[From the name of the French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650).]
(metaphysics) Descartes is often considered the founder of modern philosophy (although his ideas owed much to medieval thinkers such as Avicenna). The signature ideas of Cartesianism are dualism, rationalism, and the mind-body dichotomy (i.e., a combination of idealism in the spiritual realm and of mechanism in the physical realm).