Abstract
In order to determine if there existed an experimentalist Cartesianism in France in the 1660s, I concentrate on Jacques Rohault and address the three following questions. (1) Is there a difference in the way Descartes and Rohault deal with experiments? I state that there is no doctrinal difference between them: the experiments they carry out are of the same order; they attribute the same epistemological functions to them; they share the same ontology. The main difference between them is that, unlike Descartes, Rohault made experiments a means of popularization of the Cartesian philosophy. (2) How does Rohault treat experiments in his Mercredis? Studying quite closely the evolution that led to the greater priority attributed to experiments in the scientific circles that prefigure the Académie des sciences, I show that, in 1660s France, the treatment Rohault give to experiments in his Mercredis is exceeded by the radical experimentalism of the other French learned societies. (3) Did this radical experimentalism bring out a transformation of Cartesianism? I establish that, while the first criticism to Descartes concerns his dogmatic pretentions, there emerges in the last 30 years of the seventeenth century what has since become a historiographic cliché, the idea that Cartesians neglected experiments in favor of hypotheses and speculation.
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Notes
- 1.
See Chap. 1 by Dobre and Nyden on the history of this issue.
- 2.
- 3.
For a study of a polemic among Cartesians, see Moreau 1999. For a study of a controversy between proponents and opponents of Cartesianism, see Roux 2012. In the present chapter, I’ll return to a point briefly touched on in this article, that is the way in which the Cartesians appear opposed to experimentalism in this controversy, see Roux 2012, 84–87. The present chapter uses some of the ideas present here and there in Roux 1998.
- 4.
Azouvi 2002.
- 5.
For some comments on the refusal of empiricism among most Cartesians, see Clarke 1989, 43–70. There were however some exceptions, for example Dom Robert Desgabets, Henricus Regius or Pierre-Sylvain Régis. On Desgabets and Régis, see Schmaltz 2002; on Régis see Chap. 6 by Joly; on Regius, see Chap. 7 by Bellis; on Desgabets, see Chap. 8 by Easton.
- 6.
Already at the end of the seventeenth century, Rohault was the Cartesian who could be saved as an experimenter and experimentalist; in this regard see Leibniz to Nicaise published in Journal des savants cited below n132. See also Savérien 1783, xxviii–xxx, lv–lvi; Mouy 1934; Blay, “Introduction,” in Rohault 2009, xxix; Chap. 9 by Dobre in this volume. Clarke 1989, 202–211, proposes a more nuanced, and in my opinion more exact, discussion, if only because coming from a systematic comparison of Malebranche and Rohault, he gives a relative appreciation of Rohault’s experimentalism. The different articles by Trevor McClaughlin devoted to Rohault (in particular McClaughlin 1977, 1996, 2000) must be read, but aside from the fact that they repeat themselves, they do not in my opinion go into enough details of the texts.
- 7.
- 8.
Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Regula V, AT X 380. References to Bacon are to be found in Descartes to Mersenne, January 1630, December 23, 1630, May 10, 1632, AT I 109, 195–196, 251.
- 9.
Discours de la méthode, Cinquième Partie, AT VI 46–55. For comments, see Des Chene 2001, 19–25.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
These two projects, published in AT XI 659–660 and 663–665, were known to Baillet 1691, II, 433–434 and 663–665.
- 13.
Descartes to Mersenne, December 13, 1647, AT V 99.
- 14.
On this point, see Garber 2001b, who holds that this is true for all natural philosophers prior to the Royal Society.
- 15.
I developed this point in Roux 2011, 178–180.
- 16.
The bibliography is large but useless, because it is very repetitive. The discussions that are the most reliable, because they are more nuanced, although not exactly in the same way, seem to me those of Clarke 1982 and Garber 2001a. Homage must also be paid to the studies “Descartes expérimentateur” and “Descartes et Bacon” published in Milhaud 1921.
- 17.
Discours de la méthode, Discours Sixième, AT VI 64–65; Principia philosophiae II 204, AT VIII 327.
- 18.
Rohault 1987, The Author Preface, I, unpaginated.
- 19.
Rohault 1987, The Author Preface, I, unpaginated; 1681, Préface, unpaginated. The verb “prévenir” used transitively did not have the same meaning in the seventeenth century as it does today: “prévenir,” according to Furetière’s Dictionnaire, is “to be the first to do the same thing, to win in races; celui qui prévient arrives the first at the goal, wins the prize.”
- 20.
- 21.
Rohault 1987, I, Chap. XII, 56–78.
- 22.
McClaughlin 1977, 227–228; 1996, 471–475, 480–481 identify the various sources of Rohault’s experiments. We sometimes read that Rohault helped Florin Périer edit Pascal 1663, but I don’t see an argument for this. Nonetheless, the two remarks that make up the Avertissement, unpaginated, of this edition show that the editor knew the work of Rohault; likewise the presentation entitled Nouvelles expériences faites en Angleterre, expliquées par les principes establis dans les deux Traitez precedens de l’Equilibre des Liqueurs, & de la Pesanteur de la masse de l’Air, shows that he knew the work of Boyle.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
See the texts whose references are given above, n17.
- 26.
Rohault 1987, I, Chap. XII, Sect. 10, 59. Rohault does mention what happens in the case of mercury in Sect. 23, 64, but absolutely not as a crucial experiment.
- 27.
On the use by Clerselier of the affirmation that the reasonings of Rohault anticipate (“préviennent”) experiments, and the way that Rochon mocks this affirmation, see below in the third part of this chapter.
- 28.
Pace McClaughlin 1996, 478.
- 29.
Rohault 1681, I, Chap. XI, Sect. 5, 71.
- 30.
- 31.
Rohault 1987, I, Chap. V, Sect. 12–13, 34–35; Chap. VII, Sect. 9, 41; Chap. VIII, Sect. 2, 45–46; Chap. IX, Sect. 2, 51 and Sect. 12, 60.
- 32.
Descartes to Vatier, February 22, 1638, AT I 560.
- 33.
Clerselier 1682, unpaginated.
- 34.
McClaughlin 1996, 475–476.
- 35.
- 36.
- 37.
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
Brown 1934, 68–74, discusses the informal meetings that took place at Montmor’s house before 1657. The meetings were interrupted by Roberval’s insult to Montmor, then by political affairs between December 1658 and August 1659 (Boulliau to Huygens, December 6, 1658 and Chapelain to Huygens, August 20, 1659, in Huygens 1888–1950, II, 287, 468; Oldenburg to Saporta, July 11, 1659, in Oldenburg 1965–1973, I, 294–295), then from May to October 1661 because of the illness of Madame de Montmor (Chapelain to Huet, September 26, 1661 and Chapelain to Huygens, October 16, 1661, in Chapelain 1880–1883, II, 153, 159). On the end of Montmor Académy see below, n70.
- 41.
- 42.
Sorbière and Du Prat 1657, 634, Art. VII–IX.
- 43.
- 44.
Sorbière and Du Prat 1657, 633, Art. I.
- 45.
- 46.
Sorbière 1660, 60–64, 181–189, 190–193, 194–202, 694–700, 701–704, 712–714.
- 47.
Sorbière 1660, 695, 100.
- 48.
Richard Jones to Boyle, March 20, 1660, in Boyle 2001, I, 405–406.
- 49.
- 50.
Denis 1668, 2–3.
- 51.
Denis 1668, 161.
- 52.
Denis 1668, 216–217.
- 53.
One of the experiments of Pecquet is reported in Oldenburg’s letter to Saporta, August 27, 1659, in Oldenburg 1965–1973, I, 308: “Only Monsr Pecquet brought an experience of his of the winds engendered in the body of man wch was odde, vid. yt he had known a man, who, wherewoever he touched him on his body, gave from him much wind by his mouth, even when he touched him on his tigh or his feeth,” but about Pecquet’s dissections, see especially Sorbière 1660, 22–59. We find the Discours sur l’ascension de l’eau sur un niveau, en un tuyau étroit, récité par Mr. de Montconys, chez Mr. de Montmor in Montconys 1665–1666, III. Thévenot’s spirit level is mentioned in Thévenot 1681, 10–12 and in Thévenot to Huygens, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 18–19.
- 54.
Sorbière 1663, 160.
- 55.
Sorbière 1663, 162.
- 56.
Sorbière 1663, 160, 216.
- 57.
Oldenburg to Michaelis, April 26, 1659, to Hartlib, July 30, 1659, and to Boyle, July 23, 1659, in Oldenburg 1965–1973, I, resp. 240, 260, 287.
- 58.
Boulliau to Huygens, July 11, 1661, in Huygens 1888–1950, III, 293.
- 59.
Huygens 1888–1950, XXII, 535, 537, 539, 540, 543, 544, 546, 553, 554, 560.
- 60.
Denis 1668, 2–3.
- 61.
McClaughlin 1975. It cannot be contested that this project prefigures more the Académie des sciences than do the notes that, probably at the request of Colbert, were written in 1666 by Jean Chapelain and Charles Perrault, both members of the “Petite Académie,” a small council in charge of proposing initiatives to glorify the King (Perrault 1666). The main goal of Chapelain’s note, published in Chapelain 1666, 513 (Collas 1912, 384–388, establishes that Chapelain was the author) was to distinguish “scientists by profession,” who are busy only with cabals in the court, and “good faith scientists,” who of course were the true scientists. The note from Charles Perrault, who proposed an “Académie Royale générale” divided into four sections (Belles-Lettres, History, Philosophy, in the sense of natural philosophy, Mathematics), is very short and the project it promotes was soon abandoned because it faced resistance from already established institutions as the Sorbonne and the Académie française (Duhamel 1698, 7–9; Fontenelle 1733, 5–7).
- 62.
Sorbière 1663, 160–161.
- 63.
Sorbière 1663, 161.
- 64.
- 65.
Chapelain to Heinsius, February 6, 1659, in Chapelain 1880–1883, II, 17.
- 66.
Boulliau to Heinsius, February 1658, quoted and translated in Brown 1934, 78–79.
- 67.
On this point, begin with Brown 1934, 119–122.
- 68.
Chapelain to Huygens, May 30, 1661, in Huygens 1888–1950, III, 273.
- 69.
Huygens to Chapelain, July 14, and Chapelain to Huygens, July 20, 1661, in Huygens 1888–1950, III, 295 and 299.
- 70.
- 71.
- 72.
Thévenot 1694, Avertissement, unpaginated.
- 73.
Thévenot 1681, 8.
- 74.
It is in this edition that it is said that these two speeches were made at the Académie Montmor before being published, without their authors being named.
- 75.
Petit to Huygens, March 8 and May 5, 1662, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 73, 127. From the beginning of his correspondence with Huygens, Petit complained of the way in which, in France, people of quality neglected mechanics, see Petit to Huygens, in Huygens 1888–1950, II, 257. Petit, Auzout and Thévenot are mentioned meeting on Tuesdays in the letter from Petit to Huygens, 17 October 1664, in Huygens 1888–1950, V, 124. The same three would meet Christopher Wren when he came to Paris a few years later (Oldenburg to Boyle, August 24, 1665, in Oldenburg 1965–1973, II, 480). Pierre Petit (1598–1682), born in Montluçon, resided in Paris from 1633 on, wrote objections against the metaphysics of the Discourse on Method and against the explanation of refractions in the Dioptrique, and communicated Torricelli’s experiment to Pascal. Intendant général des fortifications from 1649, he was part of the various scientific circles and regretted not being a member of the Académie des sciences (see the lettre from Boulliau quoted by Brown 1934, 138). The explanation can perhaps be found in his character; see the cruel portrait made of him in Sorbière to Hobbes, early 1663, in Hobbes 1994, 551–554; and Christiaan Huygens to Lodewijk Huygens, September 28 and November 9, 1662, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 241, 256, passim. Adrien Auzout (1620–1691), born in Rouen, contributed to Pascal’s experiments on the vacuum, worked as an astronomer with Jean Picard at the Académie des sciences, of which he was briefly a member (1666–1668) before retiring to Italy and England, apparently for having criticized Charles Perrault’s translation of Vitruvius; see Brown 1934, 138, 138–141.
- 76.
- 77.
Christiaan Huygens to Lodewijk Huygens, April 6, 1663, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 324–325. Christiaan Huygens to [Constantyn Huygens], April 20 and May 4, 1663, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 333, 338. Contrary to what the editors of Huygens’s Œuvres complètes affirm, the d’Espagnet who appears in Huygens correspondence may not be the chemist Jean d’Espagnet (1564–1637?), first Président of the Parlement of Bordeaux: it is more likely his son, Étienne d’Espagnet, counselor at the Parlement of Bordeaux.
- 78.
Huygens to Moray, November 18 and December 19, 1663, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 433, 474. Huygens to Constantyn Huygens, November 30, 1663, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 452. Auzout to Christiaan Huygens, December 1663, in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 481–482. The unreliability of the Montmor pump was noted by Shapin and Schaffer 1985, 265–269.
- 79.
Huygens to Moray, March 12, 1664, in Huygens 1888–1950, V, 41.
- 80.
Borch 1983, III, 464; IV, 6–7, 164, 173, 180–181, 186, 274, 283–284. Borch attributes the anatomical observations to Swammerdam, it is Chapelain to Huet, July 31, 1665, in Chapelain 1880–1883, II, 406, who mentions Steno. This anatomical fashion was in no way proper to the meetings of Thévenot: Borch mentions the anatomical preparations that took place at the home of Montmor in February 1665 (when the Académie was no longer meeting there) and the ones done by Steno at the home of Bourdelot in May 1665.
- 81.
Chapelain to Steno, March 15, 1666 and May 27, 1667, in Chapelain 1880–1883, II, 447, 514.
- 82.
Borch also mentions, among those regularly meeting at the home of Thévenot, Vossius (the scholar Isaac Vossius, 1618–1689), Borelli (the chemist and builder of instruments Jacques Borelly (?–1689), later a member of the Académie des sciences), Ville Bressé, Bressié or Bressieu (the chemist and engineer Étienne de Villebressieu, who travelled with Descartes at the beginning of the 1630s, and who was the most important source for his first biographer, Pierre Borel, for this period), Frenicle (the mathematician Bernard Frenicle de Bessy (?–1674), who was already living in the home of Thévenot), and Martell (Thomas de Martel (1618–1619–1679–1685?), a bourgeois of Montauban, who was already part of the scientific circles of Paris at the beginning of the 1640s, was a correspondent of Hobbes, then of Oldenburg; the best biography to date is that of Noel Malcolm in his edition of Hobbes’ Correspondence).
- 83.
Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 325–329.
- 84.
- 85.
Thévenot 1681, 3–6.
- 86.
See for example Bacon, Novum organum, I, 73–74, in Bacon 1996–, XI, 116–119.
- 87.
Descartes to Plempius for Fromondus, October 3, 1637, AT I 421.
- 88.
Thévenot 1681, 7.
- 89.
This point is already highlighted in McClaughlin 1975, 238–242, who notes the common points between the project for the Compagnie des sciences et des arts and the practices of the Académie des sciences, which is true, but who also suggests that this commonality of doctrine arises from a Gassendist reference, which seems doubtful to me.
- 90.
Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 329.
- 91.
Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 327. The first reception of Bacon in France was explored in Le Dœuff 1984; on baconianism in mathematics, see Goldstein 2008. The question of the reference to Bacon in late seventeenth century France remains however to be explored, but it may be noted that it was Huygens who in December 1660 lent Thévenot Bacon’s Opuscula varia posthuma, philosophica, civilia, et theologica, published 2 years prior, and that one finds in his later projects for the assembly of physics in an injunction to “work on natural history more or less following the plan of Verulamius” (Huygens 1888–1950, XXII, 540; VI, 95–96 and XIX, 268).
- 92.
Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 325–327.
- 93.
The most exhaustive presentation of Rohault’s Mercredis remains that of Clair 1978, 42–56.
- 94.
Clerselier 1659, unpaginated.
- 95.
Clair 1978, 43.
- 96.
Fontenelle 1994, 143.
- 97.
Moreri 1759, 310. Clerselier 1657, unpaginated. Le Bret 1657 (unpaginated) is all the more telling that, regarding Cyrano’s illness, he explicitly mentions Rohault, and does not mention the Mercredis: “I would do ill to Monsieur Rohault if I didn’t add his name to such a glorious list, since this illustrious mathematician who carried out so many beautiful physical proofs…had so great a friendship for Monsieur de Bergerac…that he was the first to discover the true cause of his illness….”
- 98.
Baillet 1691, II, 442.
- 99.
Clerselier 1659, unpaginated.
- 100.
- 101.
Clerselier 1682, unpaginated.
- 102.
Clair 1978, 46–49.
- 103.
Clerselier 1682, unpaginated.
- 104.
- 105.
Quoted in Clair 1978, 46.
- 106.
Huygens 1888–1950, XXII, 541.
- 107.
On the criticism that Hobbes addressed to the Royal Society as a closed private space, see Shapin and Schaffer, 1985, 113–114.
- 108.
- 109.
Clerselier 1682, unpaginated. I highlight.
- 110.
See for example Rohault 1660, 1r: “…the conferences were written in a tumult, and at odd hours, he [the person collecting the conferences] was not as able as he would have liked to imitate the correctness and the incomparable precision of the terms of he who had the task of representing the feelings.” Foucher 1675, 64–65: “You know that he was intent on reasoning with consequence, and as he perfectly possessed all the subjects he dealt with, he explained them with a great deal of order, and with a certain clarity, accompanied by a natural eloquence that one recognized more in its effect than in the disposition of the terms he would use.” Malebranche, Recherche de la vérité, Preface to Volume II, in Malebranche 1958–1967, II, 564: “…everyone know with what accuracy and what force this learned man resisted the blows that others wanted to bear to him, and that with two or three words pronounced without heat and without movement, he struck down the imagination of those full of themselves who thought to cover him in embarrassment.” Clerselier 1682, unpaginated: “… he summarized so well and in such good order everything objected to him, and responded with such clarity and enlightenment.…”.
- 111.
Clerselier 1682, unpaginated. On the meaning of the verb “prévenir,” see above, n19. Three pages later, he refers again to the magnet, where the experiments had been anticipated (“prévenues”) by the speeches.
- 112.
- 113.
Rohault 1660, 12r.
- 114.
Huygens 1888–1950, XXII, 536, 541; III, 210. One can note in passing that although at times one speaks of the “emancipatory” character of Cartesianism for women, the attitude of Huygens and his correspondents to this senatulus should lead one to a more nuanced judgment as to the type of knowledge women could access in this period; and it is significant that there is no sign of the presence of women in the most visible learned societies, whether the Académie Montmor, the Académie Bourdelot, or the Compagnie des sciences et des arts.
- 115.
Huygens 1888–1950, III, 397, 414, 432; IV, 6, 7, 11, 69, 367, 459; V, 29, 41, 101, 105. Aside from correspondence, Rohault’s Traité de physique is mentioned in the preface of the Discours de la cause de la pesanteur; it also appears in certain critical notes on the Cartesian explanation of magnetism (Huygens 1888–1950, XIX, 572).
- 116.
On Rohault’s description and explanation of these phenomena, see Rohault 1681, I, Chap. XXII, Sect. 67–84, 204–214. On Huygens’ lack of confidence in Rohault’s explanation, see his letters to Moray from December 9, 1663, February 20 and March 12, 1664, resp. in Huygens 1888–1950, IV, 459; V, 29, 41.
- 117.
- 118.
Garber 1988.
- 119.
In his letter to Francheville, March 16, 1665, in Chapelain 1880–1883, II, 390, Chapelain accuses Sorbière of having copied Gassendi without understanding him.
- 120.
On Chapelain’s Gassendism, see Collas 1912, 60–64, 151–154, 331–336, 383–388. On Sorbière’s Gassendism, see Pintard 1983, 334–348, nuanced however 418–420, 425, 429. On the responsibility of the Gassendists on the fact that the first members of the Académie des sciences were not Cartesians, see Taton 1966, 36; on the fact that they would have been ipso facto Gassendists and experimentalists, see McClaughlin 1975, 239–240.
- 121.
See in particular Chapelain to Balzac, May 31 and December 29, 1637, in Chapelain 1880–1883, I, 153, 189; Sorbière to Petit, February 10, 1657, in Sorbière 1660, 691. On the fact that the illustrations and comparisons used by Descartes would calm the crowd, see Sorbière to Mersenne, December 23, 1647, in Mersenne 1932–1988, XV, 585–587. On Gassendi’s “too great literature,” see Sorbière 1694, 124–126.
- 122.
- 123.
- 124.
Sorbière to Petit, November 10, 1657, in Sorbière 1660, 679–680. For other passages where Descartes is described as a “head of a sect,” see Sorbière to Saumaise, March 10, 1650 and to Petit, February 10, 1657, in Sorbière 1660, 535, 691. In the correspondence to Mersenne, Descartes is compared to Fludd, see Sorbière to Mersenne, April 15 and December 23, 1647, in Mersenne 1932–1988, XV, 201, 585–587.
- 125.
Chapelain to Carrel de Sainte-Garde, May 27, 1662, in Chapelain 1880–1883, II, 235–236. The word “sectators” describes Cartesians in Chapelain to Heinsius, February 6, 1659, to Carrel de Sainte-Garde, December 15, 1663 and to Bernier, February 16 and April 26, 1669, in Chapelain 1880–1883, 17, 341, 622, 640.
- 126.
Sorbière to Saumaise, March 10, 1650, in Sorbière 1660, 536.
- 127.
Chapelain to Carrel de Sainte-Garde, February 16, 1662, in Chapelain 1880–1883, II, 203–204. Carrel de Sainte Garde published in 1663 his Lettres contre la philosophie de Descartes.
- 128.
Huygens 1888–1950, X, 404–405.
- 129.
- 130.
- 131.
Leibniz to Pelisson, March 18, 1692, in Leibniz 1923–, I–7, 292.
- 132.
Journal des scavants, April 13, 1693, 163–164. On the fact that Cartesians did not discover anything, see Leibniz to Gallois, [1677] and to Malebranche, June 22, 1679 in Leibniz 1923–, II–1, 569, 717; to Swelingius, in Leibniz 1961, IV, 329–330.
- 133.
Roux 2011.
- 134.
Mariotte 1992, 97, 103.
- 135.
Mariotte 1992, 98.
- 136.
Mariotte 1717, I, 170–171; II, 341.
- 137.
Mariotte 1992, 98.
- 138.
- 139.
Rochon 1673, Sect. 47, 120–122.
- 140.
Rochon 1673, Sect. 48, 122–124.
- 141.
Rochon 1673, Sect. 50, 128–129.
- 142.
Rochon 1673, Sects. 59–60, 140–144, and 142 for the quotation.
- 143.
Rochon 1673, Sect. 84, 194–196.
- 144.
Rochon 1673, Sect. 85, 197–198. “Prévenir l’expérience” is what Rohault claimed to do with his third sort of experiment, see above.
- 145.
Rochon 1673, Sect. 85, 202.
- 146.
Voltaire to Maupertuis, October 1, 1738, in Voltaire 1968–1977, V, 307–308: “if one had to get into this other and no less frivolous question, which one nonetheless agitates, of knowing who was the greater physicist, Descartes or Newton, it would be enough to consider that Descartes almost never carried out experiments…. If one wanted to discuss the physics of Descartes, what could one perceive there other than hypotheses?”
- 147.
AT XI 31, 48.
- 148.
See the references given in Roux 2006, n40.
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Roux, S. (2013). Was There a Cartesian Experimentalism in 1660s France?. In: Dobre, M., Nyden, T. (eds) Cartesian Empiricisms. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 31. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7690-6_3
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