18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Historical raisons dêtre of Descartes intellectual pursuit, August 18, 2001
This review is from: Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (Paperback)
Gaukroger ends his introduction with the words: "An intellectual biography forces one to think in very specific terms, hopefully yielding a kind of understanding which historians of philosophy of science have missed". This point of view marks one of the strengths as well as one of the weaknesses of this work on Descartes.
This intellectual biography offers a detailed exposition on the intellectual development and evolution of thought of René Descartes. The book strictly follows the chronology of events in Descartes' intellectual life and starts with his early childhood and education at La Flèche. This chapter excels in providing insight in 17th-century Jesuit education systems and the influence they had on Descartes' methodology and fields of study. Chapter 3 focuses on Descartes' apprenticeship with Isaac Beeckman in Holland and the decisive influence the latter's corpuscalarian thinking had on the natural philosophy of Descartes. Starting from this corpuscalar theory, Descartes developed an arithmetical account of consonance in music and alternative explanations for the kinematics of falling bodies and the problems of hydrostatics. During this period, Descartes discovered the proportional compass (mesolabe), which led him to the ambitious idea of a general theory of mathematics. In chapter 4 Gaukroger puts forward the interesting thesis that Descartes' search for a general theory of "method" was partly influenced by the contact he had with the Rosicrucians in Germany and he was to share in something like the generality and the delusions of grandeur of their vision of a universal language, generating all truths from basic premises. Later, on returning to France, Descartes had to defend himself against charges of being a Rosicrucian, which was considered to be a political threat. During these libertine Paris years, covered in chapter 5, Descartes pursued his interests in natural philosophy and mathematics in close contact with Mersenne, Mydorge and others. During these three years Descartes discovered the law of refraction in optics, lays the foundation of analytic geometry by the arithmetization of geometrical problems and develops a theory of perceptual cognition. In 1629 Descartes moved to Holland and stayed there for almost 20 years. During these years, discussed in chapters 6 to 8, Descartes worked on several publications: Le Monde, his most important work on natural philosophy, L'Homme, an exposition of a mechanist physiology, Geometry, a first account of analytic geometry, and Discourse of Method, a metaphysical foundation of his thinking, which established him as the best known philosopher of the 17th century. Gaukroger meticulously traces origins and dates of the respective chapters in these books and points them to specific periods of Descartes' intellectual life. Descartes' attempts to systematisation, his later publications and the critics these evoked, are discussed in the final chapters.
Gaukroger establishes a rationale for Descartes' intellectual pursuits both in terms of his motivations and in terms of the specific cultural context in which these motivations bear fruit and thus fulfils his goals for writing this intellectual biography. The book will appeal to students of philosophy and history of science that are already familiar with Descartes. A close reading of this book will guard them from the homogenization from thought in previous writing on Descartes and offer them a better understanding of the genesis of and significant changes in his doctrines. However, this biography fails in both precisely identifying many of the mathematical problems studied by Descartes, and in placing them within their correct historical context. A particular example is Descartes' solution for the problem of a depressed quartic equation, cited in every textbook on the history of mathematics. Gaukroger fails to provide an appreciation of the problem, to discuss previous solutions given by Viète and 16th-century Italian mathematicians and to explain Descartes' solution. Offering a better understanding of Descartes' study fields may indeed not have been Gaukroger's ambition but I am convinced that many readers will be missing this aspect in a scholarly biography of one of the most inspiring natural philosophers of the 17th century.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A rationalist approach to controlling human passions, September 25, 2009
This review is from: Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (Paperback)
I read Stephen Gaukroger's biography of Descartes for a graduate class in ethics. I was particularly interested in studying Descartes' understanding of the virtue of courage. It is fitting that Descartes left the discipline of moral philosophy as his last project, considering years earlier, in his Principles of Philosophy, he metaphorically explains the whole order of philosophy by using a tree as his example. "The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics and morals." (Principles of Philosophy, vol. 1 of The Philosophical Works Of Descartes, 186, (AT IXB, 14). Gaukroger expertly examines how Descartes' correspondence with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia produces the first fruit of his ethical theory when she asked him questions about how the "passions" (emotions) are ruled by either the "soul" (mind) or the body considering they are separate entities. Descartes' answer to the Princess was, that the body causes the soul to have feelings and passions, and the soul causes the body to move, through an inexplicable `union' between the soul and the body. After a year of correspondence in which she received more than a few obtuse answers from Descartes, she asked him to provide a definition of the passions so that they could be easily understood. With this mission before him, Descartes in The Passions of the Soul published in 1649, makes a rational study of people's ethical behavior, relying on physiological as well as psychological explanations regarding the interplay between the body mind and emotive passionate forces that take place within people beings and cause their actions.
In Descartes' first paragraph in his Passions, he challenges the wisdom of classical Greek notions of how people's passions influence ethics. "...the teachings of the ancients about the passions are so meager and for the most part so implausible that I cannot hope to approach the truth except by departing from the paths they have followed. That is why I shall be obliged to write just as if I were considering a topic that no one had dealt with before me." (The Passions of the Soul (AT XI, 327-328). Descartes divides his treatise on the Passions into three parts. Part I examines the mind and body relationship in physiological terminology, part II is a general classification of the passions and their functions, and part III makes a psychoanalytical study of individual passions.
However, when one reads Descartes' ethical writing, one finds that he is not a tabula rasa. For example, Gaukroger notices a Stoic influence to Descartes' ethical project the overriding aim of the Passions is to inform the reader on how to master the passions so that they will be an indispensable resource for the will in determining right action. In addition, Descartes turns away from the dominance of the Church and Aquinas' theological approach to ethics. In Descartes' earlier work Meditations on First Philosophy, he argues against Aquinas' notion that contemplation of the divine will bring bliss in this life. Descartes believes the reward of divine contemplation is reserved for the afterlife. He argues that philosophical contemplation will bring joy in this life. (Meditations on First Philosophy, vol. 2 of The Philosophical Works Of Descartes, 36, (AT VII, 52). I find that in reading the Passions, one instantly recognizes Descartes' methodology. It is with a mathematician's precision that Descartes conducts his ethical investigation, befitting the "new science" of the Enlightenment in which to develop his notions regarding how the passions work in relation to people's conduct.
In article 40 of the Passions, Descartes gives his description of the role the passions have in conjunction with the human "soul" (reason or will) to manifest ethical action. For example, he states, "Thus the feeling of fear moves the soul to want to flee, that of courage to want to fight, and similarly with the others." In article 68, Descartes maintains that there are six main passions; wonder, love, hate, desire, joy, and sadness. In article 69, Descartes makes the point that there are a plethora of passions that fall under the six main passions listed in article 68 that act on the soul, and he devotes a good part of the rest of his book defining them. (Descartes, Passions, 352-353, (AT XI, 68-69).
However, in article 50 Descartes argues that everyone can use their powers of reason and judgment to subdue their passion of fear. "Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them." (Descartes, Passions, 348, (AT XI, 50). This statement is very reminiscent of the philosophical notions that the Stoics had in regards to preparing one to act virtuously. In the closing section of his notion on how the passions work in relation to a person's will to do good Descartes states, "But the chief use of wisdom lies in its teaching us to be masters of our passions and to control them with such skill that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and even become a source of joy." As cited in Descartes, Passions, 404, (AT XI, 212). In addition, Descartes theorizes that people's passions are aimed toward preserving the body, while our soul is directed towards using reason and the wisdom of judgment to perform "good" acts. With this backdrop on Descartes' theory of how people's passions interplay with judgment and will, it is time to hone in on his notions concerning courage.
In part III of Descartes' Passions, article 171 entitled Courage and boldness is where he defines both words. "Courage, when a passion and not a habit or natural inclination, is a certain heat or agitation which disposes the soul to apply itself energetically to accomplish the tasks it wants to perform, whatever their nature may be." (Descartes, Passions, 391, (AT XI, 171). Descartes believes that some people are inclined to act courageously or do so through habit, which presupposes one has been educated to do so, which is reminiscent of Plato's definition. Descartes then goes on to define boldness. "And boldness is a kind of courage which disposes the soul to carry out the most dangerous tasks." (Descartes, Passions, 391, (AT XI, 171). Descartes places the word courage in a scientific context when he further argues, "For we may regard courage as a genus which divides into as many species as it has different objects, and into as many others as it has causes: boldness is a species of courage in the first sense, and emulation in the second." (Descartes, Passions, 391, (AT XI, 172). In this article, Descartes is theorizing that an agent can perform acts of courage because she can "emulate" the courageous examples of others. In article 172, he further posits that, "Emulation is also a kind of courage, but in another sense." (Descartes, Passions, 391, (AT XI, 172). Descartes' definition implies a whole scale of actions that are not physically dangerous but recognized as courageous all the way up to acts of boldness, which run the risk of life or limb. Descartes also defines passions that work as opposite forces to the passions of courage and boldness--timidity and fear.
In article 174 of the Passions, Descartes juxtaposes timidity with courage and defines it. "Timidity is directly opposed to courage. It is listlessness or coldness which prevents the soul from bringing itself to carry out the tasks which it would perform if it were free from passion." (Descartes, Passions, 392, (AT XI, 174). In addition, boldness also has an opposite, fear, which he defines as well. "And fear or terror, which is opposed to boldness, is not only a coldness, but also a disturbance and astonishment of the soul which deprives it of the power to resist evils which it thinks lie close at hand." (Descartes, Passions, 392, (AT XI, 174). In articles 175 and 176, Descartes complains that he is at a loss to understand the real function that the passions of timidity and fear serve, since those whose souls are stymied by them have to be vigilant and increase their hope and desire to ultimately overcome these passions so the soul can perform good acts. "Although I cannot believe that nature has given to mankind any passion which is always vicious and has no good or praiseworthy function, I still find it very difficult to guess what purpose these two passions might serve." (Descartes, Passions, 392, (AT XI, 175). However, I posit that Descartes' juxtaposing courage with timidity and boldness with fear is somewhat reminiscent of the classical Greek notion of a virtuous person using the "golden mean" of moderation to strike the correct balance in their lives.
In article 45, I find that Descartes comes very close to Aristotle's interpretation of the virtue of courage in the following statement. "In order to arouse boldness and suppress fear in ourselves, it is not sufficient to have the volition to do so. We must apply ourselves to consider the reasons, objects, or precedents which persuade us that the danger is not great; that there is always more security in defense than in flight." (Descartes, Passions, 345, (AT XI, 45).
Essentially Descartes argues that people must use what the Greeks refer to as epistçmç [reason] to reject their weaker passions of timidity and fear from dominating their behavior. Therefore, Descartes' main break with the classical Greek model of courage is that Descartes has us rely on pure reason instead of relying on phronçsis [practical wisdom or acting well in human affairs] as our guide to act courageously. Thus, by Descartes relying on reason instead of practical wisdom, the world is thus stripped bare of particular and variable...
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