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Descartes: The Life and times of a Genius
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Walker & Company (2006-10-31)
ISBN: 080271501X
EAN: 9780802715012
Dewey Decimal #: 194
Hardcover: 368 pages
Release Date: 2006-10-31
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Scientist, mathematician, traveler, soldier—and spy—Rene Descartes was one of the founders of the modern world. His life coincided with an extraordinary time in history: the first half of the miraculous seventeenth century, replete with genius in the arts and sciences, and wracked by civil and international conflicts across Europe. But at his birth in 1596 the world was still dominated by medieval beliefs in phenomena such as miracles and spontaneous generation. It was Descartes who identified the intellectual tools his peers needed to free themselves from the grip of religious authority and in doing so he founded modern philosophy.
In this new biography, A. C. Grayling tells the story of Descartes’ life, and places it in his tumultuous times—with the unexpected result that an entirely new aspect of the story comes to light.
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Customer Reviews
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thinking about the aftermath
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-08-22
I appreciate the efforts of A. C. Grayling to produce a book, DESCARTES The Life and Times of a Genius (2005), which pictures how intellectual efforts produced many of the changes that we currently benefit from 400 years after the life of René Descartes (1596--1650). Being able to rely on a few clear truths to produce knowledge was fruitful in ways that those opposed to profiting from forbidden fruits had never imagined, but the emphasis placed by Grayling upon tumultuous events which Descartes witnessed early in life reminds me of cultural changes which the modern world is still having difficulty digesting.
The French King Henri IV (1553--1610) founded the Jesuit college La Flèche in 1604 and Descartes was a student there from 1606 until 1616. One of the major ceremonies which took place when Descartes was 16 years old involved burying the heart of Henri IV in the chapel at La Flèche. Grayling attempts to fathom the significance of such events:
". . . Henri IV had been murdered by a Jesuit called Ravillac, so there is black irony in the fact that, by his own wish, the king was buried by Jesuits among the Jesuits, whom he had patronised and supported with such generosity. . . . The Jesuits, as already noted, were the advisors and encouragers of the Hapsburgs, who, like their Jesuit mentors, saw themselves as the champions of the Catholic church, and who were soon to plunge Europe into three decades of hideous war in an effort--ultimately unsuccessful--to reclaim for Catholicism all territories lost to Protestantism." (pp. 23-24).
I can appreciate the idea of the Jesuits as an intellectual elite with a faith that they could change the nature of society by using whatever weapons were readily available. The same kind of thinking dominates those who think of themselves as a universal panacea. This becomes hideous when it is viewed with the sense of monstrosity that a knowledge of intellectual history is able to produce.
Grayling considers it possible that Descartes was a spy for the Jesuits, which was highly suspect in his native France, so he spent years in an area that has become Belgium. The most prosperous Protestant area, "The seven dissenting Protestant provinces in the Union of Utrecht were Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Friesland and Groningen (without its city)." (p. 32). When Descartes traveled from Breda to join Duke Maximilian's troops for the Battle of White Mountain outside Prague, and to attend the coronation of emperor Ferdinand II in Frankfurt in September 1619, following the death of Matthias in March 1619, his circuitous route was through regions controlled by the Jesuits. With perfect timing, the battle had been revenge for the famous Defenestration of Prague on May 22, 1618, after Matthias had given Catholics the leading posts on the council of Regents, "The new regents' first act was to require that all Bohemian religious bodies should revert to the terms of their original foundation, thus at a stroke returning all Protestant churches to Catholic control, complete with their endowments and other property. The Bohemian Protestants immediately rebelled." (pp. 51-52).
Try to imagine results like:
"As these armies amassed, Frederick V arrived in Prague with his German Calvinist entourage, to whom the Bohemian Lutherans took an immediate dislike. Sweden, Venice, Denmark and the United Provinces of the Netherlands had all recognized Frederick's accession to the throne of Bohemia as a way of thumbing a nose at Ferdinand II, but they had no intention of sending troops to help him." (pp. 53-54).
Instead of trying to separate these things from the life of Descartes, Grayling sees a link with the ideas that promoted a scientific revolution. "Of course the two things cannot be separated, just as Descartes' story cannot be told without reference to both." (p. 55).
My own life and times have been interesting in ways that are all too much for those whose sanity claims that what is simple is true. Systems that are highly complex are prone to fail in unexpected ways, and Descartes was able to observe the rise and fall of human affairs in a way that suggests the wave motions studied in fluid mechanics. I took a few courses in fluid mechanics at the University of Michigan College of Engineering, and a professor there tried to interest me in the problems that he was working on, much like Descartes met Isaac Beeckman in Breda in November 1618. Descartes dedicated a treatise on harmonics to Beeckman and worked on a set of four problems in hydrostatics. Trying to figure out the problems Beeckman suggested, the modes of argument led to "the essence of Cartesian micro-mechanism in optics, cosmology, physiology, and natural philosophy generally, after being refined over the next fifteen years through practice, criticism, and deliberate metaphysical reconstruction." (p. 43, quoting Schuster, Descartes and the Scientific Revolution I.101).
Recent biographies of my favorite philosophers are considered in Appendix II. On war, "In this, Descartes and Wittgenstein followed the example of Socrates, who was a hoplite--a heavily armed infantryman--in the Athenian army at the battle of Potidiae." (p. 254). Even Immanuel Kant can be found interesting if he is considered as "an atheist in a city wracked by religious strife, in which the Pietist community from which he sprang played a leading part." (p. 254). Nietzsche gets credit for "his revolution was not effected in the sphere of philosophy and science, as with Descartes, but in the psychology of an age." (pp. 258-159). Kant, Nietzsche, and Althusser are mentioned in connection with "their descents into madness or dementia at the last, are untypical of the general run of philosophers, who tend to live long and enjoy an alert old age," (p. 262), probably as a result of finding that what is simple is true, in spite of being alert to the forms of psychotic multiplicity that outrageous thinkers deal with daily.
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I Learned About Descartes Life, But NOT the Substance of His Ideas
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-01-28
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is an extremely well written historical (rather than scholarly) biography, but fails to really present the substance of Descartes' ideas and theories. I also have the following criticisms, in no particular order:
1) I was taught to write in clear simple English. To read this book, you'd better have a dictionary handy. The book, understanably, is written in British English, not modern American English. This is not a fault, but the reader should be aware.
2) This book covers Descartes' journeys theroughout 17th century Europe. Accordingly a map of 17th century Europe, with the cities Descartes visited or lived in would have been invaluable.
3) An Introduction or Appendix discussing at some length the the SUBSTANCE of Descartes' books would also have been invaluable.
4) This book mentions many, many persons in Descartes' life. A brief Appendix commenting on the more critical of these persons would have been helpful. Also, the book sometimes notes that certain characters played key roles in Descartes' life, but sometimes fails to provide much depth about such roles.
5) The book notes that Descartes was held in high regard by other contemporary scholars and intellectuals. Based solely on Mr. Grayling's book, I fail to understand why. But I think that's more a failing of Mr. Grayling's book.
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Intriguing thought that explains a lot
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-05-26
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book brings up a very intersting set of connections that seem to explain a lot. True to program this book's focus is on biography instead of philosophy. But the biographical insights are well worth the read on their own. There is a good summary of Descartes' philosophical position in the first appendix. One surprise is how little mention there is of Spinoza especially in those sections that presents Descartes' impact on those who followed him. All in all, this is an excellent book to recommend to those students that want to spend some time on Descartes in an introductory course.
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Good Biographical Reading
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-05-16
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I found Grayling's "Descartes" to be an interesting read from a pure biographical perspective. Although I have an interest in philosophy, Grayling writes in a way that reasonably intelligent laypersons can understand. Unfortunately, though, Grayling treads very little new ground, relying on past biographers of Descartes to do the legwork for him. The only new ground the author treads is relaying the proposition that Descartes was a spy. I actually find this plausible for two reasons: one, it explains Descartes' travelling; two, Descartes doesn't talk about his travelling much in his writings. These two factors give Grayling's hypothesis some weight. Grayling doesn't take too much time expositing Descartes' philosophy, but in an appendex he does give a brief introduction to it. Like I mentioned, the author does rely on other biographers for information, but that fact doesn't take away from the quality of the book. One fact that Grayling kept mentioning was that Descartes seemed to want to portray his ideals as acceptable to the church, and also to have his beliefs fit into the framework of "orthodox" theology of the time. I wondered why Grayling kept hitting on this point so many times, and then I came to the following conclusion: Grayling wants to excuse Descartes. One would imagine that if Descartes applied his method to the idea of the existence of God, one would conclude that it would be necessary to doubt, or even reject, the existence of God. Descartes never stated that God didn't exist, nor did he (as far as I know) even doubt it. By not stating that he doubted it, Descartes attempted to stay on good terms with the church. Descartes' later politiking shows me that he was concerned with ensuring his own safety, both physically and financially, which is fine. Grayling doesn't go this far in the book, but I think it is a necessary and unavoidable conclusion; I'm just surprised Graying didn't call Descartes out on it. To conclude this review, Grayling's bibliography is strong, giving the reader lots of roads to travel if one wants to explore the subject further, which I plan to do.
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The Life, Times and Ideas of a Key Thinker
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-04-08
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a very readable, enjoyable and informative book. Professor Grayling takes a lot of time putting Descartes into his proper historical context, which I think is essential to understanding him, or any philosopher. Even abstract ideas don't develop without any reference to what is going on at the time. The problem of reconciling faith with the nascent scientific revolution, the relation between the new anatomy and the locus of the mind, and religious wars of the 17th century were pivotal to the evolution of Descartes' thought. Grayling naturally emphasizes Descartes' philosophical ideas rather than his mathematical or scientific ones, though these also are discussed. Grayling also gives us as good a look as we can get at the motives and preferences of so private a person: the expensive green silk suit that he bought in hopes of securing a title show us a man who is vain rather than austere, despite his reclusive life in the Netherlands, for example. HIs arrogance was as expected, but not his pettiness towards, for example, Beeckman. And that he composed librettos for Queen Christina was a real surprise.
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