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“But no sooner had I completed the whole course of study that normally takes one straight into the ranks of the ‘learned’ than I completely changed my mind about what this education could do for me. For I found myself tangled in so many doubts and errors that I came to think that my attempts to become educated had done me no good except to give me a steadily widening view of my ignorance!”[[CiteRef:<ref>Descartes, Rene. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Trans. Jonathan Bennett. Early Modern Texts (2007), 1637. Document.</ref>Descartes concluded that if his goal was to attain certain knowledge about the world then the presently accepted method was insufficient and that a new one would be required to satisfy his aims. Method was a central theme in Descartes’ writing and held a central place in Descartes’ epistemology; in fact, one of Descartes’ criticisms of Galileo was that he failed to produce a fully developed method to justify his discoveries.<ref>Ariew, Roger. "Descartes as a Critic of Galileo's Scientific Methodology." Synthese, Vol 67, No 1 (1986):77-90. Print.</ref> To that end he embraced his sceptical doubts and devised a method based on methodological scepticism; a method whereby he rejects all knowledge that he cannot be certain of, accepts only those propositions which he can accept as certain, and proceed deductively from those axioms according to reason. By this method Descartes hoped to produce a kind of systematized knowledge that could be universally acceptable. As it happened the sole indubitable proposition upon which he would build the entire rest of his philosophical system was his famous ‘Cogito, Ergo Sum’ (also styled ‘Dubito, Ergo Cogito, Ergo Sum’ or simply as ‘the Cogito’); “I think, therefore I am.” From this foundation Descartes deduced his being a created thing, his requiring a creator, that creator being God, the nature of God, and the reliability of his senses and reason, all of which would form the broader foundation of his systematized scientific worldview<ref>Newman, Lex. Descartes 1637]]' Epistemology. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 21 December 2014. Web.</ref>.

Descartes concluded that if his goal was to attain certain knowledge about the world then the presently accepted method was insufficient and that a new one would be required to satisfy his aims. Method was a central theme in Descartes’ writing and held a central place in Descartes’ epistemology; in fact, one of Descartes’ criticisms of Galileo was that he failed to produce a fully developed method to justify his discoveries.[[CiteRef::Ariew (1986)]] To that end he embraced his sceptical doubts and devised a method based on methodological scepticism; a method whereby he rejects all knowledge that he cannot be certain of, accepts only those propositions which he can accept as certain, and proceed deductively from those axioms according to reason. By this method Descartes hoped to produce a kind of systematized knowledge that could be universally acceptable. As it happened the sole indubitable proposition upon which he would build the entire rest of his philosophical system was his famous ‘Cogito, Ergo Sum’ (also styled ‘Dubito, Ergo Cogito, Ergo Sum’ or simply as ‘the Cogito’); “I think, therefore I am.” From this foundation Descartes deduced his being a created thing, his requiring a creator, that creator being God, the nature of God, and the reliability of his senses and reason, all of which would form the broader foundation of his systematized scientific worldview.[[CiteRef::Newman (2014)]] Although Descartes maintained some methodological aspects of the Scholastic-Aristotelian mosaic – namely the axiomatic-deductive, epistemic-foundationalist structure of investigation – one critical difference in Descartes’ methodology was the shift in the method of theory choice. According to Barsegyen the accepted method of the Scholastic-Aristotelian method was that a theory is acceptable “if it grasps the nature of a thing through intuition schooled by experience, or if it is deduced from general intuitive principles.”[[CiteRef::Barseghyen (<ref>Barseghyan, Hakob. The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer, 2015)]] . E-Book.</ref> The keywords in this formulation of the Scholastic-Aristotelian method are intuition and experience, both of which are necessary conditions for one to be justified in accepting a proposition. Descartes’ methodology is notable in that it jettisons both of those conditions; a proposition need be neither experientially based nor intuited for it to be acceptable, and although his system as it ended up allowed for knowledge that was both experiential and intuited[[CiteRef::<ref>Newman (, Lex. Descartes' Epistemology. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 21 December 2014)]] . Web.</ref>, the ultimate justification for knowledge claims was human reason. In this way Descartes is both a rationalist and an apriorist, in that his epistemology and metaphysics allows for the existence of synthetic a priori propositions.

Descartes played a pivotal role in the transition away from the Scholastic-Aristotelian mosaic, and his physical, physiological, psychological, and biological theories are too numerous to be adequately treated here.[[CiteRef::<ref>Hatfield (1992)]][[CiteRef, Gary. Rene Descartes. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 21 June 2016. Web.</ref><ref>Garber, Daniel. "Descartes' Physics." The Cambridge Companion to Descartes. Cambridge::Garber (Cambridge University Press, 1992)]] . 286-334. Print.</ref> That said, a number of his theories are worth exploring in brief, in particular those that were fundamental departures from the accepted mosaic of the early sixteenth century. The first and most dramatic of these is Descartes’ rejection of hylomorphism and the form-matter distinction which would be the foundation for Descartes’ rejection of most of the prior physics. In place of the hylomorphic theory of substance Descartes proposed that there are in fact two kinds of substances that are entirely different from each other in composition and kind: mental substance and physical substance. Descartes equated the former with the rational soul of God and humans and the latter with all physical matter, the fundamental feature of which he considered to be extension. Descartes deduced his scientific theories about the natural world from this basically metaphysical foundation (all of which he deduces by application of his method). For example the central concept in Cartesian mechanics is that all material interactions are interactions between matter, which fills the universe (plenism also followed from Descartes’ position of matter as extension because if all matter is extended then there can be no space without extended matter, i.e. a vacuum). Descartes also considered the universe to be essentially mechanical in character except for mental substance – animals according to Descartes, as being constituted solely of material substance and without mental substance, are mere automata and cannot be said to think, feel, or love in the way that human beings or God can.

The details of the Cartesian school of natural philosophy are not as important however as the impact that the school would have on subsequent scientific inquiry. The overthrow of the Aristotelian tradition, even in places where Cartesianism was rejected and the community maintained Aristotelianism, forced the academic community in Europe to reconsider and defend the Aristotelian mosaic in ways that had never before been encountered. Though the dialectical approach to scholarship throughout the medieval period saw scholars constantly questioning various aspects of the Aristotelian worldview Descartes’ wholesale rejection of huge swaths of the mosaic and its central concepts were unprecedented. Theories like hylomorphism, which had been a given in the mosaic of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and had endured through multitudes of adjustments, reconciliations and dialectic criticism had never before faced complete overhaul as Descartes threatened. Although Descartes would eventually be supplanted by Newton he made the critical first steps to replacing the Scholastic-Aristotelian mosaic<ref>Hatfield, Gary.[[CiteRef::Hatfield (Rene Descartes. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 21 June 2016)]]. Web.</ref>.

The most notable objection Descartes would end up facing would be the more mathematically precise and more explanatorily powerful physical theory given by Newton half a century later, but there existed objection to Descartes even earlier. One particularly notable objection came from Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, who questioned Descartes’ theory of substance in a letter dated the tenth of May, 1643. In it, she asks “Given that the soul of a human being is only a thinking substance, how can it affect the bodily spirits, in order to bring about voluntary actions?”[[CiteRef::<ref>Descartes , Rene and Elizabeth Princess of Bohemia (ed. Correspondence Between Descartes and Princess Elizabeth. Ed. Jonathan Bennett. Early Modern Texts, 2009)]] . Document.</ref> Descartes would never gives a satisfactory answer over the course of the correspondence, and the single example highlights how troubling the issues left open by Descartes’ system are for the integrity of that system. Elizabeth’s objection raises reasonable (significant, even) doubts about whether or not the theory of substance around which Descartes bases a significant portion of his scientific theories can hold water.  One of the most powerful objections to arise after Descartes’ death in 1650 came a generation later with the emergence of the philosophy of John Locke and the British Empiricists. Locke, despite being an admirer of Descartes, was highly critical of his methodology and in particular was critical of his methodological scepticism, which Locke regarded as a non-starter.<ref>Uzgalis, William. John Locke. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 21 March 2016. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/>.</ref>

One of Other objections were political, theological, and personal objections brought by various interest groups who had some stake in the most powerful objections to arise after academic status quo. In many places Descartes’ death work was banned, in 1650 more even discussion of Descartes’ work was banned. Official condemnations came a generation later with the emergence down from Universities and Church authorities, none of which were effective at stopping the philosophy spread of John Locke and the British EmpiricistsCartesian ideas <ref>Jolley, Nicholas. Locke, despite being an admirer "The Reception of Descartes' Philosophy." The Cambridge Companion to Descartes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, was highly critical of his methodology and in particular was critical of his methodological scepticism, which Locke regarded as a non1992. 393-starter423.[[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)]]Print.</ref>

Other objections were political, theological, and personal objections brought by various interest groups who had some stake in the academic status quo. In many places Descartes’ work was banned, in more even discussion of Descartes’ work was banned. Official condemnations came down from Universities and Church authorities, none of which were effective at stopping the spread of Cartesian ideas.[[CiteRef::Jolley (1992)]]==NotesReferences==