(Descartes; 02-03; p.2)

Science and co-ordinates

René Descartes (1596 - 1650) made his way into the history of philosophy as founding father of rationalism. His well-known "je pense, donc je suis" stands as the basic axiom of his philosophy as result of his method.
The Frenchman firstly doubted everything to make sure that he will not unconsciously include some assumption in the basics of his philosophy. This radical doubt lead him to an insight that he could not reasonably doubt: that the act of doubting, in general of thinking, is a striking prove of his existence.

Based on this fundamental certainty Descartes tried to create his philosophy on definitions and reasoning alone, not letting in speculation nor mysticism.
A modern idea of science thus had been created, making it once again possible to separate science from its middle age convergence with theology; both could develop as independent disciplines since.

Especially for the later emerging natural sciences, this philosophical idea had been ground-breaking: physics, chemistry and biology could make use of mathematical methods to describe regularities.
To give a visual representation of such relations, Descartes invented the system of co-ordinates which has been given his name. Every dot - e.g. as an expression of a result that had been measured - could be given an exactly defined "address". (read on here)