Abstract
It has been quite common to talk about Descartes’ text on man as if it were the second part of The World, following a first part which would deserve by itself to be entitled Traité de la lumière. Yet, from the indications given in the Discourse on Method, as well as in the first editions of these texts, it can be established that the text known as “L’Homme” did not correspond, in Descartes’ mind, to a separated book, nor to a second and formally distinct part of his work. It is nothing but a chapter – the last one – which forms a part of a work that Descartes conceived of as an uninterrupted discourse. It can also be established that Descartes intended to entitle the whole book Traité de la lumière. Thus the theses on man do not follow on from the study of light: they are a part of it, and are essential for its realization. The choice of a title may first appear quite anecdotal. The present paper aims to show that it is not. Considering – or not – the text on man as the last chapter of a treatise on light implies specific ways of reading it. It seems hence natural to pay attention to a particular historical context: the history of Optics, and the relationships between Optics and Physics, especially in Kepler’s works. The internal cohesion of the treatise must also be reconsidered – in particular, the key position occupied, within the chapter on man, by the theses on imagination, on memory and on the formation of cerebral “ideas”.
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Notes
- 1.
See for instance M. Roy, “Du titre littéraire et de ses effets de lecture”, Protée, 36 (2008) 47–56.
- 2.
To (Vatier), 22 February 1638: “the treatise which contains the whole body of my < physics > is named On Light” (CMSK 87, AT I 562). (I use the following abbreviations for Descartes’s works: AT for Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery, Paris: Vrin, 1964–1974; “CSM” or “CMSK” for The Philosophical Writings Of Descartes, trans. by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch – volume 3 including A. Kenny –, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; “G” for The World and other writings, ed. and trans. S. Gaukroger, Cambridge, New-York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1998. I follow the cited translations when possible; emended passages are marked in diamond brackets.) The testimony given by the letter to Vatier is confirmed by the foreword by D. R., the editor of Le Monde... ou le Traité de la lumière (1664a): “je n’ai vu dans l’Original que ces mots, Traité de la Lumière” (AT XI viii-ix), and by Leibniz, who writes in 1676 : « J’ai été aujourd’hui avec Mons. De Tschirnaus, pour lui donner la connaissance de Mons. Clerselier, et pour lui faire voir les restes de Mons. Des Cartes. (…) Il y a encore un traité de la lumière. Voilà son titre. Mais le traité même est ce que Mons. Des Cartes appelle son Monde, ou Méditations physiques, faites, comme les Métaphysiques, d’un style familier, quoiqu’elles ne disent en substance qui ce qui est dans ses Principes philosophiques » (AT XI, 661–662). They are, what’s more, some of the first words of the text: “In putting forward an account of light...” (G 3, AT XI 3). We can therefore not consider that Descartes hesitated between two titles, as has been suggested by J.-P. Cavaillé (La fable du monde, Paris : Vrin, 1991, 45). On this point, see A. Nardi, “La luce e la favola del Mondo, Descartes 1629–1633”, Annali dell’Instituto di Filosofia, 3, Florence: Olschki, 1981, 104, n.1. We should otherwise note that Descartes frequently references “my World” (mon Monde) in The Correspondence, this is not strictly speaking about the Treatise on Light. The Treatise on Light contains the World of Descartes, or at least “something like an abridged version” of it (“quasi un abrégé”) (to Mersenne, 25 November 1630, AT I 179). But this does not constitute its only possible form. Also, the project of a ‘World’ appearing as of October 1629 (to Mersenne, 13 November 1629), does not take the form of a Treatise on Light until one year later (to Mersenne, 25 November 1630). Similarly, in 1642, Descartes will leave aside the specific format of a Treatise on Light to favor a Summa philosophiae better adapted to the polemic context which motivated the publication of his “World” (to Huygens, 31 January 1642, AT III, 782). On the development of Cartesian Physics between October 1629 and November 1633, see G. Cantelli, L’Uomo, Torino: Boringhieri, 1960, 20–23; A. Nardi, art. cit., 103–145; D. Garber, Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics, University of Chicago Press, 1992, 16–20; A. Bitbol-Hespériès’ Introduction to Le Monde; L’Homme, Paris: Seuil, 1999, v–viii; or S. Gaukroger, Descartes’ system of natural philosophy, Cambridge, New-York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cap Town: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 10–24. Note that, from our point of view, most of the reproaches expressed by Nardi against Cantelli’s interpretation of the letter on November 1630 are not relevant.
- 3.
G 167, AT XI 201–202.
- 4.
Cf. F. Risner, Opticae thesaurus. Alhazeni Arabis libri septem nuncprimum editi. Eiusdem liber De crepusculis & nubium acensionibus. Item Vitellionis Thuringopoloni libri X..., Basileae: per Episcopios, 1572. On Descartes’ optical sources, see A. I. Sabra, Theories of light from Descartes to Newton, Cambridge, New-York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 72; A. M. Smith, “Descartes’ Theory of Light and Refraction: A Discourse on method”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 77 (3), Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1987, 8–12.
- 5.
To Mersenne, 31 March 1638, AT II 86.
- 6.
“I thought it a good idea to look a little more deeply into (paulo penitius inspicere) the whole nature of light (totam lucis naturam), and to relate to their principles those things that appear (ea quae apparent), insofar as possible at present...” (D 16, MA 4). For this work, I use the following abbreviations: “D” for Optics: Paralipomena to Witelo & Optical part of Astronomy, edited and translated by W. H. Donahue (Santa Fe: Green Lion Press, 2000); “MA” for Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena... (Francofurti: C. Marnium & H. I. Aubrii, 1604). On the respective places of Paralipomena and Dioptrice in Kepler’s thought, see Ph. Hamou, La mutation du visible. Essai sur la portée épistémologique des instruments d’optique au XVIIe siècle. Volume I: du Sidereus Nuncius de Galilée à la Dioptrique cartésienne (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1999) 203–206.
- 7.
Cf. to Mersenne, 25 November 1630, CMSK 28, AT I 178–179.
- 8.
These are the first six parts of the Dioptrics published in 1637.
- 9.
AT XI 151, note b.
- 10.
BK III 648, note 334.
- 11.
CMSK 40, AT I 263.
- 12.
CMSK 28, AT I 179. See also: to Mersenne, 15 April 1630, CMSK 21, AT I, 137.
- 13.
Discourse on the Method V, CMS I, 132, AT VI, 42. Note here that Descartes does not present himself as a painter (peintre) of “the nature of material things” but as a painter of ideas previously acquired about his subject. The analogy with painting relates to writing as understood to be a material expression of thought (“put into... discourse”). The philosopher that undertakes to present a discourse on the totality of what he has “in mind” (à la pensée) on the subject of physics is (or at least, he fears to be) similar to the painter who tasks themselves with representing on a flat surface all of the sides of a solid body. Elsewhere, the fear of not being able to say everything takes its meaning in regard to his personal preoccupations – Descartes feared lacking time, he was unsure whether God would leave him enough to “complete” (venir à bout) his task (CMSK 14, 41, AT I 85, 271) – but also in regard to the consideration shown towards the public that Descartes was striving to please. See his use of the paradigm of chiaroscuro at the end of Chap. 8: “I do not promise to set out exact demonstrations of everything I say. It will be enough for me to open up the way for you to find them yourselves, when you take the trouble to look for them. Most minds lose interest when one makes things too easy for them. And so as to present a picture which pleases you here, I must use shading as well as bright colours” (G 32, AT XI 48).
- 14.
G 62, AT XI 97.
- 15.
CMSK 39, AT I 254.
- 16.
CMSK 40, AT I 263.
- 17.
G 124, AT XI 151.
- 18.
G 118–124, AT XI 143–151.
- 19.
G 131–139, AT XI 159–163.
- 20.
G 119, AT XI 143.
- 21.
“The tiny fibres (…) which serve as the organ of taste in this machine, can be moved by slighter actions than those which serve for touch in general” (G 120, AT XI 145); the ones which serve as the organ of smell “can be moved by even smaller terrestrious parts than those of the tongue” (G 121, AT XI 148); the ones which serve as the organ of the hearing “can be easily moved all together and in the same way, by the little blows with which the external air pushes against a certain very fine membrane” (G 122, AT XI 149). Finally, the optic nerves “must certainly be made up from many tiny fibres, as fine and as easily movable as they can be” (G 124, AT XI 151).
- 22.
Concerning the debates on materiality or immateriality of light in the early Seventeenth Century, see C. Chevalley, “Sur le statut d’une question apparemment dénuée de sens : la nature immatérielle de la lumière”, XVIIe siècle 136 (1982), 257–266.
- 23.
On this new theory of light, cf. A. M. Smith, op. Cit., 13–19, 32–46 ; for a more precise analysis on the formation of this theory, see J. Schuster, Descartes-Agonistes. Physico-mathematics, Method & Corpuscular-Mechanism 1618–1633, Dordrecht, New-York: Springer, 2013, 184–214.
- 24.
- 25.
Frédéric de Buzon notes: “Kepler refusait de donner une explication précise de la manière dont les impressions sensibles sont transmises de la rétine au cerveau, où est localisé le sens commun, jugeant cette propriété occulte ou obscure. C’est précisément là que Descartes déplace à nouveau le problème, en l’associant à une psychologie d’un côté et de l’autre côté à une explication purement mécanique du transport des images dans le corps” (introduction to La Dioptrique, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. J.-M. Beyssade and D. Kambouchner, t. VI, Gallimard, 2009, 144–145). See also G. Simon, Structures de pensée et objets du savoir chez Kepler, Service de reproduction des thèses, Université Lille III, 1979, 562–572; Ph. Hamou, op. cit., 274–278.
- 26.
Descartes insists on the fact that the “detours” through which the actions that move the nerves pass do not prevent these actions from being “easily communicated from one end to the other”: in such a manner that the reader himself must not be prevented by them from “seeing clearly how the ideas of objects that strike the sense are formed” (G 146, AT XI 174). He is probably thinking here, in the criticism addressed by Kepler to Witelo on the subject of the crossing of optical nerves: “what can be pronounced by optical laws about this hidden confluence (hoc occulto commeatu), which, since it goes through opaque, and therefore dark, parts (per opacas, ideoque tenebrosas partes), and is administrated by spirits, which differ entirely in kind from humours and other transparent objects, has already completely removed itself from optical laws?” (D 180, MA 169).
- 27.
G 124–131, AT XI 151–158.
- 28.
G 124, AT XI 152. Compared to Dioptrics III: “je laisse à dessein plusieurs autres particularités qui se remarquent en cette matière, et dont les anatomistes grossissent leurs livres ; car je crois que celles que j’ai mises ici suffiront pour expliquer tout ce qui sert à mon sujet, et que les autres que j’y pourrais ajouter, n’aidant en rien votre intelligence, ne feraient que divertir votre attention” (AT VI 108).
- 29.
See the introduction to the body (G 99–100, AT XI 120–121), and the introduction to the description of intracerebral movement within animal spirits (G 140, AT XI 165–166).
- 30.
Regarding Platter: “now compare the true mode of vision proposed by me with that of Platter: you will see that the illustrious gentleman was not farther from the truth than befits one of the medical profession, who is not deliberately treating mathematics” (D 223, MA 208).
- 31.
He thus reproaches Witelo for letting himself be influenced by the Physici (this is to say, in the classical vocabulary, the Medici) on the subject of the nutritive function of the vitreous humor, refusing for his part to engage in the argument (D 219, MA 204). See also: D 235, MA 220.
- 32.
Rules for the Direction of the Mind, XIII. See the example of: “the bowl... which had a column on the top of which was a figure (effigies) of Tantalus”: despite appearances, this effigies “is merely a coincidental feature and by no means a factor which defines the problem” (CMS I 54–55, AT X 435–436).
- 33.
See D. C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler, Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1976; A. I. Sabra, “Sensation and inference in Alhazen’s theory of visual perception”, in P. M. Machamer and R. G. Turnbull (eds.), Studies in Perception: Interrelations in the History of Philosophy and Science, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1978, 160–185.
- 34.
P. Chanet, Traité de l’esprit, de ses connaissances et de ses fonctions, Paris: Jean Camusat & Pierre le Petit, 1649, 147: “(if) the shapes themselves were sufficient to know all the other qualities, Nature would not have given us the sensation of these others”. Here the argument against Gassendi is formulated.
- 35.
G 128, AT XI 155–156.
- 36.
See G. Hatfield, “Natural Geometry in Descartes and Kepler”, Res philosophica, 92, 1, January 2015, 117–148. The author goes against the consensus of interpretation according to which binocular perception of distances would be assured for Descartes by the judicative faculty of the rational soul (see, for example, Nancy Maull, « Cartesian Optics and the Geometrization of Nature », in Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics, edited by S. Gaukroger, Totowa NJ: Barnes and Nobles Books, 1980, 23–40). Taking into consideration the cerebral physiology presented in “L’Homme”, G. Hatfield proposes “an alternative reading of Descartes account of the triangle of convergence, according to which brain mechanisms carry out any “computations” or responses to the physiology of optical convergence and then cause a perception of direction and distance in the mind, without any underlying mental computations or other cognitive processes” (p.119).
- 37.
CMS I 170, AT VI 138.
- 38.
AT VII 438: “(ea) quae vero a prima aetate, eodem plane modo atque nunc, de iis quae sensus nostros afficiebant judicavimus, aut etiam ratiocinando conslucimus, referamus ad sensum, quia nempe de iis tam celeriter propter consuetudinem ratiocinamur et judicamus, aut potius judiciorum jam olim a nobis de rebus similibus factorum recordamur, ut has operationes a simplici sensus perceptione non distinguamus”. According to G. Hatfield (art. cit., p.41), the status of the act of the imagination evoked by Descartes in the Dioptrics remains ambiguous: “mechanically effected act of imagination”, or even “unnoticed cognitive act of calculation” – as would have the Latin translation of 1644, which proposed “licet simplex judicum” for “une imagination toute simple”? But the qualification of this operation (“une imagination toute simple”) and the illumination provided by the Treatise on Light and by the Replies seem to be sufficient to lean in favor of the first hypothesis. We should need to consider then that the physiological theory of “traces” plays a key role: it enables the introduction, within a pure mechanistic approach, of compositions and associations of ideas. See AT XI, 179, 184, 197–198, and J. Sutton, Philosophy and Memory traces: Descartes to connectionnism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 50–66. Note that on this subject in “L’Homme”, the passage on binocular perception does not entail any reference to the imagination, no remark on the possibility of perceiving distances in movement with only a single eye, and no comparison with surveyors. In this, the proposed rewriting in the Dioptrics is paradoxical: Descartes does not present there his mechanical explanation of the imagination; but this does not prevent him from therein drawing consequences, in modifying his explanation of the triangle of convergence in such a way as to insist on the role of time, of habit and certain knowledge (mechanical) acquired in the past. Gary Hatfield cites the passages where Kepler evokes the role of habit in connection with his intellectualist explanation of the triangle of convergence (art. cit., p.120–123), and he seems to consider that it is the same in Descartes. Habituation would be considered by judgements and inferences that should need to be necessarily attributed to the rational soul (p.137, p.140). But is what is true for Kepler equally true for Descartes? Does not the physiological explanation of memory (vestigia), which is the foundation for a psychological theory of the imagination and of ideas enable us to think of an acquisition (motor but also mental) which does not imply any intervention of the rational soul as active principle?
- 39.
Cf. Dioptrics, IV-VI, and Principles of Philosophy IV, art.188–199.
- 40.
G 146–160, AT XI 174–189.
- 41.
G 140–146, AT XI 165–174.
- 42.
G, 146–160, AT XI 174–189, and G 165–166, AT XI 197–198.
- 43.
G, 160–165, AT XI 189–197.
- 44.
D. Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature I: Of the understanding (1739), II, 5, ed. T.H Green and T. H. Grose, London: Longmans, Green and co, 1878, 364. For the Humean reception of “L’Homme”, see the contribution made by C. Gautier in the present work.
- 45.
On the critique addressing the cerebral physiology of Descartes made by the anatomists of the 17th century, and the rehabilitation of “L’Homme” proposed by Steno, see the contribution from R. Andrault.
- 46.
Which is the opposite of the rule that recommends the explanation of these movements of blood and spirits “in the proper order” (G 100, AT XI 121). Descartes justifies this inversion by invoking a concern for clarity: the theory of the intracerebral process would be abstruse, if it was not preceded by explanations relatives to motor functions tied to “the composition of the nerves and the muscles” (G 108, AT XI 132).
- 47.
AT XI, xii.
- 48.
AT VI 45. On the undetermined status of these chapters that were probably never written, cf. Oeuvres, op. cit., VI 651, note 352; A. Bitbol-Hespériès’ introduction to Le Monde; L’Homme, Paris: Seuil, 1999, xl.
- 49.
It is clear that Descartes invokes, in the Principles (IV, 188), a lack of experience to justify his silence on the subject of plants, animals and man (AT VIII 315). And we know that he was intensely dedicated to studying them in the later years of his life. However the genre of the fable, unique to Treatise on Light, permits the presentation of hypotheses little founded in experience, as proven by the theories present on the subject of intracerebral movement within animal spirits (left out of the Principles).
- 50.
To Mersenne, 23 August 1638, AT II 329. Translated and commentated in S. Gaukroger, Descartes’ System of Natural Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 186–187.
- 51.
Cf. to Elisabeth, 6 October 1645: “the treatise which I once drafted on the nature of animals” (CMSK 270; AT IV 310) ; to Mersenne, 23 November 1646: “it is now twelve or thirteen years since I described all the functions < of the human body, that is, of the animal >” (CMSK 301, AT 566) ; to Elisabeth, March 1647 : “what I had written about < the nature > of animals” (CMSK 314, AT IV 626).
- 52.
Cf. to Colvius, October 1646: “ce qu’il répète deux fois touchant le mouvement des muscles..., qu’il a tiré, comme je m’imagine, d’un écrit que je n’ai point encore publié...” (AT IV 517–518); to Mersenne, 23 November 1646: “as for his way of explaining the movement of the muscles, although this comes from me, and has pleased him so much that has twice repeated it word for word...” (CMSK 301, AT IV 566); to Elisabeth, March 1647: “so fond was he of this passage that twice in his book he repeats, word for word, two or three pages from this section” (CMSK 315, AT IV 626).
- 53.
Cf. Regius, Fundamenta Physices, Amstelodami : L. Elzevirium, 1646, 233 sqq., 293 sqq.
- 54.
We find already these flagrant repetitions in the third disputatio of the Physiologia (1641); we will see them again between Books IV and V of the Philosophia naturalis (1654). They are characteristic of the original way in which Regius exposes Cartesian physics.
- 55.
Cf. supra, note 13.
- 56.
On this medical reception, see for instane D. Antoine-Mahut, Delphine, “Les voies du corps. Schuyl, Clerselier et La Forge lecteur du traité de L’Homme de Descartes”, Consecutio temporum: Rivista critica della postmodernità (consecutio.org) 2 (2012).
- 57.
See Clerselier’s Preface (AT XI xi-xii) and La Forge’s first comment in L’Homme de Descartes et un Traitté de la formation du foetus du mesme auteur. Avec les Remarques de Louis de la Forge..., edited by C. Clerselier, Paris: Charles Angot, 1664b, 171–172.
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Alban-Zapata, G. (2016). Light and Man: An Anomaly in the Treatise on Light?. In: Antoine-Mahut, D., Gaukroger, S. (eds) Descartes’ Treatise on Man and its Reception. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46989-8_10
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