Monday, February 10, 2020
609 - Cartesius, Part 2, Italy, 1974. Dir. Roberto Rossellini.
Rene Descartes is restless again.
He is currently staying in the Netherlands, with his friend Isaac Beekman, where he has been reading and thinking and writing.
Specifically, he is in Breda. In North Brabant.
But now he wishes to travel.
To Franeker. In Friesland.
Descartes stayed in Breda ten years ago. And when he left, he promised his host he would keep him apprised of his work--of his writings on mechanics and algebra.
But Beekman waited in vain. Descartes did not write. Now he is back and leaving again, and Beekman is about to go through it again.
Descartes is not very good at keeping in touch with others. He spends a lot of time alone with his thoughts. This trait will eventually come to haunt him.
Descartes believes he can apply mathematical principles to philosophical ideas. He shows Beekman his illustrations of a lens and the way it reflects and refracts light rays. He says he can demonstrate with the same clarity and simplicity the abstract ideas of metaphysics.
He audits a class demonstrating the ideas of blood flow developed by Dr. William Harvey.
He travels to Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam they talk history and business, namely, the sea merchant trade. They talk of Huygens. A woman shows Descartes her "automoton," a kind of 17th-century Zoltar machine.
He checks out a large outdoor telescope and speaks with its astronomer Ciprus. They debate the value of using a telescope. They discuss Kepler.
He has his portrait painted. The theologian Dr. Gerolamus brings him a letter to take to Mr. Reneri in Deventer. Descartes and Dr. Gerolamus discuss the scientific method in its relation to theology.
He travels. His servant Bretagne gets sick with a fever. He goes to the university and gives a lecture.
A man named Antoine Poquet, a leather merchant, comes to call on him. Sent by Father Mersenne. To collect the new treatise which Descartes had promised to send. Descartes asks Poquet to inform Father Mersenne that he has not finished it and is working on it day and night.
His servant Bretagne dies.
His new servant, Helene, is feisty with him, and their banter is the closest we get to actual, non-expositional dialogue. She speaks in proverbs, the wisdom of the servant class juxtaposed with the wisdom of the great philosopher.
Of all six films in this series, Helene seems to be the one who most approaches a developed human character as opposed to a mere performer woodenly speaking lines. And one senses that this actress--good luck finding her name--might have had some real talent. But then again, it might also be the refreshingly witty contrapuntal dialogue she is given to say that infuses some life into this dry biscuit of a film.
The servants discuss Tulip Mania, the surge in the tulip market that creates a bubble and subsequent crash in 1637. They are in awe of the man who sold his house to buy five tulip bulbs, believing that he will become rich, not knowing what Rossellini shares in dramatic irony three hundred thirty-seven years later, that the man is going to lose his shirt.
Jan Maire the printer comes to call. The smell of the his inks--the aniline and the lead--in his clothes makes Helene sick. Jan Maire agrees to print Descartes' treatise.
After observing Helene, the good Doctor Plempius, informs Descartes that the patient is not sick but very well indeed. She is with child.
No wonder his servant is feisty with him.
Descartes declares his fidelity. But he does not marry her. He retains her.
Descartes' baby is born and baptized. A girl. Francine.
Descartes travels to Utrecht. He visits the salon of Madam Anna Maria van Schurman. She receives the greatest scholars of the Netherlands. He is one of them. They have been waiting for him, patiently. His absence has been keenly felt.
It is here in the salon at Utrecht that Rene Descartes first shares with others the treatise that will reverberate through the Western world and establish him as one of history's great thinkers.
"I think; therefore, I am."
He presents it humbly, thoughtfully, and in context, as a reasonable conclusion to a rigorous theorem, unaware of the effect it will have on his own generation and others to come.
He will have supporters and detractors, and defenders against his detractors, and he will take comfort that the number and intensity of his detractors demonstrates the force his ideas are making upon society.
Yet despite his triumphs as a scientist and philosopher, Descartes encounters grief in the loss of his father and of his baby girl Francine. With a grieving servant-lover standing invisibly beside him, he commits to a colleague that he will turn further inside himself, closing off his heart to the world, and hoping that the further excursions of the rational process will lead him to find some kind of comfort in the death of his daughter.
For all of the pedantry that this made-for-television film musters, as well as the series of films of which it is a part, at least it provides an appealing production design for the viewer to appreciate while trudging through the cinematic sludge. While Rossellini may have abandoned narrative structure, camera movement and lens choices, dramatic lighting, acting ability, and other fundamental filmmaking tools, he nevertheless maintained his eye for aesthetic visuals and provided a handsome world for his performers to inhabit as they tell his textbook histories.
Every frame a Jan Steen.
* * * * *
My mind is attracted to mathematics, as I think I have told you many times, only because they allow one to employ certain processes which in my opinion can demonstrate metaphysical truths with more clarity than what is usually achieved by using the demonstrations of philosophy.
And you think you can bring the same clarity and the simplicity to philosophical proofs by using mathematical processes?
Philosophy does not consider merely the material realities, but by means of reason it guides man toward the contemplation of God.
Are you sure that mathematical processes are adequate, by their very nature, to bring the mind of man closer to a reality as subtle as that of God?
I shall never speak of the matters of theology. Never. They depend on truths that are revealed through the word of Jesus Christ and his prophets.
But where the subjects of philosophy are concerned, I say that they should be examined with all of man's reason. It is by this means that I have proven the foundations of physics.
And using the same methods, beyond physical science, I am firmly convinced that I can demonstrate questions both of philosophy and of metaphysics.
As for your question, if mathematical processes are by their very nature suited to bringing the mind of man closer to the mystery of God, I will say to you that all of creation is his work and the mathematical truths that depend on him, are also his work, like the rest of creation.
To say that such truths are separate and independent from him would be like comparing God to a Jupiter or a Saturn. It would be like trying to subject him to a reality outside of him and independent of him.
The clarity of mathematics, its rules, come from God and are subject to him. Why then should we fear that they may be used by us men as an instrument to know all truths?
I shall write you.
This I truly do not believe.
The thought of your friendship will always be a great comfort to me.
The blood of all living beings pulses inside the veins and is moved and pushed in all directions at once, so all the veins pulse in the same instant because they all depend on the heart, which moves them constantly. These are the teachings of Aristotle, who like all the ancients, called veins what we today call arteries. The heart is the cause of this movement.
We must know how to correct our errors with humility and if necessary start over without presumption.
The road to knowledge is terribly slow and has nothing to do with the illusory excitement of the imagination.
In our century the only way to learn new theories is to travel, to visit the university, and compare differing scholarly opinions.
"We must liberate ourselves," as Bacon has written, "from the idols of false philosophy and build a new science."
Martin Horky.
I have never heard of this gentleman.
A pompous man, upon seeing the true pattern of the sky through the telescope, he was disturbed because it did not correspond to the pattern of stars that he had studied in the manuals. So he wrote to Kepler that the telescope, if turned toward terrestrial things, does marvels. It enlarges objects and can reveal everything that can be seen with the naked eye. But when aimed at the sky, it is useless.
Kepler was able to calculate the orbits of all the other planets around the sun, the speed and the distance between the planets.
The Pleiades. . . . The wonders of the heavens.
An honest man is not obliged to read every book. There are many other things to be done in life, and knowledge does not depend only on what a man has read, but also on what he has seen.
It seems to be the fruit of an immeasurable haughtiness. You would deprive human reason of its awe of the creator and of the Bible, to which you make no reference at all.
Many have reproached me for this, but I can assure you, sir, that I work with the utmost humility, looking into the nature of things, because I believe that these are all creatures of God and bear the sign of truth, whereas a man's fantasies, from which many obscure theories are born, are the fruit of haughtiness.
He who has known sickness will appreciate wellness all the more.
There is no long day that does not come to night.
The sleepy fox catches no prey.
Time and tide wait for no man.
He who eats lives.
He who fasts dies.
Make a good reputation for yourself and you can sleep without worries.
Order is bread; disorder is hunger.
The morning hours are golden.
Patience pushed to the extreme becomes anger.
This house is too small for you. You are like a crane in a pigeon hutch.
A man of your stature and condition who lives like the last tramps.
Nobility cannot be appreciated without refinement.
He who talks sows, and he who listens reaps.
A blow of the tongue is worse than the blow of a spear.
When you are angry, you are certainly prettier.
The moon ignores the barking dog.
To complain is to be half comforted.
What is philosophy?
I am a philosopher. I love wisdom.
You? You are crazy. I am wise.
While the fox moralizes the chickens are in danger.
A word spoken cannot be unspoken.
A promise is an obligation.
The wiser man yields.
Your mistress is rich, and those with money are brave.
In my mistress's photo album it is painted so well it seems real.
Jan Van Goyen.
My grandfather told me that his father, like everyone else back then, purchased goods and paid with herrings. That was a sure coin because it was nutritious. But this mania over tulips is so foolish.
Oh, you are the fool. Everyone is speculating, especially the rich who know what they are doing.
Everyone knows that a bird is only as pretty as its plumage.
Your clothes have an unbearable odor.
It is your smell. I am sorry.
She needs some vinegar.
Giving advice is easier than acting.
Helene, you must not be ashamed. This is the most wonderful gift you could ever give me.
I shall never abandon you.
Once the damage is done, the madman comes to his senses.
Tranquility comes with sleep.
A child, my dear Doctor, merits a good glass of wine.
Our book is the Bible. Our teacher is Calvin. Listen.
God commands each man to follow his vocation through his life's work. But man, alas, by his nature, burns with restlessness and often due to frivolity, ambition, and greed, he is tempted to forsake his vocation and to embrace different works that confuse him.
He who promises much rarely keeps his word.
I shall never do what I should not do.
Francine, I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Gentlemen, I have written a proposal for a universal science, that can raise nature to its highest level of perfection.
Here is one of my new constructions. We all know that sometimes the senses fool us. I suppose, then, that none of what we see is as the senses make it appear. But by doubting everything it immediately appears clear to me that I think. And if I think, I must be something.
I think; therefore, I am. Therefore, I exist.
This certainty of existing comes from within myself.
I am a substance whose natural essence consists of thinking. Totally independent of any material thing. Well, this I to which I refer is the soul, thanks to which, I am what I am.
I have also verified that none of the things that exist--the earth, light, color--appear superior to me, more perfect than I. But who placed within me the idea of a being more perfect than mine? I asked myself. Certainly a nature more perfect than mine, capable of conceiving of the idea of perfection, which is to say a supernatural being that is absolutely perfect, which I indicate with a single word: God.
In my treatise, I also prove, with absolute clarity, the existence in me and in the world of a thinking substance distinct from the corporeal, but which of these two is the nature of God? I shall prove that God can certainly not be a composite of two substances: the corporeal and the thinking, because the mixture would be a sign of imperfection.
Dear Rene, you speak of the existence of the soul and of God in a very unusual way.
You have moved me.
Your design is very bold and terribly shrewd.
He who possesses a treasure and and does not know it is poorer than he who has nothing.
A pot of gold is not worth a hearth.
She is not a miracle. She is a perfect machine of nature.
I am leaving.
May God bless you.
Project for a Universal Science. --> Discourse on the Method. --> Meditations on First Philosophy.
Mr. Descartes, you have created a subtle logical construct, a perfect mechanics of reason, without ever referring to feelings, passions, to the heart of man. You have never cited the Bible, and in writing about God you have never noted that his nature is a mystery, from which derives the necessity of faith for us. By its nature faith is an impulse of the soul that resides beyond reason and illuminates it. With your writing, on the other hand, you have shown that there is nothing, outside of reason, that is capable of guiding man to the truth.
He has written about geometry and mathematics, optics and physiology, to seek a new way of philosophizing in which no proposition is admitted that does not have absolute mathematical evidence.
From his childhood, he has used this method of research.
Gentlemen, however much force my reasoning may have, I cannot hope that they will have a great effect on the spirits unless you take them under your protection. And I do not doubt that you will take such attentive care of this text that you will first of all correct it. And then, the reasons by means of which I will prove that there is a God and that the human soul differs from the body will be taken to the extreme point of clarity and evidence. I hope that you will declare all this and give public testimonials. The truth will cause all scholars and men of ingenuity to subscribe to your judgment.
With the name of God I refer to an infinite substance by which I myself and all other things were created and produced and I could not have the idea of an infinite substance, I who am finite, if it had not been planted in me by a truly infinite substance.
Science has prevented me from living.
We each have our vocation and must live by it faithfully.
Everything we have comes from God. It is his mercy.
Of course I shall continue to live and think, but now I shall close my eyes. I shall close my ears. I shall extinguish my senses. I wish to erase from my thoughts all images of corporeal thing and to spend time only, only with myself, and to live closed within my heart. And perhaps, searching within myself, I will succeed little by little in calming the pain of these days.
I will prove to myself that a being, a soul that thinks, also doubts, affirms, negates, knows few things, and is ignorant of many, loves, hates, wants, stops wanting, remembers, imagines, feels. I shall try, through my pain, to extend my knowledge. I shall certainly consider whether I can still discover within myself some other being that I have not up to this moment perceived. I have the certainty of being a reality that thinks, but whence does this certainty come?
