Descartes: A Biography

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

Magic, Mathematics, and Mechanics 

Discourse.Onhis return journey through the Suse Pass in May,he

witnessed an avalanche, to which he later refers in theMeteors.

On his return to France, Descartes went to Chˆatellerault, where he had

another opportunity to acquire a royal appointment, on this occasion as

lieutenant general of Chˆatellerault, at a price of,livres. He evidently

considered this suggestion seriously and wrote to his father for advice.

However, Joachim Descartes had already departed from Paris for Rennes,

and his son seems to have given up the idea of pursuing this option.

During this period of foreign travel, the city of Paris was buffeted by

a series of events that shaped the intellectual climate in which Descartes

redirected his energies toward his life’s work.

Paris,–

The yearsandwere not unique or atypical of the discussions

that troubled the kingdom of France in the early part of the seventeenth

century. The repressive measures adopted by the Council of Trent, in its

combative Counter-Reformation, included a pervasive watchfulness over

anything that was said or published which might challenge the traditional

teachings of the church. Trent decreed that ‘no one may print or have

printed any books on sacred subjects without the name of the author, nor

in future sell them or even keep them in their possession unless they have

first been examined and approved by the local ordinary [that is, the bishop

or religious superior], under pain of anathema and fine.’The theology

faculty at the Sorbonne provided the most authoritative test of theological

orthodoxy in France, and its members figured prominently in helping to

implement Trent’s decrees.

One of the most public challenges to the validity of traditional learning

was planned for–August.Alarge crowd, estimated at about one

thousand, turned up in Paris to hear three speakers criticize Aristotelian

philosophy. Jean Bitault, Etienne de Claves, and Antoine Villon drew

up fourteen theses against Aristotle and advertised a public disputation

that was obviously critical of ‘the Philosopher’. Before they even began,

however, the meeting was banned and, at the instigation of the Sorbonne,

the Parisparlementdecreed that the theses in question be shredded, that

the speakers be banished from the jurisdiction of Paris, and that no one be

allowed to teach anything contrary to the ancient, approved authors ‘on

pain of their lives’.This summary condemnation of all anti-Aristotelian