Descartes
Page 30
14. AT, VI.41-2.
15. AT, 1.254-5.
16. AT, 1.140-41.
17. AT, 1.236-7.
18. Note that Newton had an even more literal version of such a view; he thought that since his principles would result in the universe going out of kilter after a time, a God was needed to put it back on course again—to keep the laws steady, so to speak.
19. AT, XI.34-5.
20. Ibid., pp. 31, 33, 34.
21. Ibid., p. 36.
22. Ibid., p. 37.
23. Ibid., pp. 120-21.
24. Ibid., p. 130.
25. Ibid., p. 132.
26. Ibid., pp. 241-2.
27. AT, 1.176-7.
28. Actually, the idea that there could be insensate creatures which nevertheless appear "outwardly normal" is very dubious; a comparatively short stretch of observation would serve to show that they do not appear outwardly normal at all, and so the sceptical argument relying on this consideration weakens further. The best response to the other-minds sceptic is to be found in P. F. Strawson's Individuals (London, 1959).
29. AT, 1.250.
30. Ibid., pp. 270-71.
31. Ibid., p. 271.
32. Ibid., p. 272.
33. Galileo Galilei, "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine," 1615.
34. AT, 1.281-2.
35. Ibid., p. 282.
36. Ibid., p. 282-3.
37. Ibid., pp. 287-8. The allusion to the Antipodes concerns the Church's effort to deny their existence and proscribe belief in them—until of course the intrepid explorers who sailed around the world settled the matter out of hand. The Liege text cited by Descartes was communicated by him to Mersenne in full in August 1634 (see AT 1.306), and it reads: "The said Galileo, therefore, who had confessed at an earlier interrogation, was summoned to the Sacred Tribunal of the Inquisition, interrogated and detained in custody. He clearly showed himself once again to be still of the same opinion, though he pretended that he put forward his view only hypothetically. The outcome is that after discussing the matter thoroughly, the Most Eminent Cardinals of the Commissionary General of the Inquisition have pronounced and declared that the said Galileo is under strong suspicion of heresy, in so far as he seems to have followed a doctrine which is false and contrary to Holy and Divine Scripture, namely that the sun is the centre of the universe and does not rise from sunrise to sunset, whereas the earth does move and is not the centre of the universe. Or he has been of the opinion that this doctrine could be defended as a probability, even though it has been declared to be contrary to Holy Scripture."
38. AT, 1.258.
39. Ibid.
Chapter 7: Francine
1. Baillet, 11.91.
2. Watson, p. 182.
3. AT, 1.510.
4. Ibid.
5. AT, 11.340; Watson, p. 189.
6. Baillet, II. 90; his account makes scarlet fever (also called scarlatina) most probable, though there are other febrile diseases that it could have been, with closely similar symptoms. Baillet says that Francine's body was "covered in purple"; ibid.
7. AT, III.279.
8. Baillet, ibid. In a collection called Ulustres Francaises published in 1876 Descartes is depicted holding out his arms to Francine at her bedside, the legend reading, "His daughter aged five years, died in his arms. He was inconsolable." See Rodis-Lewis, p. 141.
9. Gaukroger takes the view that the relationship between Descartes and Helena Jans was never close, and he cites the Clerselier report to show that Descartes regretted the liaison. The evidence is scanty and does not seem to me persuasive; it appears that, quite the contrary, Descartes kept up relations with her at least during the span of Francine's life. See Gaukroger, pp. 294—5.
10. AT, III.278-9.
11. Ibid., p. 280.
Chapter 8: The Shape of Snow
1. AT, 1.338.
2. Ibid., p. 339.
3. Ibid., pp. 339-40.
4. Gaukroger, p. 299.
5. AT, VI.2-3.
6. Ibid., p. 20.
7. Ibid., pp. 31-2.
8. If the major premise were available, Descartes' argument would be a simple syllogism: "Everything that thinks, exists. I think. Therefore I exist." Arguments with suppressed or hidden premises are known as "enthymemes," and the vague supposition that many of one's inferences are enthymematic—supported by hidden premises of a kind anyone would accept—is often correct, but also a common source of fallacy in informal reasoning. Possibly Descartes relied on hidden assumptions about the necessary conditions for anything to think—among them, obviously, that it must first exist—to establish his point. But if so he is in breach of the terms he had set for an enquiry into an indubitable first truth. That might seem a pettifogging point, for of course the assumption in question is inescapable; but if it is absolutely secure foundations you require—and that is what Descartes was after—just such quibbles have to be taken very seriously.
As it happens, Descartes himself acknowledged—in response to contemporary criticism—that his "I think therefore I am" was not an enthymematic syllogism, and subsequent philosophers have attempted to understand it in different ways: as a direct intuition, as a "performative utterance" (the mere assertion of it being proof of its truth), as a "presuppositional implication" showing that, since it is a presupposition that one exists if one thinks, then the fact that one is thinking is sufficient for the truth of "I exist." And so on. See e.g. Marjorie Greene, Descartes (University of Minnesota Press, 1985) and Roger Scruton's essay on Descartes in A. C. Grayling (ed.) Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject (Oxford University Press, 1995).
9. On this score, Descartes is in the right. His doubt is after all only "methodological"—that is, it does not have to be plausible in itself; it is only a device to get us to see a certain point—namely, what cannot be doubted even if you use the most absurd and swingeing sceptical challenge to try to infect your beliefs with uncertainty. But there is a separate and important point at stake: whether such a degree of scepticism is intelligible quite apart from the methodological use that Descartes puts it to. And the answer seems to be "no." How— for one example of how an argument to this effect might begin— could one even possess the language in which to frame the doubt, if what such scepticism suggests were true?
10. Op. cit., pp. 32-3.
11. He explains this view in a letter to Lazare Meyssonnier of 29 January 1640 thus: "I will answer the question you asked me about the function of the little gland called conarion [pineal gland]. My view is that this gland is the principal seat of the soul, and the place in which all our thoughts are formed. The reason I believe this is that I cannot find any part of the brain, except this, which is not double. Since we see only one thing with two eyes, and hear only one voice with two ears . . . it must necessarily be the case that the impressions which enter by two eyes and two ears, and so on, unite with each other in some part of the body before being considered by the soul. Now it is impossible to find any such place in the whole head but this gland . . . " Descartes is wrong to think that the pineal gland is the only single structure in the brain. AT, 11.19.
12. Consciousness seems, in one way, the easiest thing in the world to understand, for anyone capable of thinking about it is intimately conscious of being conscious—we are immediately acquainted with our own consciousness, which attends every moment of our aware experience and thought. Similarly, the consciousness of others is obvious in their faces and behaviour, and most people well know how to read and respond to them as conscious beings—this indeed is the ordinary experience of everyday social interaction.
At the same time, consciousness is the most perplexing mystery facing science and philosophy. It is such a difficult problem that for a long time philosophers put off thinking about it, and scientists ignored it entirely. Some, as noted, follow Descartes in thinking that it is too hard for human intelligence to understand. Others even claim that there is no such thing as consciousness; we are actually zombies, just ver
y complicated ones. In defiance of these variously pessimistic and implausible views most students of the problem— philosophers, neuroscientists and psychologists, working together— have profited from the availability of powerful new investigative tools, especially brain scanning devices, to watch both healthy and damaged brains at work in the processes of learning, sensing, remembering, reasoning and feeling. One result is a great increase in knowledge of brain function, in the sense of a refined understanding of the correlation between specific brain areas and specific mental capacities. Aristotle thought that the brain is a device for cooling the blood (after all, one wears a hat to keep warm in winter), and that the seat of the mind is the heart (where, when one sees the beloved, tumult occurs); if nothing else, recent science has settled conclusively what everyone since Aristotle has believed to the contrary.
But all this knowledge does not amount to an understanding of consciousness, which is far too protean and varied a phenomenon for simple matchings between conscious states and activity in this or that brain structure. Above all, no degree of accuracy in tracing a given mental event to a given brain event can by itself explain how coloured pictures and evocative smells and harmonious or discordant sounds arise like a (scented) cinema-show in the head. This problem— the problem of qualia—is the hardest and most central problem of consciousness, and it still waits solution.
13. Some of these innovations, including the use of superscripts to represent squares, cubes and the rest, were anticipated by Francois Viete at the end of the previous century. Descartes claimed not to know the work of the earlier mathematician, and this became a point of contention; see below.
14. AT, X.359, et seq.
15. AT, VI.77.
16. AT, 1.560.
17. AT, 1.455.
18. Gaukroger, p. 323.
19. Ibid., p. 331.
20. AT, II.24-5.
21. AT, III.437.
22. AT, II.188-9.
23. Rodis-Lewis, p. 120.
24. AT, VII.9; see Gaukroger, p. 323.
25. AT, IV.540.
26. AT, VII.7.
27. AT, 11.288.
28. AT, 11.437.
29. AT, 1.362, 367.
30. Rodis-Lewis, p. 124.
31. Carl Boyer, A History of Mathematics 2nd edn revised by Uta Merzbach (John Wiley, 1991), p. 346.
32. E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics (1937) ch. 3 passim,"Descartes: Gendeman, Soldier, and Mathematician"; see also the discussion in Bell's The Development of Mathematics (McGraw-Hill, 1945).
33. Boyer, op. cit.
Chapter 9: Descartes Contra Voetius
1. AT, 1.649. See Vrooman, p. 141, Gaukroger, p. 333.
2. AT, 1.435, 437.
3. AT, VI.62-3.
4. AT, 11.480.
5. AT, III.528.
6. Ibid., p. 529.
7. AT, VII.563-603 passim; this quotation 576. Descartes' account of the details of the affair is at 582-595.
8. Ibid., pp. 592-4.
9. Ibid., p. 581.
10. AT, VI11.8 Letter to Voetius passim.
11. Ibid., pp. 25-36, 42.
12. Ibid., p. 175.
13. The sceptical starting point is set out with clarity and brilliance in the first Meditation. See AT, VII. 17-23.
14. AT.V.15-16.
15. Much of the circumstantial detail of these various disputes is taken from the Conversations with Burman. Frans Burman was a young theology student who visited Descartes in the spring of 1648, trading on the fact that Descartes and Bur man's father were old friends. Burman made a careful record of his conversations with the philosopher, in which they discussed the disputes in detail—Burman had been a student at Leiden all during the previous five years of trouble there. This record was written down in Latin by Johannes Clauberg, and text of the Conversations with Burman we now have is a transcription of this lost Latin original. Because the copy was rediscovered only in 1895 some question arises about its authenticity, though the internal and external evidence would appear to support it well enough. One thing that critics mention is that the Descartes who appears in Burman's record is a frank, reasonable and very pleasant individual, obviously much maligned by his foes yet perfectly Christian in his attitude to them. The faint aroma of whitewash accordingly clings to this picture, which might of course be explained by the fact that Burman was on Descartes' side—and that the family friendship must have counted on Descartes' part too.
16. I refer readers to the discussion in A. C. Grayling, What is Good? (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003), ch. 4 passim.
17. Or almost all: when it came to proving the existence of God—a necessary plank in his argument because, without the guarantee of a good God to ensure that the responsible use of our faculties will lead us to truth, it is not enough merely to be certain that one exists— he makes use of some pretty dusty old arguments; see the third and fifth of the Meditations, which votaries of the old tradition would have recognised instantly.
Chapter 10: The Princess of the Passions
1. See G. Turnbull, Hartlib, Dury and Comenius (London, 1947) p. 167.
2. Rodis-Lewis, quoting Sorbiere, p. 151.
3. AT, II.662-4.
4. AT, IV.330.
5. Leon Petit, Descartes et la Princesse Elizabeth: roman d'amour vecu (Paris, 1969).
6. AT, VIIIA.1-2, 4.
7. AT, XI.323-4.
8. AT, XI.351-3.
9. Ibid., p. 354.
10. Ibid., p. 373 to the end.
11. Ibid., pp. 388, 390.
12. AT, IV.264-5.
13. Ibid., pp. 265-6.
14. AT, IV.290-94.
15. Quoted by Watson, p. 206. Watson's idiosyncrasies make his account of the Descartes-Elizabeth story one of the best things in his book.
16. Gaukroger, p. 364.
17. Isaac Newton, Principia, Book II, section IX.
18. John Gribbin, Science: A History (London, 2002), p. 118 note.
19. Baillet, II, p. 242. Since it is from Clerselier that the story comes about Descartes' regret at having had anything to do with Helena Jans, a question mark must be raised at this claim. Clerselier did a great deal to massage Descartes' posthumous reputation in the right direction, going so far as to insert pious qualifications to some of his writings, and no doubt working to give the impression that, but for the repented lapse with Helena, Descartes was a man of exactly the required impeccable virtue that a great genius should be.
20. AT.V.66.
21. AT, IV.204-5.
22. AT.V.72.
23. Watson has interesting details of the Descartes family finances in the 1640s; see pp. 244—8 of his book. It is part of Watson's case that though Descartes was comfortably placed because of his inheritances, enough to rent the chateau of Endegeest in the early 1640s, his brother and half-brother— trained lawyers in senior positions in their local Parlement— made sure that he did not get a sous more than they were obliged to give him under the terms of wills and other legal agreements. This is almost certainly true—there was little love lost between the brothers. It is likely that whatever Descartes got from the family resources was enough to sustain him during the 1630s and 1640s. But either the amount was getting to be insufficient by the late 1640s, or Descartes' sights were by then set higher; he had after all begun to move in courdy circles, visiting a princess regularly, and the expense of clean linen and smart clothes, a horse or even a carriage (an exceedingly expensive item, even to rent), and constant travel between the major cities of the United Provinces, what with servants coming too—all this might have made the idea of more money a considerable point. Whatever the circumstances, it is clear that he sought more money at this time, and was prepared to undergo great inconvenience—travelling all the way to Paris—to get it.
24. Gaukroger, p. 408.
25. In translating this passage Watson has "a great deal of money and profit" where Descartes writes "a great deal of honour and profit." Apart from changing the character of Descartes' ambitions to something less
praise-worthy, it unsettles the reader wishing to trust Watsons information. The passage in the letter to Chanut of 21 February 1648 reads: "Et j'avoue que je ne souhaiterais pas un emploi penible, qui m'otat le loisir de cultiver mon esprit, encore que celafut recompense par beaucoup d'honneur et de profit'.'
26. In fact there were two sets of events known by this name, distinguished as the Fronde of the Parlement and the Fronde of the Princes, this latter taking place after Descartes' death.
27. AT.V.288-9.
28. Ibid., pp. 328-9.
Chapter 11: The Queen of Winter
1. The mannishness of Christina has been a focus for debate among scholars, who note that when she was born she was first announced to be a boy, and it was only later on the night of her birth that the midwives concluded that she was in fact a girl. This suggests either hermaphroditism, or a genital malformation. Ambiguous sex and sexuality have consistently been attributed to Christina, and observers noted that apart from her mannish air and masculine proclivities, she had a curious voice, which sometimes dropped very low and at other times sounded like a woman's. Whatever the truth, since intelligence is not a gendered commodity, the signal fact of her high intellectual gifts is independent of these curiosities.
An excellent account of Christina and her life appeared as this book was about to go to press: Veronica Buckley, Christina Queen of Sweden (London: Fourth Estate, 2004). I was fortunate to secure a proof copy and to be able to make some use of it.
2. AT, IV.535.
3. Ibid.
4. AT.V.57.
5. Ibid., p. 290.
6. Ibid., p. 294.
7. See p. 265, note 3.
8. AT.V.326-7.
9. Ibid., p. 329.
10. AT.V.460-7.
11. The accounts of Descartes' death given by Baillet and later biographers vary widely, and the earlier they are the more dramatic embellishments they seem to have. The most reliable account seems to be that of Henry Schluter, Descartes' manservant, who wrote a letter to friends in the Netherlands saying, "Yesterday [his letter was dated 12 February 1650] between three and four in the morning Monsieur Descartes died. On February 3rd at four o'clock in the morning, on the way to meet the Queen in her library, which he did even when it was extremely cold—the Swedes say it has not been so cold in many years, which is possibly what caused his death—he was stricken by a bad fever. He said it came from the phlegm which was so heavy on his stomach that he believed it was extinguishing his natural fires. He was terribly cold, had a bad headache, and could eat nothing but a few spoonfuls of brandy. Then he slept for two days. On Friday he had wine sop. He complained of burning heat and pain in his side that got worse every day, and could hardly breathe. He refused to believe that it was pneumonia. On Monday the Queen sent her physician who prescribed bleeding among other remedies, but Monsieur Descartes said he had too little blood left, and that he wanted his medicines only from the kitchen. He refused to let the physician come again. But on Tuesday he let himself be bled three times, but it did no good because his blood was corrupted and yellow. He will be buried at four o'clock this afternoon." AT.V.576—7. See also Baillet, II, p. 423, Rodis-Lewis, pp. 201-3, Watson, pp. 307-10.