DISCUSSION: Descartes

We had a guest lecturer for Descartes tonight, Dr. Lisa Shapiro.

We ended up not having enough time to discuss Bacon so will have to do that at a future class.

Some background about the late 16^th/early 17^th c. – Montaigne is helpful to reading Descartes but we had to flip our weeks around so we are reading Montaigne on Saturday.  I haven't started it yet.

BACKGROUND

A lot happening in the 16th c.– a few major themes: 

Protestant Reformation (leads to a lot of religious wars incl 30 years War 1618-1648, starts with Defenestration of Prague (Archduke Ferdinand); protestant nobles trying to seize power in the vestiges of Holy Roman Empire. 
Holy Roman Empire lead by Frederick V, married to Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I of England.

Around 1645 Charles beheaded as part of English civil war and Cromwell takes over – Elizabeth and Frederick have son and daughter (among many children).

Daughter Princess Elizabeth corresponds with Descartes as he fleshes out his metaphysics and moral philosophy.

She and her brother involved in Treaty of Westphalia to resolve 30 Years War, Archduke Ferdinand aligned with Spain who end the war; family goes into exile in Netherlands.

Descartes dedicates some of his work to Elizabeth, she was very interested in Science.

Elizabeth ends up being an Abbess in Germany.

Charles Lewis, older son, responsible for rehabilitation of University at Heidelberg.

Cromwell’s reign ends and restoration of monarchy, James I 

Another son Prince Rupert (namesake of BC town)

Rupert great battlefield tactician, interested in new field of chemistry, also interested in trade, Hudson’s Bay did a lot of trade between Netherlands and Canada, Hudson's Bay Company (fur traders) originated in Netherlands.

Another daughter Louise Hollandene, painter, accurate representation.

Youngest daughter Sophie married Elector of Germany, her big project was to have a rich intellectual life in court, patron of Leibnitz - calculus.

•    1.     Deep political unrest focused on wars of religion (Catholic vs Protestant)

•    2.     Scientific concern with development of math and sciences – Copernicus, Galileo, 17^th c. development of scientific world view that is ongoing today – in 15^th c. animate vs inanimate (anima latin for soul) – different types of soul: rational, animal; in 17^th c. principle of life changes.  For Descartes what makes something living is not having a soul BUT he does feel that humans have a soul – union of mind and body.  They are really distinct substances – means anything that happens in body can be explained by body alone – by nature of matter, workings of matter – no involvement of mind – similarly body can’t explain anything about the nature of the mind (nature of mind is to have thoughts) – sensory experiences bring body into it.  Aristotelian said to be living meant to be ensouled: 3 different types of soul: Humans have all 3: vegetative, sensitive and rational, animals vegetative and sensitive, plants just have vegetative.  Soul explains how/why body works.  Descartes derived a mechanistic view of living vs non-moving (motion).  Body works just because it is a body.  For Aristotle it was power to reproduce (vegetative soul).  Prior to Protestant reformation human post-mortems were a sacrilege, after reformation human post-mortems allowed – Increased interest at the time in complicated and elaborate mechanical objects. 

•    3.     In Middle Ages main type of philosophy was Aristotelian, interest in Christianizing Aristotle – Crusades brought other thinkers to western attention including Plato and Stoics, Sceptics which had been lost to west – Plato translated into latin, mid-16^th c.  – influx of new philosophical texts into Europe – Montaigne appropriates skepticism, new way of looking at things, Descartes followed this approach (especially in his Meditations)– method to start anew and build a body of knowledge; Stoics (1^st text brought to west in 1609/1611 translated Moral Philosophy, Stoic physics (very materialistic) – want to explain natural phenomena simply by nature of matter alone without any animating force; also epicurean tradition – materialist view.  One central problem was explaining the sky/heavens – earth centric view, Copernican revolution, Aristotle shaky on astronomical things, also how heavy bodies fall.  Galileo showed how heavy and light bodies fall at same rate – new scientific models arising from re-discovered philosophical ways of thinking

Cogitum ergo sum – Part 4

Pg 29 – This I, that is to say, the Soul by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body…

For Descartes:

•    thinking is being aware

•    existence is not same as being a living thing

•    consciousness is part of thinking

•    self-awareness, reflection takes you to differentiating true from false

The “I” is the experiencing, the awareness

“things we conceive of very clearly and distinctly are all true, but that there is some difficulty in being able to identify those which we conceive of distinctly”

So thinking is NOT just being aware – it is reason

Imperfection – “I saw clearly that it was a greater perfection to know than to doubt” – pg 29 “I decided to look for the source from which I had learned to think of something more perfect than I was myself, and I came to the incontrovertible realization that this must be from some nature that was in fact more perfect.

Pg 30 –

One argument for god is that I am having an idea of a perfect being and since I am not perfect I could not think of a perfect being on my own therefore god must exist

Byron noted that one problem with Descartes' premise is how do we know whether his idea of a perfect being is in fact perfect?

What is perfection?  Perfect tense ie: past perfect is something that started in past and COMPLETED in past – perfection is something complete missing nothing

Humans imperfect – missing knowledge

Descartes is working towards having full knowledge (he doesn’t have it so he is incomplete, imperfect) and this goal pre-supposes that there is the possibility of complete knowledge

I have trouble with saying that perfection exists - as a 1st principle.  Even if we could agree on a definition of perfection, who is to say that perfection actually ever exists or could exist?  It's a bit like the challenge of thinking about the biggest number you can possibly think of...now add 1.
Who is to say that there ever is an endpoint?

And even if it exists, perfection is hard to define.  A perfect square is only as perfect as the fineness of your measuring but at least this would be an objective measurement.  If I measure a square to the micron, then there is measuring to the millimicron and so on.

If you try to conceive of the perfect truth or the perfect person, the concept is too large to try and get a handle on what perfection might look like.  If I try to break it down to something smaller I could argue that somewhere, sometime, a human musician has struck a perfect note - but what is a perfect note? A note perfect to someone's ears? What makes that note perfect? You can measure notes using equipment (and again get into the fineness of your ability to measure) but if you were to speak about complex music such as a song or symphony then you get away from objective measurements of sound waves and harmonics and into taste.
When you get into taste - beauty, the senses etc - it is subjective and even harder to try and define perfection.  The perfect cup of tea, the perfect croissant, the perfect sonnet - completely dependent on taste. 

Bruce made the point that Descartes based some of his conclusions on the certainty of certain principles citing geometry – Euclidian geometry says that all angles of a triangle will add up to 180° (Euclid's Fifth Postulate) BUT  200 years later we saw the discovery of non-Euclidian geometry where if you examine triangles on a sphere, you can get an angle of 270°.


Regarding the question about whether Descartes truly believed in God or was covering his bases, the problem I have in this course, in trying to determine whether someone is being self-protective (Descartes including God in his argument to avoid Galileo's fate) or ironic in their writings, is that I'm only going by one of their texts rather than the whole body of their work to try and make that determination.

Right now, I would probably vote for the 'tactical nod' theory only because the God argument seems so weak to me.  I'll have to reread the text to be able to see if Descartes can convince me.  I'm likely wrong about whether he believed in God (since the background and intro to Descartes didn't seem to doubt that he believed in God) but he didn't convince me on a first reading.

Shakespeare's KING LEAR

Assigned text: Shakespeare, King Lear  Oxford Paperbacks, 2008
Text I read: The complete Works of William Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press, 1982, London.

As our texts get within 1000 years of the current time, I find them more appealing.  I've enjoyed the ancient texts and the more of them I read, the more I get out of them but now being able to read  Shakespeare felt a bit like coming home.  I have only read a couple of his plays (aside from high scool assigned readings that sadly did nothing to make me appreciate Shakespeare - I hope English teaching is more inspiring today in this regard).  Every time I see a good production of Shakespeare (and thank god for Bard on the Beach and other Shakespeare festivals) or read one of his plays I'm astounded and thrilled by his language.  I hadn't read King Lear before and had never seen it performed so my only knowledge is hazy and pieced together from occasional references.  I enjoyed the play and it worked very well to read it the same week as Machiavelli's The Prince.  Even before actually knowing what Machiavellian might denote, I would have called Edmund Machiavellian in his plotting and his amoral decisions and actions.  I don't think I'd ever heard of Kent before and he was a Scarlet Pimpernel-type character for me.

This play was full of lots of passion and a bit of reason.  King Lear seemed to make his decisions solely based on passion.  He may have been a more reasonable leader in his prime but in his dotage he seems a creature of impulse and passion.  He throws years of love away with Cordelia based on her very reasonable and thoughtful (and NOT passionate answer to his question about how much his daughters love him).  Yet he is more than taken in by Goneril and Regan's fawning and hypocritical replies - he obviously didn't study Machiavelli's chapter 23 on "How Flatterer's Must be Shunned".

Goneril and Regan, the two eldest daughter's (why are the eldest always the evil siblings?), seem to just be evil.  It's hard to say whether they are governed by passion or reason.  They seem motivated by greed and though they can plan and act amorally, I'm not sure it qualifies as reason.  I think it is just evil passions and animal cunning.

Edmund is motivated by anger, jealousy, greed, feelings of vengeance, bitterness.  He can reason much more effectively and in a very Machiavellian way.  He probably balances passion and reason but in all their negative connotations - which for me puts him more in passions camp and less in reasons camp.  We haven't really been considering qualifying passion and reason into good passion and bad passion; good reason and bad reason but Edmund would end up solidly in the BAD camp for both qualities/emotions.

Kent has both passion and reason in a good way.  He is passionate in his devotion to King Lear and in his bravery and integrity bu he is also very reasonable in his ability not to have his judgement clouded by passion.  He seems more to act based on HONOUR and we haven't discussed where this falls in the passion or reason camp.  That would be an interesting discussion.

I have to include some favourite lines to remember:
Act 1, Scene 1
40-41  ...while we unburdened crawl towards death...
56 ...dearer than eyesight, space and liberty
60  ...:A love that makes breath poor and speech unable
90  Nothing will come of nothing  (A "shout out" to Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius, Epicureans and Stoics)
148  ...when majesty stoops to folly
164  kill thy physician, and the fee bestow on the foul disease
181  Freedom lives hence and banishment is here
199  ...but now her price is fall'n
205  Dowered with our curse and strangered with our oath
249-251  ...that art most rich, being poor; most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised
279-280  Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, who covert faults at last with shame derides

Act 1, Scene 2
14-15  th' creating a whole tribe of fops got tween a sleep and a wake
21  Now, gods, stand up for bastards
51  the oppression of aged tyranny
30  by an auricular assurance  (I have to admit I like this turn of phrase solely for its medical interest); also Act 1, Scene 4 child of spleen
134-135  An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!
136  My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail, my nativity was under Ursa Major.
151  How long have you been a sectary astronomical?

Act 1, Scene 4
185  and be athwart disnatured torment
289  sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child
Scene 5
as a crab's like a apple

In Act 2, Scene 2, Kent has a wonderful speech where he recitesa long list of epithets about Oswald.
70  anger hath a privilege
81  epileptic visage  (I'm not sure what this means, contorted?)
51  Fortune that arrant whore
116  I'll beat the drum till it cry sleep to death
130  sepulchring an adultress (you have to admire Shakespeare's economy of language - he says so much so succintly and pithily)
165  you fen-sucked fops

Act 2, Scene 4
221  Thou art a boil, a plaque-like sore or embossed carbuncle
232   for those that mingle reason with your passion (Regan speaking about her father's old age)
275  women's weapons (tears)

Act 3, Scene 2
I am a man more sinned against than sinning
70  The art of our necessities is strange and can make vile things precious
79  a brave night to cool a courtesan  (about a cold night)

Scene 3
21  o, that way madness lies
75  pelican daughters

Act 5, Scene 3
137  A most toad-spotted traitor
173  The wheel is come full circle

MARCUS AURELIUS: MEDITATIONS

Marcus Aurelius  Meditations , Translated by Robin Hard, Oxford World's Classics 2011



There are worse ways of spending a few days than sitting on the back deck, enjoying the Autumn sunshine and reading Mencius and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.  Both books were new to me and were a wonderful surprise.  I enjoyed Mencius but towards the end I was feeling a bit bogged down by the structured formality of the rites and courtesies as well as by the plethora of Chinese names that looked very similar to my western eyes (Chou, T-chou, Tsou, Ch’i, Chi, Ch’iu, Ch’u, Chieh, Chiao etc).  When you add in nicknames and honorifics etc, it left me quite lost.

 I really enjoyed Marcus Aurelius.  First of all, the thought that these meditations were written by the emperor of the Roman Empire, while he was fighting in Northeastern Europe to fend off the German hordes, is awe-inspiring.  He wrote as thoughtfully as the scholar-writers I’ve been reading during the previous weeks (Lucretius, Mencius, Plato).  Incredible.  I found his words very accessible and much of it still valid today – in that if you tried to follow his advice, you would probably be considered a good person, a moral person.  It was also interesting as I read through the book to see how his attitude or mood would alter in various sections.  Some of it was quite full of hope, in other sections he seemed quite down-hearted and cast down.  His words created a picture of a man who had spent his lifetime thinking about the meaning of life, how to live a moral life – and reading various philosophers and the writings of other thinkers that came before him.  It was hard to think of him as a man of action, of warfare.

 Marcus Aurelius lived from AD 121 to 180.  He was adopted by his uncle (emperor in AD 138-161).  He himself became emperor in 161, co-emperor with another adopted son, Lucius Verus until Lucius died in 169.  Marcus Aurelius died in 180.  During his lifetime he was a follower of the Stoic teachings.  Stoicism was started by Zeno and greatly expanded by Epictetus who wrote the discourses.  It was very interesting reading about the Stoic view of the world a few days after reading Lucretius, the Roman scholar-poet from the 1^st century BCE who followed the Epicurean school of thought.

The Stoics practiced 'practical ethics'.  For Marcus Aurelius this involved stripping down things to their essential reality, deciding what was really necessary, avoiding rash judgements or reactive emotions.

There were 3 branches of the teachings:

• logic (dialectic)
• physics (the study of nature)
• ethics

Marcus Aurelius covered 5 Stoic themes in his writings:

1. Living a virtuous life led to a happy life (virtue was all that was needed to ensure happiness).
2. Emotions and desires depend directly on beliefs about what is valuable or desirable.  Stoics should avoid reactive beliefs and be wary of judgements (as these may be inappropriate or misguided).  Consider priorities.
3. Humans have an inbuilt natural instinct to benefit others and all humans are capable of progressing towards the ideal state (complete virtue and happiness).
4. The natural world or Nature, has an inbuilt purpose or plan (or meaning).
5. Philosophy is a unified and systematic body of knowledge about the universe.

In much of his writings you can see a man trying to remind himself to do the right thing, to live a good life and avoid descending into pettiness or misguided emotion.  In Book 1 he describes what he has learned from various people (men) in his life:

Some of them could be written by any teenager struggling with how to grow up and become a good person.  Book 1.5.

[...] to endure hardship, and have few needs; to do these things for myself and not meddle in the affairs of others; and to turn a deaf ear to slander.

Some of them are reminders that life steadily moves on.  Book 2.4
Remember how long you have been deferring these things, and how many times you have been granted further grace by the gods, and yet have failed to make use of it.  But it is now high time that you realized what kind of universe this is [...] and that your time here is strictly limited and, unless you makes use of it to clear the fog from your mind, the moment will be gone, as you are gone, and never be yours again.

He revisits this theme in Book 10.16
No more of this talk about what a good man should be, but simply be one!

Though the Stoics are considered to be somewhat austere and not pleasure-loving (as compared to the Epicureans), Marcus Aurelius shows a slightly rosier view of life's possibilities.  In Book 5.5 he lists qualities he admires:

• disdain for sensual pleasures
• sincerity
• dignity
• endurance
• kindness
• freedom
• frugality

It's a somewhat austere list but in Book 3.2 he describes many simple daily aspects of life and the pleasure they can provide.  It reminds me of Lorna Crozier's new book "The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things" which celebrates the ordinary everyday things in our lives.  Marcus Aurelius notes many banal things and their beauty (such as the crack that develops on the crust of a loaf of bread during baking) and says:
[...] So if a person is endowed with sensibility and has a deep enough insight into the workings of the universe, he will find scarcely anything which fails to please him in some way by its presence [...]

Like the Epicureans, the Stoics felt that we should not worry about or fear death.  Similarly lusting after fame is useless as eventually no one will remember.  Aurelius spends many pages writing about death, fame, the expanse of time in which the universe exists etc.  I can't help but remember that he is writing these words towards the end of his life, and as he is facing battle and warfare daily.  He is constantly warning himself about how fleeting our time on earth is.  Aurelius counsels [himself?]  to remember (Book 4.3):
[...] that things of themselves have no hold on the mind, but stand motionless outside it, and all disturbances arise solely from the opinions within us; and secondly, that all that you presently behold will change in no time whatever and cease to exist [...]
'The universe is change, and life mere opinion.'  - Democritus No. 85

Book 4.35
All is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

For Marcus Aurelius, intelligence and a sense of law were 2 qualities characteristic and universal to mankind.  Like Lucretius he feels that nothing proceeds from nothing, though where the Epicureans feel that the universe is random, the Stoics believe in Fate, in Nature's plan.
"Providence or atoms" (Book 4.3).  Marcus Aurelius frequently wrote about the fact that we don't know what Nature's plan is, what the big picture is - but Nature isn't wrong and so nothing that happens is wrong, it's all part of Nature's master plan.

LIke Mencius, Marcus Aurelius warned about being narrow-minded or having tunnel vision. 
Book 4.12
[...] be prepared to change your mind if someone is at hand to put you right and to guide you away from some ill-grounded opinion.  But this change of view must always be based on a conviction that it serves justice or the common benefit; and this or something like it should be the sole reason for your choice, rather than the impression that it would be pleasant or popular.

Book 6.21
If anyone can give me good reason to think that I am going astray in my thoughts or in my actions, I will gladly change my ways.  For I seek the truth, which has never caused harm to anyone; no, the person who is harmed is one who persists in his self-deception and ignorance.

Marcus Aurelius writes about Reason.  Book 6.23
[...] Towards irrational creatures and material things in general, act in a generous and liberal manner, because you have reason and they have none [...]

He also rejects imagination - because it leads to desire.  Book 7.17
[...] my imagination.  Go away in the name of the gods [...] for I have no need of you [...]

Book 9.7
Blot out imagination; put a curb on impulse; quench desire; ensure that your ruling centre remains under its own control.

In this he is much like Krishna in the Gita, recommending to let go of desire and of wanting. 
In Book 9.40 Marcus Aurelius gives advice on how to turn your prayers around. Don't pray for your desires to be fulfilled, pray to not have those desires, to release them, pray to not be afraid of losing things (even a child).  Pray to be released from these emotions and needs.  Importantly the Stoics advised to avoid over-valuation of non-important things (they call them 'indifferents').

He has a couple of great lines that would be wonderful to pull out in an argument:
"an abscess on the body of the universe" and a line from Epitectus "You are a little soul carrying a corpse around".  But I digress.

Reassuringly Marcus Aurelius feels that we all contain the possibility of these virtues and strengths.  Like Mencius he feels that we need to look within ourselves for the answers and solutions.
Book 10.33
[...] But mind and reason can find their way through every obstacle as their nature and will dictate.[...]

In Book 12.1 Marcus Aurelius says not to be afraid of dying but to be afraid of not living your life.  This book is full of bits wise advice and insight.  It is hard not to feel jaded about it and cynical.  The last few decades have been so full of self-help books that it is hard to read advice such as this without feeling a bit sceptical or even disparaging.  It helps to remember that this was written by a man who was leader of the Roman Empire and who had spent decades fighting battles for the survival of his empire.  This isn't Dr. Phil.

Mediations is a book I want to reread slowly and think about.