Lionel,
_poele_ means oven or pan, but also a heated room, which is what Descartes
refers to in his discourse de la methode. He mentions the _poele_ various
times as a place where he meditated to acquire knowledge and where he had a
number of dreams, formative experiences for his philosophical systems.
Yves
PS. Below a little blurb on Descartes, which also mentions the poele.
Rene Descartes was born March 31, 1596, in a small town in Touraine called
La Haye (now called La Haye-Descartes or simply Descartes). When he was
about ten years old his father sent him to the college Henri IV at La
Fleche, a newly formed school which was soon to become the showcase of
Jesuit education and one of the outstanding centers for academic training in
Europe. Later in his life Descartes looked with pride on the classical
education he received from the Jesuits, even though he did not always find
agreeable what the Jesuits taught him. He especially found the scholastic
Aristotelianism taught there distasteful, although he did cherish his
training in many other disciplines-particularly mathematics.
Descartes left La Fleche in 1614 to study civil and canon law at Poitiers,
and by 1616 had received the baccalaureate and licentiate degrees in law. In
1618 Descartes joined the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau as an unpaid
volunteer, but apparently he never saw combat. He seems to have been more
interested in using military service as a means of seeing the world.
During a tour of duty in Germany, events of lifelong importance happened to
Descartes. In November of 1619 he was sitting in a poele, a small
stove-heated room, meditating on the disunity and uncertainty of his
knowledge. He marvveled at mathematics, a science in which he found
certainty, necessity, and precision. How could he find a basis for all
knowledge so that it might have the same unity and certainty as mathematics?
Then, in a blinding flash, Descartes saw the method to be pursued for
putting all the sciences, all knowledge, on a firm footing. This method made
clear both how new knowledge was to be achieved and how all previous
knowledge could be certain and unified. That evening Descartes had a series
of dreams that seemed to put a divine stamp of approval on his project.
Shortly thereafter Descartes left military service.
Throughout the early apart of his life, Descartes was plagued by a sense of
impotence and frustration about the task he had set about to accomplish: a
new and stable basis for all knowledge. He had the programmatic vision, but
he seemed to despair of being able to work it out in detail. Thus, perhaps
we have an explanation for the fact that Descartes, during much of the 1620,
threw himself into the pursuit of the good life. Travel, gambling, and
dueling seemed especially to attract his attention.
This way of life ended in 1628, when, through the encouragement of Cardinal
de Berulle, Descartes decided to see his program through to completion. He
left France to avoid the glamour and the social life; he renounced the
distractions in which he could ea sily lose himself and forget what he knew
to be his true calling. He departed for Holland, where he would live for the
next twenty years.
It was during this period that Descartes began his Rules for the Direction
of the Mind and wrote a short treatise on metaphysics, although the former
was not published during his lifetime and the latter seems to have been
destroyed by him. Much of the early 1630 was taken up with scientific
questions. However, Descartes' publication plans were abruptly altered when
he learned of the trial of Galileo in Rome. Descartes decided, as Aristotle
had centuries before, that philosophy would not be sinned against twice. He
suppressed his scientific treatise, The World or Treatise on Light.
In 1637 Descartes published in French a Discourse on the Method for
Conducting One's Reason Rightly and for Searching for Truth in the Sciences;
it introduced three treatises which were to exemplify the new method: one on
optics, one on geometry, and one on meteorology. Part IV of the introductory
Discourse contained, in somewhat sketchy form, much of the philosophical
basis for constructing the new system of knowledge.
In response to queries about his section, Descartes prepared a much
lengthier discussion of the philosophical underpinnings for his vision of a
unified and certain body of human knowledge. This response was to be his
Meditations on First Philosophy, completed in the spring of 1640?but not
published until August, 1641. Attached to the Meditations were sets of
objections and queries sent by readers who had read the manuscript, plus
Descartes' replies to each set.
The period following the publication of the Meditations was marked by
controversy and polemics. Aristotelians, both Catholic and Protestant, were
outraged; many who did not understand Descartes' teachings took him to be an
atheist and a libertine. In spite of all this clamor, Descartes hoped that
his teachings would replace those of Aristotle. To this end he published in
1644 his Principles of Philosophy, a four-part treaties which he hoped would
supplant the Aristotelian scholastic manuals used in most universities. The
last important work to be published during his lifetime was his Passions of
the Soul, in which Descartes explored such topics as the relationship of the
soul to the body, the nature of emotion, and the role of the will in
controlling the emotions.
In 1649 Queen Christina of Sweden convinced Descartes that he should come to
Stockholm in order to teach her philosophy. Christina seems to have regarded
Descartes more as a court ornament for her amusement and edification than as
a serious philosopher; however, it was the brutal winter of 1640 that proved
to be Descartes' undoing. Of the climate in Sweden Descartes was to say: "It
seems to me that men's thoughts freeze here during winter, just as does the
water." Descartes caught pneumonia early in Fe bruary of 1650 and, after
more than a week of suffering, died on February 11.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 20/11/01 0:37, "Lionel Boxer" wrote:
> Hello
>
> In this passage:
>
> Foucault (Power/Knowledge, p. 51) later suggests, '... those who govern are
> blind; only those who keep their distance from power, who are in no way
> implicated in tyranny, shut up in their Cartesian pole ...
>
> What does Foucault mean by Cartesian pole??
>
> Thanks
>
> Lionel
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>
_poele_ means oven or pan, but also a heated room, which is what Descartes
refers to in his discourse de la methode. He mentions the _poele_ various
times as a place where he meditated to acquire knowledge and where he had a
number of dreams, formative experiences for his philosophical systems.
Yves
PS. Below a little blurb on Descartes, which also mentions the poele.
Rene Descartes was born March 31, 1596, in a small town in Touraine called
La Haye (now called La Haye-Descartes or simply Descartes). When he was
about ten years old his father sent him to the college Henri IV at La
Fleche, a newly formed school which was soon to become the showcase of
Jesuit education and one of the outstanding centers for academic training in
Europe. Later in his life Descartes looked with pride on the classical
education he received from the Jesuits, even though he did not always find
agreeable what the Jesuits taught him. He especially found the scholastic
Aristotelianism taught there distasteful, although he did cherish his
training in many other disciplines-particularly mathematics.
Descartes left La Fleche in 1614 to study civil and canon law at Poitiers,
and by 1616 had received the baccalaureate and licentiate degrees in law. In
1618 Descartes joined the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau as an unpaid
volunteer, but apparently he never saw combat. He seems to have been more
interested in using military service as a means of seeing the world.
During a tour of duty in Germany, events of lifelong importance happened to
Descartes. In November of 1619 he was sitting in a poele, a small
stove-heated room, meditating on the disunity and uncertainty of his
knowledge. He marvveled at mathematics, a science in which he found
certainty, necessity, and precision. How could he find a basis for all
knowledge so that it might have the same unity and certainty as mathematics?
Then, in a blinding flash, Descartes saw the method to be pursued for
putting all the sciences, all knowledge, on a firm footing. This method made
clear both how new knowledge was to be achieved and how all previous
knowledge could be certain and unified. That evening Descartes had a series
of dreams that seemed to put a divine stamp of approval on his project.
Shortly thereafter Descartes left military service.
Throughout the early apart of his life, Descartes was plagued by a sense of
impotence and frustration about the task he had set about to accomplish: a
new and stable basis for all knowledge. He had the programmatic vision, but
he seemed to despair of being able to work it out in detail. Thus, perhaps
we have an explanation for the fact that Descartes, during much of the 1620,
threw himself into the pursuit of the good life. Travel, gambling, and
dueling seemed especially to attract his attention.
This way of life ended in 1628, when, through the encouragement of Cardinal
de Berulle, Descartes decided to see his program through to completion. He
left France to avoid the glamour and the social life; he renounced the
distractions in which he could ea sily lose himself and forget what he knew
to be his true calling. He departed for Holland, where he would live for the
next twenty years.
It was during this period that Descartes began his Rules for the Direction
of the Mind and wrote a short treatise on metaphysics, although the former
was not published during his lifetime and the latter seems to have been
destroyed by him. Much of the early 1630 was taken up with scientific
questions. However, Descartes' publication plans were abruptly altered when
he learned of the trial of Galileo in Rome. Descartes decided, as Aristotle
had centuries before, that philosophy would not be sinned against twice. He
suppressed his scientific treatise, The World or Treatise on Light.
In 1637 Descartes published in French a Discourse on the Method for
Conducting One's Reason Rightly and for Searching for Truth in the Sciences;
it introduced three treatises which were to exemplify the new method: one on
optics, one on geometry, and one on meteorology. Part IV of the introductory
Discourse contained, in somewhat sketchy form, much of the philosophical
basis for constructing the new system of knowledge.
In response to queries about his section, Descartes prepared a much
lengthier discussion of the philosophical underpinnings for his vision of a
unified and certain body of human knowledge. This response was to be his
Meditations on First Philosophy, completed in the spring of 1640?but not
published until August, 1641. Attached to the Meditations were sets of
objections and queries sent by readers who had read the manuscript, plus
Descartes' replies to each set.
The period following the publication of the Meditations was marked by
controversy and polemics. Aristotelians, both Catholic and Protestant, were
outraged; many who did not understand Descartes' teachings took him to be an
atheist and a libertine. In spite of all this clamor, Descartes hoped that
his teachings would replace those of Aristotle. To this end he published in
1644 his Principles of Philosophy, a four-part treaties which he hoped would
supplant the Aristotelian scholastic manuals used in most universities. The
last important work to be published during his lifetime was his Passions of
the Soul, in which Descartes explored such topics as the relationship of the
soul to the body, the nature of emotion, and the role of the will in
controlling the emotions.
In 1649 Queen Christina of Sweden convinced Descartes that he should come to
Stockholm in order to teach her philosophy. Christina seems to have regarded
Descartes more as a court ornament for her amusement and edification than as
a serious philosopher; however, it was the brutal winter of 1640 that proved
to be Descartes' undoing. Of the climate in Sweden Descartes was to say: "It
seems to me that men's thoughts freeze here during winter, just as does the
water." Descartes caught pneumonia early in Fe bruary of 1650 and, after
more than a week of suffering, died on February 11.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 20/11/01 0:37, "Lionel Boxer" wrote:
> Hello
>
> In this passage:
>
> Foucault (Power/Knowledge, p. 51) later suggests, '... those who govern are
> blind; only those who keep their distance from power, who are in no way
> implicated in tyranny, shut up in their Cartesian pole ...
>
> What does Foucault mean by Cartesian pole??
>
> Thanks
>
> Lionel
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>