Descartes: A Biography

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The French Liar’s Monkey and the Utrecht Crisis 

they were considering a measured response, Voetius also decided to initiate

his own response, and he asked one of his former colleagues, Martinus

Schoock (–), to write a reply to Descartes.

The University Response

The text of Descartes’ letter to Dinet was communicated to the academic

senate of the University of Utrecht onJune. The professors

atUtrecht followed the typical pattern in such matters; they set up a

committee to look into the issues raised and to report back to the senate.

The committee was comprised of four professors, including the new rector,

Antonius Matthaeus.Almost one year later,March, the report

of this committee was presented to the senate as an ‘historical narrative’

of the relevant events.

While the university’s official response was still pending during the

summer of, Descartes seems to have enjoyed a temporary respite from

the controversies involving Regius and Voetius. He wrote to Mersenne

(March)toput all the blame for the controversy on Voetius’ jealousy,

because of the popularity of the new philosophy.

His great animosity towards me results from the fact that there is a professor at

Utrecht [Regius] who teaches my philosophy. His disciples, having experienced my

way of reasoning, despise the common philosophy so much that they mock it pub-

licly. That has provoked all the other professors, with Voetius as their leader, to be

extremely jealous of him. Every day they request the magistrate to prohibit this way

of teaching. (iii.–)

The word in Leiden, which was the nearest large town to where Descartes

lived, was that Regius had already been dismissed from his chair, although

Descartes was reluctant to believe that.When the academic senate of

the university decided, onMarch, that Regius should restrict

his teaching to medicine and to traditional authors, Descartes advised

him to observe scrupulously the university’s decision. He even counselled

that he should adopt the same ploy for avoiding dangerous questions that

Descartes himself had used to good effect. If students asked him to discuss

questions that were outside the scope of medicine, he should explain that

such issues are so interrelated that it is impossible to explain one of them

adequately without getting involved in many others.It is evident that,

during this summer of, Descartes was on the margin of events in