Descartes

by A. C. Grayling

  A more balanced and relaxed survey of Descartes' life, though a speculative one, was offered by Jack R. Vrooman in 1970. It is much dependent on the earlier lives and does not seek to offer an original perspective. Genevieve Rodis-Lewis produced her Descartes, Biographie in 1995, translated into English as Descartes: His Life and Thought in 1998. This work, whose detail, density and structural complexity make it a challenging read, not I am afraid helped by a poor English translation, makes sense only to those who already know all details of Descartes' story. In 2002 appeared the eccentric, lively, sometimes wildly wrong and sometimes pungently perceptive biography by Richard Watson, Cogito Ergo Sum: The Life of Rene Descartes. Anyone who tells you that Ovid and Seneca are Greek poets (as Watson does on his page 72) sets the alarm bells ringing permanently, and he is anyway so cavalier and opinionated that his account is best treated as a refreshing romp to be enjoyed after Gaukroger's more thorough and sober account.

  Chapter 2: The Awakening

  1. Alfred Barbier, quoted in Watson p. 61.

  2. See Rodis-Lewis p. 5; and Adam and Tannery (AT) VI.46, VI.241, and III.141.

  3. Descartes' snippets about his childhood are to be found in letters to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia written in May 1645, to Hector-Pierre Chanut 6 June 1647, to Henri Brasset 23 April 1649, all Con., vol. VII, and in the Discourse on Method. The story of the cross-eyed girl in the letter to Chanut begins, ". . . lorsque j'etais enfant, j'aimais une file de mon age, qui etait un peu louche. . ."

  4. Letter to Princess Elizabeth, op. cit.

  5. AT, 11.378.

  6. Letter of 9 February 1645.

  7. AT, VI.4-5; Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch (CSM) 1.113.

  8. AT, VI.7; CSM, 1.114.

  9. The letter, dated 24 June 1625, is cited by Baillet but has since been lost.

  10. Gaukroger, p. 63.

  11. Perhaps he hoped thereby to raise in people's minds the suggestion that he was related (although no relationship existed) to the recently deceased (1618) and at that time famous Cardinal du Perron, royal advisor and theologian.

  12. Breda did not become a formal military college until much later; evidently, when it did so it was because a de facto tradition of education in military skills already existed there.

  13. See Journal Tenu Par Isaac Beeckman de 1604—1634 (ed. Cornelius de Waard), 4 vols., (The Hague, 1939-53), 1.228 and Baillet, 1.43.

  Chapter 3: A Night of Dreams

  1. Democritus of Abdera lived approximately between 460 and 370 BC; Leucippus was an older contemporary (his dates are unknown). Between them they founded the atomic philosophy of nature, the most influential of the natural philosophies devised before Socrates (who died in 399 BC). Socrates shifted philosophical attention to ethics and politics, but with Aristotle natural philosophy again became important, and after Aristotle's death atomism was revived and revised by Epicurus. His version of it was given expression in Lucretius' famous and beautiful Latin poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). In the seventeenth century Pierre Gassendi was instrumental in bringing atomistic ideas back into focus.

  The ancient atomist argument can be simply characterised. There must be ultimate constituents of the material world (since nothing can come from nothing) which are not themselves composed of anything simpler or smaller. These are the atoms ("atom" means "indivisible"). They exist in a void, through which they fall—with a curvilinear motion so that they can bump into each other—and constitute the larger objects we are familiar with in the world by aggregating together (having bumps and hooks, like Velcro, which allow them to stick together when they collide). Those are the basics in summary; the theory is of course richer than this sketch of it suggests, and both in its classical and Epicurean forms is interesting in light of the metaphysical problems it addressed.

  2. JIB, 1.244.

  3. See Gaukroger pp. 74—89 for an account of this work.

  4. Schuster, Descartes and the Scientific Revolution 1.101.

  5. Gaukroger, p. 99.

  6. Baillet, p. 143.

  7. AT, VI.11-13.

  8. AT, VII. 17.

  9. AT. VI. 11.

  10. The notebook is the Cogitationes Privatae. For a discussion of the notebook, its provenance, contents and fate, see John R. Cole, The Olympian Dreams and Youthful Rebellion of Rene Descartes (University of Illinois Press, 1992). The psychological interpretation offered by Cole is interesting but controversial, and I shall not engage with it here, except to say that it makes far too much of too many details; and of course the theory underlying his interpretation is itself questionable.

  11. The following account is taken from Baillet's report in Book II chapter 1 of his Life, itself based directly on the lost notebook, and therefore in all probability almost a transcription of Descartes' own words.

  12. On "exploding head syndrome" see the article by Dr. Joel Saper (Director of the Michigan Head Pain & Neurological Institute in Ann Arbor) in the Detroit Free Press, 24 October 2000. I (ACG) also experience this syndrome, but only when excessively tired.

  13. This diplomatic rider might have been aimed at the lawyers in his family, but it was certainly intended for the priests and prelates of his Church.

  14. AT, VI.27.

  15. Letter of 9 October 1649, AT.V.430.

  16. AT, X.212-15.

  17. AT, VI.18-19.

  18. Ibid., p. 20.

  19. G. Rodis-Lewis, p. 44.

  20. Quoted ibid., p. 45.

  21. The whole of chapter 8 of Book 2 of the Traite is devoted to this theme; see Rodis-Lewis p. 46.

  22. AT, VI.22-23.

  Chapter 4: The Mystery of the Rosy Cross

  1. Frances Yates' The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972). This invaluable study is my guide in what follows.

  2. Elizabeth I called Duke Frederick "cousin Mumpellgart," this being his family name, and he presumably provides the original for "cosen garmombles" in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, "Garmombles" being the German duke who hires horses at the Garter Inn—an allusion to the duke's visit to Elizabeth in the 1590s. See Yates, p. 44.

  3. Ibid., p. 49.

  4. Ibid., p. 51.

  5. Ibid., p. 56.

  6. Both the Fama and the Confessio are translated in the appendices to Yates op. cit. For this passage see pp. 297—8.

  7. Yates, pp. 73-81.

  8. Ibid., p. 132.

  9. See Berkeley's Notebooks; he deleted the phrase from his manuscript of The Principles of Human Knowledge. See relevant discussion in A. C. Grayling, Berkeley: The Central Arguments (1986).

  10. Yates, p. 137.

  11. Bacon's Novum Organon had appeared in 1620, promoting the use of inductive inference in empirical science, and his Advancement of Learning had just appeared in 1623. In the latter he set out to show "the excellency of Learning and Knowledge," and to "deliver it from the discredits and disgraces which it hath received; all from ignorance; but ignorance severally disguised, appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of Divines; sometimes in the severity and arrogancy of Politiques; and sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned men themselves." And then he explains these obstacles to knowledge (here quoting his observations only of the first kind): "I hear the former sort say, that Knowledge is of those things which are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution, that the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and sin whereupon ensued the fall of man, that Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell; SCIENTIA INFLAT: that Solomon gives a censure, that there is no end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the flesh, and again in another place, that in specious knowledge there is much consternation, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth anxiety, that St. Paul gives a caveat, that we be not spoiled through vain philosophy, that experience demonstrates how learned men have been arch-heretics, how learned times have been inclined to atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes derogate from our depende
nce upon God, who is the first cause."

  12. The Treaty of Ratisbon was a major affair, and one of the chief players in it was Pope Gregory XV. He helped Ferdinand II •with money and diplomatic aid in the conquest of Bohemia and Moravia, and supported the savage repression of Protestantism there, sending Carlos Caraffa as nuncio to Vienna to advise on the best means to be used. Gregory was largely responsible for ensuring that Ferdinand's promise to Maximilian of Bavaria was kept in the matter of transferring the Electorship of the Palatinate to him—both the electoral right and the territories—thereby securing a Catholic majority for elections to the Imperial throne. As a reward for Gregory's help, Maximilian gave him the Palatinate library of Heidelberg, 3500 items strong, containing much occult literature. Pope Gregory immediately sent a deputation to transport the library back to Rome, where it was housed in the Vatican library as the "Gregoriana." About a thousand of these books and manuscripts found their way back to Heidelberg in 1815 and 1816 as gifts from Pope Pius VII to mark the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

  13. Baillet, pp. 51-3.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Quoted in Cole, pp. 25—6.

  16. Gaukroger, p. 108.

  17. Yates, op. cit., p. 150.

  18. Despite the immense care Descartes took always to soothe and placate Catholic, and especially Jesuit, opinion—or at least to try to—knowing that his views could so easily be branded as dangerous along with the rest, he was ultimately unsuccessful. For all his assiduity in orthopraxy and avowed orthodoxy, and for all his wooing of Jesuit opinion, his works ended on the Index of Forbidden Books—in company, it has to be said, with almost every other book of any interest ever written—and the universities were forbidden to teach his doctrines. But that lay in the future.

  Chapter 5: Nine Years of Travel

  1. Would a study of these Huguenot troubles reveal that they were provoked by those who wished to weaken France's endeavours in the Grison lands?

  2. We learn this from a letter written in 1638; AT, 11.388.

  3. Descartes discussed in two letters the pluses and minuses of living in Italy, his views obviously formed during this long visit. AT, 11.623.

  4. See his account of avalanches in his Meteors, and the references to Mount Cenis, AT, 11.636. He reported seeing the avalanches in May, hence the dating of his return journey.

  5. B. de Grammont, Historiarum Galliae, Bk XVIII (Toulouse, 1643) hi, pp. 208—9. See also J. S. Spink, French Free Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire (New York, 1960), Ch. 1 passim and pp. 28-33.

  6. Grammont, ibid.

  7. Moreover, they in part anticipate the philosophical views of Hegel and F. H. Bradley, particularly in respect of the conceptual need for an Absolute as reconciler of contingent contradictions.

  8. William L. Hine, "Mersenne: naturalism and magic," in Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (1984), edited by Brian Vickers, pp. 165-176.

  9. Didier Kahn, Entre atomisme, alchimie et theologie: la reception des theses d'Antoine de Villon et Etienne de Clave contre Aristote, Paracelse et les "cabalistes" (24—25 aout 1624) (London, 2001), and see also Gaukroger, p. 136.

  10. William H. Huffman, Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance (London: Routledge, 1988) and Allen G. Debus, "The chemical debates of the 17th century: The reaction to Robert Fludd and Jean Baptiste van Helmont," in M. L. Righini Bonelli and W R. Shea (eds.), Reason, Experiment, and Mysticism in the Scientific Revolution (New York, 1975), pp. 19-47.

  11. Gaukroger, pp. 140-41.

  12. The Rules are to be found at AT, X.359 et seq.; the best English version is Cottingham et al., vol I, pp. 9 et seq.

  13. AT, X.350-412; Cottingham, pp. 9-39.

  14. Baillet, I, pp. 162-3.

  15. Ibid., p. 165.

  16. Ibid., p. 166.

  17. Watson, p. 147.

  18. Ibid., p. 149.

  Chapter 6: Animals on the Moon

  1. "Descartes played no further part in the war in the way hypothesised here"—that is, as an intelligence operative; I make this claim because, continuing with reliance on circumstantial evidence as before, I see neither cause nor opportunity for him to do so, but on the contrary so much concentration on his scientific and philosophical work, and so deep an immersion in affairs as different as family life and bitter personal controversy, that it becomes quite implausible to think that he was continuing intelligence work, for the Jesuits or anyone else, in his new circumstances. His friendship with Constantijn Huygens and the protection he later received from the highest authorities in the Netherlands suggest reasons for their regard additional to his reputation as a savant; in fact, Huygens—adviser to the Stadhouder, and therefore in a sense something close to being the Prime Minister of the United Provinces—very early gave Descartes his protection and interest. But this creates a puzzle: if Descartes had been active in the pro-Habsburg Jesuit interest even in a relatively minor capacity, why would the authorities in the United Provinces, allied to France and hostile to the Habsburgs, give Descartes welcome and protection? A possibility—and this has to be the merest conjecture, based on trying to keep the story consistent—would be that Descartes turned State evidence, as the modern jargon has it; that is, in return for being allowed to leave France for liberal exile in a friendly state, he abjured any activities inconsistent with French interests, and perhaps told Cardinal Berulle, in that famous and puzzling interview what he knew. The secrecy of his movements and addresses for his first years in the Netherlands would then need to be explained not as anxiety to avoid French government hostility or surveillance, but the attentions of individuals who might have come to bear grudges as a result of his activities in the hypothesised role. In the absence of hard evidence all this is, of course and to repeat, mere conjecture—but it is hard to resist making it, given the sheer number of circumstantial hints in favour of there being more to Descartes' story than the overt facts say. Still: from this point on in his story the hypothesis plays no further role.

  2. Descartes lived at twenty-four different addresses (at least twenty-four, one should say; and quite a few more, if one takes short stays into account) in the Netherlands during his twenty years there— and, in the early years of his sojourn at least, he kept them secret.

  3. See Universiteit te Franeker 1585—1811: bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van de Friese Hogeschool onder red. van G. Th. Jensma, F. R., H. Smit, F. Westra; redactieraad: M. H. H. Engels . . . [et. al.].

  4. He was right. See "Vector analysis of fast focusing by hyperbolic and spherical lenses" Albert Y Shih, Shunting Shih Proc. SPIE vol. 3889, pp. 842—8, Advanced High-Power Lasers; Marek Osinski, Howard T. Powell, Koichi Toyoda (eds) (2000). Their abstract reads:"The delivery of a high-power laser beam to the target area, either via fibre systems or free-space optical trains, requires an effective focusing optical element at the end of the delivering system. It can be derived that a hyperbolic lens has the optimal surface to achieve the best focusing effect. Using this type of lens, the rays representing the beam can make a large angle with respect to the axis and the incidence angle on the lens surface is far from normal. As a result, the ordinary scalar field theory with paraxial approximation is not valid in this case. In order to understand the performance of a hyperbolic lens, it is necessary to use the vector field theory and apply the Huygens principle directly in the model. Using this method, we were able to show the performance of a hyperbolic lens is much better than that of a spherical lens."

  5. AT, 1.13-16.

  6. AT, 1.24.

  7. AT, 1.154-5.

  8. Ibid.

  9. And see the other warm expressions of affection and indebtedness in Descartes' letters to Beeckman quoted earlier, during and shortly after the Breda period. "Love me and rest assured that I would forget the Muses before I forgot you, for they unite me to you in a bond of eternal affection" he wrote to Beeckman on 24 January 1619. Eternity did not last longer than the growth of his ambitions.

  10. Beeckman died 20 May 1637. A Protestant minister ca
lled Andreas Colvius wrote to tell Descartes of Beeckman's demise, and Descartes replied saying that he was sorry to hear it; he "had been" one of Beeckman's best friends, he rather pointedly added, but since life is very short in comparison to eternity it scarcely matters whether it lasts a few years more or less.

  11. See Simon Schama, An Embarrassment of Riches passim for an account of Amsterdam and the Netherlands in the seventeenth century; it furnishes a striking background to Descartes' "exile" there.

  12. See the booklet published for a 2003 exhibition of the university library of Leiden called "Descartes and Leiden: friends and foes, admirers and adversaries."

  13. Written on 5 May 1631, this letter shows Descartes attempting to emulate the high literary style of de Balzac's own celebrated manner; the work on which de Balzac's fame rests is his Letters, published in 1624, a number of them written from the Netherlands where he had travelled extensively. Descartes' imitation of the manner and content is conscious.