René Descartes
French mathematician and philosopher
born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France
died February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden
Main
French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. Because he was one of
the first to abandon scholastic Aristotelianism, because he formulated
the first modern version of mind-body dualism, from which stems the
mind-body problem, and because he promoted the development of a new
science grounded in observation and experiment, he has been called the
father of modern philosophy. Applying an original system of methodical
doubt, he dismissed apparent knowledge derived from authority, the
senses, and reason and erected new epistemic foundations on the basis of
the intuition that, when he is thinking, he exists; this he expressed in
the dictum ?I think, therefore I am? (best known in its Latin
formulation, ?Cogito, ergo sum,? though originally written in French,
?Je pense, donc je suis?). He developed a metaphysical dualism that
distinguishes radically between mind, the essence of which is thinking,
and matter, the essence of which is extension in three dimensions.
Descartes?s metaphysics is rationalist, based on the postulation of
innate ideas of mind, matter, and God, but his physics and physiology,
based on sensory experience, are mechanistic and empiricist.
Early life and education
Although Descartes?s birthplace, La Haye (now Descartes), France, is in
Touraine, his family connections lie south, across the Creuse River in
Poitou, where his father, Joachim, owned farms and houses in
Châtellerault and Poitiers. Because Joachim was a councillor in the
Parlement of Brittany in Rennes, Descartes inherited a modest rank of
nobility. Descartes?s mother died when he was one year old. His father
remarried in Rennes, leaving him in La Haye to be raised first by his
maternal grandmother and then by his great-uncle in Châtellerault.
Although the Descartes family was Roman Catholic, the Poitou region was
controlled by the Protestant Huguenots, and Châtellerault, a Protestant
stronghold, was the site of negotiations over the Edict of Nantes
(1598), which gave Protestants freedom of worship in France following
the intermittent Wars of Religion between Protestant and Catholic forces
in France. Descartes returned to Poitou regularly until 1628.
In 1606 Descartes was sent to the Jesuit college at La Flèche,
established in 1604 by Henry IV (reigned 1589?1610). At La Flèche, 1,200
young men were trained for careers in military engineering, the
judiciary, and government administration. In addition to classical
studies, science, mathematics, and metaphysics?Aristotle was taught from
scholastic commentaries?they studied acting, music, poetry, dancing,
riding, and fencing. In 1610 Descartes participated in an imposing
ceremony in which the heart of Henry IV, whose assassination that year
had destroyed the hope of religious tolerance in France and Germany, was
placed in the cathedral at La Flèche.
In 1614 Descartes went to Poitiers, where he took a law degree in
1616. At this time, Huguenot Poitiers was in virtual revolt against the
young King Louis XIII (reigned 1610?43). Descartes?s father probably
expected him to enter Parlement, but the minimum age for doing so was
27, and Descartes was only 20. In 1618 he went to Breda in the
Netherlands, where he spent 15 months as an informal student of
mathematics and military architecture in the peacetime army of the
Protestant stadholder, Prince Maurice (ruled 1585?1625). In Breda,
Descartes was encouraged in his studies of science and mathematics by
the physicist Isaac Beeckman (1588?1637), for whom he wrote the
Compendium of Music (written 1618, published 1650), his first surviving
work.
Descartes spent the period 1619 to 1628 traveling in northern and
southern Europe, where, as he later explained, he studied ?the book of
the world.? While in Bohemia in 1619, he invented analytic geometry, a
method of solving geometric problems algebraically and algebraic
problems geometrically. He also devised a universal method of deductive
reasoning, based on mathematics, that is applicable to all the sciences.
This method, which he later formulated in Discourse on Method (1637) and
Rules for the Direction of the Mind (written by 1628 but not published
until 1701), consists of four rules: (1) accept nothing as true that is
not self-evident, (2) divide problems into their simplest parts, (3)
solve problems by proceeding from simple to complex, and (4) recheck the
reasoning. These rules are a direct application of mathematical
procedures. In addition, Descartes insisted that all key notions and the
limits of each problem must be clearly defined.
Descartes also investigated reports of esoteric knowledge, such as
the claims of the practitioners of theosophy to be able to command
nature. Although disappointed with the followers of the Catalan mystic
Ramon Llull (1232/33?1315/16) and the German alchemist Heinrich
Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486?1535), he was impressed by the
German mathematician Johann Faulhaber (1580?1635), a member of the
mystical society of the Rosicrucians.
Descartes shared a number of Rosicrucian goals and habits. Like the
Rosicrucians, he lived alone and in seclusion, changed his residence
often (during his 22 years in the Netherlands, he lived in 18 different
places), practiced medicine without charge, attempted to increase human
longevity, and took an optimistic view of the capacity of science to
improve the human condition. At the end of his life, he left a chest of
personal papers (none of which has survived) with a Rosicrucian
physician?his close friend Corneille van Hogelande, who handled his
affairs in the Netherlands. Despite these affinities, Descartes rejected
the Rosicrucians? magical and mystical beliefs. For him, this period was
a time of hope for a revolution in science. The English philosopher
Francis Bacon (1561?1626), in Advancement of Learning (1605), had
earlier proposed a new science of observation and experiment to replace
the traditional Aristotelian science, as Descartes himself did later.
In 1622 Descartes moved to Paris. There he gambled, rode, fenced, and
went to the court, concerts, and the theatre. Among his friends were the
poets Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597?1654), who dedicated his Le
Socrate chrétien (1652; ?Christian Socrates?) to Descartes, and
Théophile de Viau (1590?1626), who was burned in effigy and imprisoned
in 1623 for writing verses mocking religious themes. Descartes also
befriended the mathematician Claude Mydorge (1585?1647) and Father Marin
Mersenne (1588?1648), a man of universal learning who corresponded with
hundreds of scholars, writers, mathematicians, and scientists and who
became Descartes?s main contact with the larger intellectual world.
During this time Descartes regularly hid from his friends to work,
writing treatises, now lost, on fencing and metals. He acquired a
considerable reputation long before he published anything.
At a talk in 1628, Descartes denied the alchemist Chandoux?s claim
that probabilities are as good as certainties in science and
demonstrated his own method for attaining certainty. The Cardinal Pierre
de Bérulle (1575?1629)?who had founded the Oratorian teaching
congregation in 1611 as a rival to the Jesuits?was present at the talk.
Many commentators speculate that Bérulle urged Descartes to write a
metaphysics based on the philosophy of St. Augustine as a replacement
for Jesuit teaching. Be that as it may, within weeks Descartes left for
the Netherlands, which was Protestant, and?taking great precautions to
conceal his address?did not return to France for 16 years. Some scholars
claim that Descartes adopted Bérulle as director of his conscience, but
this is unlikely, given Descartes?s background and beliefs (he came from
a Huguenot province, he was not a Catholic enthusiast, he had been
accused of being a Rosicrucian, and he advocated religious tolerance and
championed the use of reason).
Residence in the Netherlands
Descartes said that he went to the Netherlands to enjoy a greater
liberty than was available anywhere else and to avoid the distractions
of Paris and friends so that he could have the leisure and solitude to
think. (He had inherited enough money and property to live
independently.) The Netherlands was a haven of tolerance, where
Descartes could be an original, independent thinker without fear of
being burned at the stake?as was the Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini
(1585?1619) for proposing natural explanations of miracles?or being
drafted into the armies then prosecuting the Catholic
Counter-Reformation. In France, by contrast, religious intolerance was
mounting. The Jews were expelled in 1615, and the last Protestant
stronghold, La Rochelle, was crushed?with Bérulle?s participation?only
weeks before Descartes?s departure. In 1624 the French Parlement passed
a decree forbidding criticism of Aristotle on pain of death. Although
Mersenne and the philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592?1655) did publish
attacks on Aristotle without suffering persecution (they were, after
all, Catholic priests), those judged to be heretics continued to be
burned, and laymen lacked church protection. In addition, Descartes may
have felt jeopardized by his friendship with intellectual libertines
such as Father Claude Picot (d. 1668), a bon vivant known as ?the
Atheist Priest,? with whom he entrusted his financial affairs in France.
In 1629 Descartes went to the university at Franeker, where he stayed
with a Catholic family and wrote the first draft of his Meditations. He
matriculated at the University of Leiden in 1630. In 1631 he visited
Denmark with the physician and alchemist Étienne de Villebressieu, who
invented siege engines, a portable bridge, and a two-wheeled stretcher.
The physician Henri Regius (1598?1679), who taught Descartes?s views at
the University of Utrecht in 1639, involved Descartes in a fierce
controversy with the Calvinist theologian Gisbertus Voetius (1589?1676)
that continued for the rest of Descartes?s life. In his Letter to
Voetius of 1648, Descartes made a plea for religious tolerance and the
rights of man. Claiming to write not only for Christians but also for
Turks?meaning Muslims, libertines, infidels, deists, and atheists?he
argued that, because Protestants and Catholics worship the same God,
both can hope for heaven. When the controversy became intense, however,
Descartes sought the protection of the French ambassador and of his
friend Constantijn Huygens (1596?1687), secretary to the stadholder
Prince Frederick Henry (ruled 1625?47).
In 1635 Descartes?s daughter Francine was born to Helena Jans and was
baptized in the Reformed Church in Deventer. Although Francine is
typically referred to by commentators as Descartes?s ?illegitimate?
daughter, her baptism is recorded in a register for legitimate births.
Her death of scarlet fever at the age of five was the greatest sorrow of
Descartes?s life. Referring to her death, Descartes said that he did not
believe that one must refrain from tears to prove oneself a man.
The World and Discourse on Method
In 1633, just as he was about to publish The World (1664), Descartes
learned that the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564?1642) had been
condemned in Rome for publishing the view that the Earth revolves around
the Sun. Because this Copernican position is central to his cosmology
and physics, Descartes suppressed The World, hoping that eventually the
church would retract its condemnation. Although Descartes feared the
church, he also hoped that his physics would one day replace that of
Aristotle in church doctrine and be taught in Catholic schools.
Descartes?s Discourse on Method (1637) is one of the first important
modern philosophical works not written in Latin. Descartes said that he
wrote in French so that all who had good sense, including women, could
read his work and learn to think for themselves. He believed that
everyone could tell true from false by the natural light of reason. In
three essays accompanying the Discourse, he illustrated his method for
utilizing reason in the search for truth in the sciences: in Dioptrics
he derived the law of refraction, in Meteorology he explained the
rainbow, and in Geometry he gave an exposition of his analytic geometry.
He also perfected the system invented by François Viète for representing
known numerical quantities with a, b, c, ? , unknowns with x, y, z, ? ,
and squares, cubes, and other powers with numerical superscripts, as in
x2, x3, ? , which made algebraic calculations much easier than they had
been before.
In the Discourse he also provided a provisional moral code (later
presented as final) for use while seeking truth: (1) obey local customs
and laws, (2) make decisions on the best evidence and then stick to them
firmly as though they were certain, (3) change desires rather than the
world, and (4) always seek truth. This code exhibits Descartes?s
prudential conservatism, decisiveness, stoicism, and dedication. The
Discourse and other works illustrate Descartes?s conception of knowledge
as being like a tree in its interconnectedness and in the grounding
provided to higher forms of knowledge by lower or more fundamental ones.
Thus, for Descartes, metaphysics corresponds to the roots of the tree,
physics to the trunk, and medicine, mechanics, and morals to the
branches.
Meditations
In 1641 Descartes published the Meditations on First Philosophy, in
Which Is Proved the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul.
Written in Latin and dedicated to the Jesuit professors at the Sorbonne
in Paris, the work includes critical responses by several eminent
thinkers?collected by Mersenne from the Jansenist philosopher and
theologian Antoine Arnauld (1612?94), the English philosopher Thomas
Hobbes (1588?1679), and the Epicurean atomist Pierre Gassendi
(1592?1655)?as well as Descartes?s replies. The second edition (1642)
includes a response by the Jesuit priest Pierre Bourdin (1595?1653), who
Descartes said was a fool. These objections and replies constitute a
landmark of cooperative discussion in philosophy and science at a time
when dogmatism was the rule.
The Meditations is characterized by Descartes?s use of methodic
doubt, a systematic procedure of rejecting as though false all types of
belief in which one has ever been, or could ever be, deceived. His
arguments derive from the skepticism of the Greek philosopher Sextus
Empiricus (fl. 3rd century ad) as reflected in the work of the essayist
Michel de Montaigne (1533?92) and the Catholic theologian Pierre Charron
(1541?1603). Thus, Descartes?s apparent knowledge based on authority is
set aside, because even experts are sometimes wrong. His beliefs from
sensory experience are declared untrustworthy, because such experience
is sometimes misleading, as when a square tower appears round from a
distance. Even his beliefs about the objects in his immediate vicinity
may be mistaken, because, as he notes, he often has dreams about objects
that do not exist, and he has no way of knowing with certainty whether
he is dreaming or awake. Finally, his apparent knowledge of simple and
general truths of reasoning that do not depend on sense experience?such
as ?2 + 3 = 5? or ?a square has four sides??is also unreliable, because
God could have made him in such a way that, for example, he goes wrong
every time he counts. As a way of summarizing the universal doubt into
which he has fallen, Descartes supposes that an ?evil genius of the
utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to
deceive me.?
Although at this stage there is seemingly no belief about which he
cannot entertain doubt, Descartes finds certainty in the intuition that,
when he is thinking?even if he is being deceived?he must exist. In the
Discourse, Descartes expresses this intuition in the dictum ?I think,
therefore I am?; but because ?therefore? suggests that the intuition is
an argument?though it is not?in the Meditations he says merely, ?I
think, I am? (?Cogito, sum?). The cogito is a logically self-evident
truth that also gives intuitively certain knowledge of a particular
thing?s existence?that is, one?s self. Nevertheless, it justifies
accepting as certain only the existence of the person who thinks it. If
all one ever knew for certain was that one exists, and if one adhered to
Descartes?s method of doubting all that is uncertain, then one would be
reduced to solipsism, the view that nothing exists but one?s self and
thoughts. To escape solipsism, Descartes argues that all ideas that are
as ?clear and distinct? as the cogito must be true, for, if they were
not, the cogito also, as a member of the class of clear and distinct
ideas, could be doubted. Since ?I think, I am? cannot be doubted, all
clear and distinct ideas must be true.
On the basis of clear and distinct innate ideas, Descartes then
establishes that each mind is a mental substance and each body a part of
one material substance. The mind or soul is immortal, because it is
unextended and cannot be broken into parts, as can extended bodies.
Descartes also advances a proof for the existence of God. He begins with
the proposition that he has an innate idea of God as a perfect being and
then concludes that God necessarily exists, because, if he did not, he
would not be perfect. This ontological argument for God?s existence,
originally due to the English logician St. Anselm of Canterbury
(1033/34?1109), is at the heart of Descartes?s rationalism, for it
establishes certain knowledge about an existing thing solely on the
basis of reasoning from innate ideas, with no help from sensory
experience. Descartes then argues that, because God is perfect, he does
not deceive human beings; and therefore, because God leads us to believe
that the material world exists, it does exist. In this way Descartes
claims to establish metaphysical foundations for the existence of his
own mind, of God, and of the material world.
The inherent circularity of Descartes?s reasoning was exposed by
Arnauld, whose objection has come to be known as the Cartesian Circle.
According to Descartes, God?s existence is established by the fact that
Descartes has a clear and distinct idea of God; but the truth of
Descartes?s clear and distinct ideas are guaranteed by the fact that God
exists and is not a deceiver. Thus, in order to show that God exists,
Descartes must assume that God exists.
Physics, physiology, and morals
Descartes?s general goal was to help human beings master and possess
nature. He provided understanding of the trunk of the tree of knowledge
in The World, Dioptrics, Meteorology, and Geometry, and he established
its metaphysical roots in the Meditations. He then spent the rest of his
life working on the branches of mechanics, medicine, and morals.
Mechanics is the basis of his physiology and medicine, which in turn is
the basis of his moral psychology. Descartes believed that all material
bodies, including the human body, are machines that operate by
mechanical principles. In his physiological studies, he dissected animal
bodies to show how their parts move. He argued that, because animals
have no souls, they do not think or feel; thus, vivisection, which
Descartes practiced, is permitted. He also described the circulation of
the blood but came to the erroneous conclusion that heat in the heart
expands the blood, causing its expulsion into the veins. Descartes?s
L?Homme, et un traité de la formation du foetus (Man, and a Treatise on
the Formation of the Foetus) was published in 1664.
In 1644 Descartes published Principles of Philosophy, a compilation
of his physics and metaphysics. He dedicated this work to Princess
Elizabeth (1618?79), daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, titular queen of
Bohemia, in correspondence with whom he developed his moral philosophy.
According to Descartes, a human being is a union of mind and body, two
radically dissimilar substances that interact in the pineal gland. He
reasoned that the pineal gland must be the uniting point because it is
the only nondouble organ in the brain, and double reports, as from two
eyes, must have one place to merge. He argued that each action on a
person?s sense organs causes subtle matter to move through tubular
nerves to the pineal gland, causing it to vibrate distinctively. These
vibrations give rise to emotions and passions and also cause the body to
act. Bodily action is thus the final outcome of a reflex arc that begins
with external stimuli?as, for example, when a soldier sees the enemy,
feels fear, and flees. The mind cannot change bodily reactions
directly?for example, it cannot will the body to fight?but by altering
mental attitudes, it can change the pineal vibrations from those that
cause fear and fleeing to those that cause courage and fighting.
Descartes argued further that human beings can be conditioned by
experience to have specific emotional responses. Descartes himself, for
example, had been conditioned to be attracted to cross-eyed women
because he had loved a cross-eyed playmate as a child. When he
remembered this fact, however, he was able to rid himself of his
passion. This insight is the basis of Descartes?s defense of free will
and of the mind?s ability to control the body. Despite such arguments,
in his Passions of the Soul (1649), which he dedicated to Queen
Christina of Sweden (reigned 1644?54), Descartes holds that most bodily
actions are determined by external material causes.
Descartes?s morality is anti-Jansenist and anti-Calvinist in that he
maintains that the grace that is necessary for salvation can be earned
and that human beings are virtuous and able to achieve salvation when
they do their best to find and act upon the truth. His optimism about
the ability of human reason and will to find truth and reach salvation
contrasts starkly with the pessimism of the Jansenist apologist and
mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623?62), who believed that salvation comes
only as a gift of God?s grace. Descartes was correctly accused of
holding the view of Jacobus Arminius (1560?1609), an anti-Calvinist
Dutch theologian, that salvation depends on free will and good works
rather than on grace. Descartes also held that, unless people believe in
God and immortality, they will see no reason to be moral.
Free will, according to Descartes, is the sign of God in human
nature, and human beings can be praised or blamed according to their use
of it. People are good, he believed, only to the extent that they act
freely for the good of others; such generosity is the highest virtue.
Descartes was Epicurean in his assertion that human passions are good in
themselves. He was an extreme moral optimist in his belief that
understanding of the good is automatically followed by a desire to do
the good. Moreover, because passions are ?willings? according to
Descartes, to want something is the same as to will it. Descartes was
also stoic, however, in his admonition that, rather than change the
world, human beings should control their passions.
Although Descartes wrote no political philosophy, he approved of the
admonition of Seneca (c. 4 bc?ad 65) to acquiesce in the common order of
things. He rejected the recommendation of Niccolò Machiavelli
(1469?1527) to lie to one?s friends, because friendship is sacred and
life?s greatest joy. Human beings cannot exist alone but must be parts
of social groups, such as nations and families, and it is better to do
good for the group than for oneself.
Descartes had been a puny child with a weak chest and was not
expected to live. He therefore watched his health carefully, becoming a
virtual vegetarian. In 1639 he bragged that he had not been sick for 19
years and that he expected to live to 100. He told Princess Elizabeth to
think of life as a comedy; bad thoughts cause bad dreams and bodily
disorders. Because there is always more good than evil in life, he said,
one can always be content, no matter how bad things seem. Elizabeth,
inextricably involved in messy court and family affairs, was not
consoled.
In his later years Descartes said that he had once hoped to learn to
prolong life to a century or more, but he then saw that, to achieve that
goal, the work of many generations would be required; he himself had not
even learned to prevent a fever. Thus, he said, instead of continuing to
hope for long life, he had found an easier way, namely to love life and
not to fear death. It is easy, he claimed, for a true philosopher to die
tranquilly.
Final years and heritage
In 1644, 1647, and 1648, after 16 years in the Netherlands, Descartes
returned to France for brief visits on financial business and to oversee
the translation into French of the Principles, the Meditations, and the
Objections and Replies. (The translators were, respectively, Picot,
Charles d?Albert, duke de Luynes, and Claude Clerselier.) In 1647 he
also met with Gassendi and Hobbes, and he suggested to Pascal the famous
experiment of taking a barometer up Mount Puy-de-Dôme to determine the
influence of the weight of the air. Picot returned with Descartes to the
Netherlands for the winter of 1647?48. During Descartes?s final stay in
Paris in 1648, the French nobility revolted against the crown in a
series of wars known as the Fronde. Descartes left precipitously on
August 17, 1648, only days before the death of his old friend Mersenne.
Clerselier?s brother-in-law, Hector Pierre Chanut, who was French
resident in Sweden and later ambassador, helped to procure a pension for
Descartes from Louis XIV, though it was never paid. Later, Chanut
engineered an invitation for Descartes to the court of Queen Christina,
who by the close of the Thirty Years? War (1618?48) had become one of
the most important and powerful monarchs in Europe. Descartes went
reluctantly, arriving early in October 1649. He may have gone because he
needed patronage; the Fronde seemed to have destroyed his chances in
Paris, and the Calvinist theologians were harassing him in the
Netherlands.
In Sweden?where, Descartes said, in winter men?s thoughts freeze like
the water?the 22-year-old Christina perversely made the 53-year-old
Descartes rise before 5:00 am to give her philosophy lessons, even
though she knew of his habit of lying in bed until 11 o?clock in the
morning. She also is said to have ordered him to write the verses of a
ballet, The Birth of Peace (1649), to celebrate her role in the Peace of
Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years? War. The verses in fact were
not written by Descartes, though he did write the statutes for a Swedish
Academy of Arts and Sciences. While delivering these statutes to the
queen at 5:00 am on February 1, 1650, he caught a chill, and he soon
developed pneumonia. He died in Stockholm on February 11. Many pious
last words have been attributed to him, but the most trustworthy report
is that of his German valet, who said that Descartes was in a coma and
died without saying anything at all.
Descartes?s papers came into the possession of Claude Clerselier, a
pious Catholic, who began the process of turning Descartes into a saint
by cutting, adding to, and selectively publishing his letters. This
cosmetic work culminated in 1691 in the massive biography by Father
Adrien Baillet, who was at work on a 17-volume Lives of the Saints. Even
during Descartes?s lifetime there were questions about whether he was a
Catholic apologist, primarily concerned with supporting Christian
doctrine, or an atheist, concerned only with protecting himself with
pious sentiments while establishing a deterministic, mechanistic, and
materialistic physics.
These questions remain difficult to answer, not least because all the
papers, letters, and manuscripts available to Clerselier and Baillet are
now lost. In 1667 the Roman Catholic church made its own decision by
putting Descartes?s works on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Latin:
?Index of Prohibited Books?) on the very day his bones were
ceremoniously placed in Sainte-Geneviève-du-Mont in Paris. During his
lifetime, Protestant ministers in the Netherlands called Descartes a
Jesuit and a papist?which is to say an atheist. He retorted that they
were intolerant, ignorant bigots. Up to about 1930, a majority of
scholars, many of whom were religious, believed that Descartes?s major
concerns were metaphysical and religious. By the late 20th century,
however, numerous commentators had come to believe that Descartes was a
Catholic in the same way he was a Frenchman and a royalist?that is, by
birth and by convention.
Descartes himself said that good sense is destroyed when one thinks
too much of God. He once told a German protégée, Anna Maria van Schurman
(1607?78), who was known as a painter and a poet, that she was wasting
her intellect studying Hebrew and theology. He also was perfectly aware
of?though he tried to conceal?the atheistic potential of his materialist
physics and physiology. Descartes seemed indifferent to the emotional
depths of religion. Whereas Pascal trembled when he looked into the
infinite universe and perceived the puniness and misery of man,
Descartes exulted in the power of human reason to understand the cosmos
and to promote happiness, and he rejected the view that human beings are
essentially miserable and sinful. He held that it is impertinent to pray
to God to change things. Instead, when we cannot change the world, we
must change ourselves.
Major Works
The history of the original works and their early translations into
English is as follows: Musicae Compendium (written 1618, published
1650); Renatus Des-Cartes Excellent Compendium of Musick (1653); Regulae
ad Directionem Ingenii (written 1628, published 1701); Le Monde de Mr
Descartes; ou, le traité de la lumière (written 1633, published 1664);
Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la
verité dans les sciences. Plus la dioptrique; les meteores; et la
geometrie (1637; A Discourse of a Method for the Wel-guiding of Reason,
and the Discovery of Truth in Sciences, 1649); Meditationes de Prima
Philosophia (1641; and its 2nd ed., with Objectiones Septimae, 1642; Six
Metaphysical Meditations; Wherein It Is Proved That There Is a God,
1680); Principia Philosophiae (1644); and Les Passions de l?âme (1649;
The Passions of the Soule, 1650).
Descartes?s correspondence has been collected in Lettres de Mr
Descartes: où sont traittées plusieurs belles questions touchant la
morale, physique, medecine, & les mathematiques, ed. by Claude
Clerselier, 3 vol. (1666?67); and Correspondance, ed. by Charles Adam
and G. Milhaud, 8 vol. (1936?63, reprinted 1970). The standard edition
of complete works is Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. by Charles Adam and Paul
Tannery, 13 vol. (1897?1913), which includes Descartes?s correspondence
and is available in later editions.
Modern translations into English, many with valuable commentaries,
include such selections as The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans.
by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross, 2 vol. (1911?12, reprinted
1982); The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. by John
Cottingham et al., 3 vol. (1984?91); Philosophical Letters, trans. and
ed. by Anthony Kenny (1970, reissued 1981); Descartes? Conversation with
Burman, trans. by John Cottingham (1976); Le Monde; ou, traité de la
lumière, trans. by Michael Sean Mahoney (1979), in English and French;
Treatise of Man, trans. by Thomas Steele Hall (1972); Discourse on
Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology, trans. by Paul J. Olscamp
(1965); Principles of Philosophy, trans. by Valentine Rodger Miller and
Reese P. Miller (1983, reprinted 1991); The Passions of the Soul, trans.
by Stephen Voss (1989); and Descartes: His Moral Philosophy and
Psychology, trans. by John J. Blom (1978).
Additional Reading ? Life
Basic biographical sources are Descartes?s own works and letters. Adrien
Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes, 2 vol. (1691, reprinted 1987),
is the major source, notwithstanding Baillet?s apologetic bias and his
fanciful embroidering of tales. Charles Adam, Vie & oeuvres de
Descartes: étude historique (1910); Gustave Cohen, Écrivains français en
Hollande dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle (1920, reprinted 1976);
and J. Sirven, Les Années d?apprentissage de Descartes, 1596?1628 (1928,
reprinted 1987), are based on extensive original research. Also
noteworthy are Cornelia Serrurier, Descartes: l?homme et le penseur
(1951; originally published in Dutch, 1930); Jonathan Rée, Descartes
(1974); Leon Pearl, Descartes (1977); and Geneviève Rodis-Lewis,
Descartes: His Life and Thought (1998; originally published in French,
1995). Two other biographical works, published since Sirven and also
based on extensive original research, are John R. Cole, The Olympian
Dreams and Youthful Rebellion of René Descartes (1992); and Richard A.
Watson, Cogito ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes (2002).
Additional Reading ? Philosophy
Expositions and criticisms of Descartes?s philosophical doctrine began
with his contemporaries and continue in the present day. Noteworthy
examples are Benedictus de Spinoza, The Principles of Descartes?
Philosophy, trans. from Latin by Halbert Hains Britan (1905, reprinted
1974); Henri Gouhier, Les Premières Pensées de Descartes: contribution à
l?histoire de l?anti-Renaissance, 2nd ed. (1979), and La Pensée
métaphysique de Descartes, 4th ed. (1987); Jean Laporte, Le Rationalisme
de Descartes, 3rd ed. (1988); Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, L? Œuvre de
Descartes, 2 vol. (1971); Maxime Leroy, Descartes: le philosophe au
masque, 2 vol. (1929); Norman Kemp Smith, New Studies in the Philosophy
of Descartes: Descartes as Pioneer (1952, reprinted 1987); Willis Doney
(ed.), Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays (1967); Anthony Kenny,
Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (1968, reissued 1997); Ferdinand
Alquié, Descartes, new ed. (1969), in French; Hiram Caton, The Origin of
Subjectivity: An Essay on Descartes (1973); Margaret Dauler Wilson,
Descartes (1978, reissued 1999); E.M. Curley, Descartes Against the
Skeptics (1978); Nicolas Grimaldi, L?Expérience de la pensée dans la
philosophie de Descartes (1978); Bernard Williams, Descartes: The
Project of Pure Enquiry (1978, reprinted 1990); John Cottingham,
Descartes (1986); Willis Doney (ed.), Eternal Truths and the Cartesian
Circle: A Collection of Studies (1987); Geneviève Rodis-Lewis (ed.),
Méthode et métaphysique chez Descartes (1987); Gregor Sebba, The Dream
of Descartes, ed. by Richard A. Watson (1987); and Theo Verbeek (ed.),
La Querelle d?Utrecht: René Descartes et Martin Schoock (1988).
Descartes?s theology, ontology, and ethics are explored in Étienne
Gilson, Études sur le rôle de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du
système cartésien, 5th ed. (1984); Zbigniew Janowski, Index
Augustino-Cartésien: textes et commentaire (2000); Henri Gouhier, La
Pensée religieuse de Descartes, 2nd rev. ed. (1972); J.-R. Armogathe,
Theologia cartesiana: l?explication physique de l?Eucharistie chez
Descartes et dom Desgabets (1977); Martial Guéroult, Descartes?
Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of Reasons, 2 vol.
(1984?85; originally published in French, 1953); and Jean-Luc Marion,
Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes: analogie, création des vérités
éternelles et fondement (1981, reissued 1991), Sur l?ontologie grise de
Descartes: science cartésienne et savoir aristotélicien dans les
Regulae, 2nd ed., rev. and expanded (1981, reissued 2000), and On
Descartes? Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and the Limits of
Onto-Theo-Logy in Cartesian Thought (1999; originally published in
French, 1986). Also of interest are Roger Ariew, Descartes and the Last
Scholastics (1999); John Cottingham (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Descartes (1992, reissued 1995); Zbigniew Janowski, Cartesian Theodicy:
Descartes? Quest for Certitude (2000); John Marshall, Descartes?s Moral
Theory (1998); and Vance G. Morgan, Foundations of Cartesian Ethics
(1994).
Descartes the scientist and mathematician is treated in J.F. Scott,
The Scientific Work of René Descartes (1952, reprinted 1987); Stephen
Gaukroger (ed.), Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics, and Physics (1980);
Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (1995, reissued
1997); Dennis Des Chene, Spirits and Clocks: Machine and Organism in
Descartes (2001); Desmond M. Clarke, Descartes? Philosophy of Science
(1982); Daniel Garber, Descartes? Metaphysical Physics (1992); Geneviève
Rodis-Lewis (ed.), La Science chez Descartes (1987); and William R.
Shea, The Magic of Numbers and Motion: The Scientific Career of René
Descartes (1991).
Interpretative studies of Descartes?s separate works include René
Descartes, Discourse de la méthode, text and commentary by Étienne
Gilson, 6th ed. (1987); Jean-Marie Beyssade, La Philosophie première de
Descartes: le temps et la cohérence de la métaphysique (1979); Henri
Gouhier, Descartes: essais sur le ?Discours de la méthode,? la
métaphysique et la morale, 3rd ed. (1973); L.J. Beck, The Metaphysics of
Descartes: A Study of the Meditations (1965, reprinted 1979); Alexander
Sesonske and Noel Fleming (eds.), Meta-meditations (1965); Frederick
Broadie, An Approach to Descartes? Meditations (1970); Harry G.
Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen: The Defense of Reason in
Descartes?s Meditations (1970, reprinted 1987); Richard B. Carter,
Descartes? Medical Philosophy: The Organic Solution to the Mind-Body
Problem (1983); Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays on Descartes?
Meditations (1986); Roger Ariew and Marjorie Grene (eds.), Descartes and
His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies (1995); and
Richard A. Watson, Descartes?s Ballet: His Doctrine of the Will and His
Political Philosophy (2003).
Additional Reading ? Bibliographies
Gregor Sebba, Bibliographia Cartesiana: A Critical Guide to the
Descartes Literature, 1800?1960 (1964), is a definitive bibliography
covering biographical and doctrinal books and articles. Also of note is
Vere Chappell and Willis Doney (eds.), Twenty-Five Years of Descartes
Scholarship, 1960?1984: A Bibliography (1987).
Richard A. Watson