Music and the Making of Modern Science

Notes to pages 87–97 295

82. HW 491 (KGW 6:363).


83. HW 488 – 489 (KGW 6:360 – 361).


84. KGW 7:330, cited in Panofsky 1954 , 29 – 31 as translated in Kepler 1995 , 932.


85. Kepler 1981 , 223 (KGW 1:79); discussed in Pesic 2000a , 112.
    6 Descartes ’ s Musical Apprenticeship


86. Descartes 1961 , 53.


87. The exemplary treatment of Beeckman, to which I am much indebted, is Cohen 1984 , 116 – 161.


88. Koyr é 1978 , 117; Gaukroger, Schuster, and Sutton 2000 , 4 – 59.


89. Beeckman 1939 , 4:62.


90. V an Berkel 2000 also discusses Descartes ’ s debt to Beeckman.


91. Brown 1991 and Dear 1995, 32 – 62, treating the status of music at 39.


92. Descartes 1996 , 1:21.


93. Cohen 1984 , 163; see also the commentary of Erlmann 2010 , 37 – 47.


94. Descartes 1996 , 2:23; Clark and Rehding 2001 , 6.


95. Descartes 1961, 11 – 12. Augst (1965, 125) connects the Compendium with the beginnings of Descartes ’ s
    new science. Van Wymeersch (1999) judges the Compendium “ the first field of application of the new epistemo-
    logical approach which Descartes systematized ten years later ” (163); she too connects Descartes ’ s language of
    “ clear and distinct ideas ” with the Compendium (101 – 108).


96. Descartes 1961, 12 – 13.


97. Cohen 1984 , 163.


98. Descartes 1961 , 14.


99. Ibid. , 15.


100. Ibid.


101. Ibid. , 21; he also notes octave overblowing in pipes (18). Cf. the Aristotelian discussion of how a note
     “ contains ” the sound of note an octave higher, as when boys and men sing together: Problems 19:8, 918a19 – 21
     ( Aristotle 1984 , 2:1430).


102. For the philosophical consequences, see Van Wymeersch 1999 ; for the effect on the Cartesian concept of
     the self, see Moreno 2004.


103. Descartes 1996 , 1:21. The addressee is this letter is not explicit, but the editors infer Mersenne. All transla-
     tions from Descartes ’ s letters are mine.


104. Ibid. , 1:142.


105. For the larger context of Descartes ’ s attitude toward “ wonders, ” see Daston and Park 2001, 292 – 331.


106. Descartes 1996 , 2:23 – 29, 31.


107. Ibid. , 1:70.


108. Ibid. , 1:74.


109. Ibid. , 1:85 – 86.


110. Ibid. , 1:83, 85 – 86.


111. Ibid. , 1:88.


112. Ibid. , 1:87.


113. Ibid. , 1:100, and elsewhere Descartes also refers Mersenne to the Compendium.


114. Descartes 1996 , 1:101 – 102.


115. Ibid. , 1:102; on sunspots, see Schuster and Brody 2013.


116. Cohen 1984 , 166 – 169.