Descartes: A Biography

P: PHU/IrP
c CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

The Principles of Philosophy() 

part ofMay.Apart from a few short local trips, he remained there for

the next year, until he embarked on his first visit to France after sixteen

years of living in exile.This latest place of seclusion was so isolated that

it took eight days for letters to reach him from Leiden.Most of his time

and energies during the remaining months ofwere consumed by

the Utrecht controversy (discussed in Chapter). During this period, he

also began the lengthy correspondence with Princess Elizabeth in which

he tried to clarify many unresolved and fundamental questions in his

metaphysics. Descartes was then forty-seven years old. He had published

two books, the scientificEssaysinand theMeditationsin, both of

which had stimulated more public criticism than he welcomed. Following

publication of theEssays,hehad fought a long-running and unresolved

battle with French mathematicians about the novelty of the method used in

theGeometry, and he had tried unsuccessfully to lure the French Jesuits

into open controversy about theDioptrics. TheMeditationsintroduced

its author to a new set of critics, especially Hobbes and Gassendi, each

of whom was at least as well-known among contemporaries as Descartes.

Now, in,hewas involved in an extremely public and nasty controversy

with the rector of Utrecht University and its city council, while coping

simultaneously with a new dispute about the objections to theMeditations

that had been written by Pierre Gassendi.

Gassendi was unhappy that his objections, together with Descartes’

replies, had been published in the first and second editions of the book

(,). Gassendi explained that he had addressed Descartes as

‘Spirit’ only in an ironic way, and that he had no objection if the author of

theMeditationswere to return the compliment in kind, by addressing him

‘not only as Flesh...butevenasStone, Lead, etc. or anything you think is

more obtuse’.Like many other disputes that involved Descartes, this one

acquired an independent dynamic that became impossible to control. It

also shared its immediate origins with the Utrecht controversy. Descartes

had triggered the bitter row with Voetius by his ill-considered comments in

the letter to Father Dinet. The same text seems to have annoyed Gassendi

so much that he took up his pen in defence of his philosophical reputation.

Gassendi was so annoyed by the way he appeared in theMeditations

that he wrote an extended version of his original objections (i.e., the

Fifth Objections), together with new objections to Descartes’ replies. This

manuscript seems to have circulated among sympathetic friends during the

winter of–. This kind of surreptitious criticism particularly grated