Beeckman, Descartes and Physico-Mathematics
The phrase, “there are very few physico-mathematicians,” written by Isaac Beeckman in his Loci communes on the occasion of his encounter with Descartes in November 1618 is well-known. The language appears to be new, and is not found in Beeckman before thi
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Beeckman, Descartes and Physico-Mathematics Frédéric de Buzon
The phrase, “there are very few physico-mathematicians,”1 written by Isaac Beeckman in his Loci communes2 on the occasion of his encounter with Descartes in November 1618 is well-known. The language appears to be new,3 and is not found in Beeckman before this date. He comments on Descartes in this way: This person from the Poitou, has spent time with many Jesuits and other clever and learned men. He says that he has never met anyone, except for me, who makes use of this way of investigation, which delights me, and joins physics to mathematics in an exact way. And as for me as well, I have never spoken with anyone apart from him about this kind of investigation.4
But the compliment is odd. Beeckman had meditated on this subject for about a decade and a half; from the very first remark in his Journal (probably from 1608 to1610), he wondered why all of the arts are not subordinated to one another, why there is not “a general science or art of all mathematics, and again, of mathematics and physics, and again of physics and ethics, and again of physics and alchemy, etc.”5
I would like to thank Daniel Garber, the translator of this chapter, and Sophie Roux deeply for their invaluable remarks. 1
“Physico-mathematici paucissimi.” Journal, vol. I, p. 244. This is the title Isaac Beeckman gave at the beginning of his manuscript. 3 See, though, a contemporary book by Philipp Müller, De cometa anni 1618 commentatis physicomathematica specialis et generalis. 4 “Hic Picto cum multis Jesuitis alijsque studiosis virisque doctis versatus est. Dicit tamen se nunquam neminem reperisse, praeter me, qui hoc modo, quo ego gaudeo, studendi utatur accurateque cum Mathematicâ Physicam jungat. Neque etiam ego, praeter illum, nemini locutus sum hujusmodi studij,” Journal, vol. I, p. 244. 5 Ibid., vol. I, p. 5. 2
F. de Buzon (*) Faculté de Philosophie, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France e-mail: [email protected]
D. Garber and S. Roux (eds.), The Mechanization of Natural Philosophy, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 300, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4345-8_6, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013
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But obviously, Descartes had had much less experience with these kinds of questions. This compliment shows the constant care with which Beeckman drafted his reading notes, experiments, and reflections over 30 years. He sometimes judges other authors on their way of harmonizing mathematics and physics, and in a more particular way, on the ways in which they agree with the small number of philosophical theses that he considers his own and to which he returns again and again. With regard to Bacon and Stevin, he writes that the first did not try hard enough to join mathesis to physics (he believed, for example, that the cause of the interval of an octave was obscure), while the second was too devoted to mathematics and dealt too rarely with physics. Thus, the phrase “this way of investigation (hoc modo studendi)” in the quotation, is what is
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