In 1641, French philosopher René Descartes published Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy), in which he systematically doubted everything that could be doubted — the senses, the external world, even mathematics — until he arrived at one indubitable truth: "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am). This radical method of doubt established the thinking subject as the foundation of knowledge, marking the birth of modern Western philosophy. Descartes' work split the world into mind and matter (Cartesian dualism), a framework that dominated philosophy for centuries and whose influence persists in debates about consciousness and artificial intelligence.
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