The decision to target the Apollo 16 lunar landing for the highlands region of the Moon was made to obtain samples of the Descartes Formation and the Cayley Formation.

Two locations on the Moon were given primary consideration for exploration by the Apollo 16 expedition, the Descartes Highlands region west of Mare Nectaris and the crater Alphonsus.

The considerable distance between the Descartes site and previous Apollo landing sites would be beneficial for the network of geophysical instruments, portions of which were deployed on each Apollo expedition beginning with Apollo 12.

With the assistance of orbital photography obtained on the Apollo 14 mission, the Descartes site was determined to be safe enough for a manned landing.

After selecting the landing site for Apollo 16, sampling the Descartes and Cayley formations, two geologic units of the lunar highlands, were determined by mission planners to be the primary sampling interests of the mission.

Analytic geometry has traditionally been attributed to René Descartes Descartes made significant progress with the methods in an essay entitled La Geometrie ( Geometry ), one of the three accompanying essays ( appendices ) published in 1637 together with his Discourse on the Method for Rightly Directing One's Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences, commonly referred to as Discourse on Method.

For surveys, the most common approach is to follow a historical path by associating stances with the philosophers who are most strongly associated with them, for example Descartes, Locke, Kant, etc.

They can be divided broadly into two categories: dualist solutions that maintain Descartes ' rigid distinction between the realm of consciousness and the realm of matter but give different answers for how the two realms relate to each other ; and monist solutions that maintain that there is really only one realm of being, of which consciousness and matter are both aspects.

Descartes, for example, has sometimes been blamed for mistreatment of animals due to the fact that he believed only humans have a non-physical mind.

" The contention is that this is a syllogistic inference, for it appears to require the extra premise: " Whatever has the property of thinking, exists ", a premise Descartes did not justify.

Many other coordinate systems have been developed since Descartes, such as the polar coordinates for the plane, and the spherical and cylindrical coordinates for three-dimensional space.

Like his contemporary Descartes, Herbert searched for the foundations of

Descartes said that man must use his capacities for knowledge correctly and carefully through methodological doubt.

Letters from the beginning of the alphabet like a, b, c ... often denote constants in the context of the discussion at hand, while letters from the end of the alphabet, like ... x, y, z, are usually reserved for the variables, a convention initiated by Descartes.

René Descartes ( 1596 – 1650 ) developed analytic geometry, an alternative method for formalizing geometry.

According to Locke, our knowledge of things is a perception of ideas that are in accordance or discordance with each other, which is very different from the quest for certainty of Descartes.

The historical, continental rationalism expounded by René Descartes is often regarded as antithetical to empiricism, while some contemporary rationalists assert that reason is strongest when it is supported by or consistent with empirical evidence and hence relies heavily on empirical science in analyzing justifications for belief.

There is no longer room for the kind of dualism which has haunted philosophy since the days of Descartes.

This view which can be seen as a view of language going back to Kant and Descartes often understands language to be largely innate, for example as in Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar or American philosopher Jerry Fodor ’ s extreme innatist theory.

The use and meaning of the word " philosophy " has changed throughout history: in Antiquity it encompassed almost any inquiry ; for Descartes it was supposed to be the Queen of the Sciences, a sort of ultimate justification ; in the time of David Hume " metaphysics " and " morals " could be roughly translated as the human sciences ; and contemporary analytic philosophy likes to define itself roughly as inquiry into concepts.

While unfamiliar with the internalist / externalist debate himself, many point to René Descartes as an early example of the internalist approach to justification.

René Descartes for example argued that animals lack consciousness and therefore do not experience pain and suffering in the way that humans do.

Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution and has been described as an example of genius.

Also, the distinction was not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested ; for example, Descartes and Locke have similar views about the nature of human ideas.

Bacon emphasized the importance analyzing experience in an organized way, for example experimentation, while Descartes, seeing the success of Galileo in using mathematics in physics, emphasized the role of methodical reasoning as in mathematics and geometry.

The importance of Machiavelli's realism was noted by many important figures in this endeavor, for example Bodin, Francis Bacon, Descartes, Harrington, Rousseau, Hume and Adam Smith.

A well-known example was the development of analytic geometry, which in the hands of mathematicians such as Descartes and Fermat showed that many theorems about curves and surfaces of special types could be stated in algebraic language ( then new ), each of which could then be proved using the same techniques.

This view was for example held by René Descartes in his cogito ergo sum statement, see mind dualism.

For example, the folium of Descartes is defined by the equation

For instance, rationalists such as Descartes and Spinoza developed axiomatic systems that relied on statements that were taken to be self-evident: " I think therefore I am " is the most famous example.

To define himself further, Descartes turns to the example of wax.

For example, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Descartes, Benjamin Franklin, Goethe, and others with IQs in the mid 160s or above were superior in their versatility to those attaining lower scores, such as George Washington, Palestrina, or Philip Sheridan.

Glover offers the example of René Descartes, saying about Descartes that " He starts off with the characteristic beliefs of a 17th century frenchman, he then junks the lot, he rebuilds the system, and somehow it looks a lot like the beliefs of 17th century frenchman.

( Perhaps the greatest example of this aspiration is Descartes ' proof for the existence of God in his Meditations on First Philosophy.

The 17th century rationalist René Descartes, for example, used it as the cornerstone of his epistemology.

For example, the philosopher René Descartes theorized that knowledge of God is innate in everybody as a product of the faculty of faith.

For example, Descartes describes a piece of Wax in the Second meditation.

To illustrate this, Descartes used the example of a stick being pushed against some body.

The basic steps of an eidetic reduction are threefold: first, you must choose some specific example ( i. e. Descartes ' wax ).

Descartes argues – for example, in the third of his Meditations on First Philosophy – that whatever one clearly and distinctly perceives is true: " I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true.

Descartes in his Passions of the Soul and The Description of the Human Body suggested that the body works like a machine, that it has material properties.

Descartes suggested that the pineal gland is " the seat of the soul " for several reasons.

In the 16th century, Descartes suggested a philosophic system whereby all living systems, including the human body ( but not the soul ), are simply machines ruled by the same mechanical laws, an idea that did much to promote and sustain biomechanical study.

A new attitude towards automata is to be found in Descartes when he suggested that the bodies of animals are nothing more than complex machines-the bones, muscles and organs could be replaced with cogs, pistons and cams.

René Descartes suggested that the lexicon of a universal language should consist of primitive elements.

An early reference is an anecdote regarding the philosopher René Descartes, who suggested to Queen Christina of Sweden that the human body could be regarded as a machine ; she responded by pointing to a clock and ordering " see to it that it reproduces offspring.

It must be conceded that once reached the real conclusion of the argument, the cartesian method would forbid the sceptic to reply that perhaps the cartesian proof was suggested to the meditator by the evil genius itself, in the first place ( thereby accusing Descartes of vicious circularity ).