Publisher's Synopsis
Perhaps an appropriate place to begin the history of psychology is with the Father of Modern Philosophy French philosopher René Descartes who was born in 1596.
René Descartes laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, but opposed by Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Descartes believed that he can be certain that he exists because he thinks. He defined "thought" (cogitatio) as "what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it". In his famous Wax Argument, Descartes considers a piece of wax. His senses inform him that it has certain characteristics such as shape and texture and so forth. But when he burns the wax, these characteristics change completely. However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still the same piece of wax, even though the data of the senses inform him that all of its characteristics are different.
