1634-1636 |
|
He prepares final drafts of the Dioptrics and the Meteors, and starts to work on a preface to them, which will become the Discourse on Method: the Geometry, which will accompany these texts, is put together from earlier drafts while the other treatises are being printed |
| 1637-1639 |
|
The Discourse and the three Essays are published in June 1637 |
| 1639-1640 |
|
Works on the Meditations, returning to Leiden in April 1640 to supervise a preliminary printing of the Meditations |
| 1641-1643 |
|
The Meditations are published in 1641, together with six sets of objections and replies. After giving up the idea of writing a dialogue (The Search for Truth), he begins work on a comprehensive exposition of his philosophy in textbook form, the Principles of Philosophy, at the end of 1641. The second edition of the Meditations, with a seventh set of objections and replies and a letter to Dinet, in which Descartes defends himself against attacks on the orthodoxy of the Meditations, appears in 1642. In response to Descartes’ long attack on him in the Letter to Voetius, published in May 1643, Voetius succeeds in having the Council of Utrecht summon Descartes, and he is threatened with expulsion and the public burning of his books. He seeks refuge in the Hague |
| 1643-1646 |
|
Starts an affectionate and fruitful correspondence with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, focusing on his account of the passions. The Principles, four parts of its originally projected six complete, is published by Elzevier in the middle of 1644. A good deal of his time is taken up with dissection of animals and studying the medicinal properties of plants. By 1646, he has a draft of the Passions of the Soul |
| 1647-1648 |
50s |
He is condemned by Revius and other theologians at the University of Leiden in early 1647. French translations of the Meditations and the Principles are published in 1647. His attack on his erstwhile disciple Regius, the Notes on a Certain Programme, appears at the beginning of 1648. In 1647-1648 he works on the unfinished Description of the Human Body |
| 1649-1650 |
53 |
Leaves for the court of Queen Christiana of Sweden on August 31, 1649. The Passions of the Soul appears in November 1649. He dies of pneumonia in Stockholm, on February 11, 1650. |
Superphysics
