ABSTRACT
Rene Descartes is often called the founder of modern epistemology due to his enunciation of the powers of the human mind in Discourse on Method. His most well-known maxim, cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), is the core of the French philosophical current known as Cartesianism. Cartesianism describes any metaphysical system that is predicated on the human mind’s capacity to access reality, and has only been contested in the twentieth century. In applying the geometric method to philosophy, Descartes attempted to prove the rationalism of human cognition. This certainty was interpreted as arrogance by many of his contemporaries. Although influenced by the skeptical current of his age, Descartes could not remain doubtful of one ultimate certainty, that of his own existence.
