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Rene Descartes
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It was very cold and he was shivering as he stumbled through
the halls of the dark, damp and drafty castle. He could not get warm, despite
the fact that he had wrapped himself in as many clothes as he could find in his
closet. His name was René Descartes, and
he was on his way to give an early morning tutorial in philosophy to Christina,
the queen of Sweden.
The year was 1650.
At the age of 53, the acclaimed French philosopher had accepted an
invitation from Christina to come north to Stockholm to take a position as
court scholar. Four years earlier, the highly educated 40-year-old queen had
started a correspondence with Descartes through the mediation of the French
ambassador to Sweden. Their long letters explored the nature of love, the question
of the universe’s infinity, and the nature of the sovereign good. Christina wanted to meet Descartes. She offered him a position on the court and
urged him to come north.
Descartes accepted the invitation, but not because he had
enthusiasm for Sweden or for the court of Queen Christina. He was more concerned about what life was
going to be like for him in the Netherlands during a never-ending, five-year
long campaign of a Dutch theologian to suppress Descartes’ writings and damage
his reputation. He decided that he
needed to leave his home in the Netherlands, at least temporarily.
After getting settled at Court in September of 1649,
Christina ordered Descartes “to put all of his papers in order, and
secondly, to put together designs for an academy.” (Gaukroger, p. 415) There is
no evidence that this was done. However, in
early January of 1650, Christina required
Descartes to give her lessons in philosophy. He could not complain – she was the queen after all. But added to the pain of freezing in the long
halls and rooms of an ancient stone castle, Descartes learned that the lessons
started at 5 a.m. The lessons would conclude five hours later at 10 a.m. (Descartes’ usual waking hour was 11 a.m.)
The other problem confronting Descartes’ tutorials was
that Christina did not want to hear about his latest work in philosophy. Instead, she had a new interest in learning
the language of ancient Greece, a topic about which he had no interest at
all. As a consequence of this stand-off,
Descartes had tutored Christina only four or five times by the end of
January. Things were not going
well. In a letter to a friend,
dated 15 January 1650, Descartes expressed reservations about his decision to
come to Sweden. He sees himself to be “out of his element,” the winter so harsh
that “men’s thoughts are frozen here, like the water” (Adam and Tannery, V 467;
Cottingham, et al, III 383).
The lesson he was to teach on that freezing morning was
the last. Descartes caught a head cold
on February 1, 1650. The
tutorials were cancelled. Descartes took
to bed. He had a history of respiratory
problems since childhood. In the harsh cold of northern Sweden in winter, his
cold soon turned into pneumonia. René
Descartes died on 11 February at the age of 53.
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From Laurence Houlgate, Understanding Rene Descartes: The Smart Student's Guide to Meditations on First Philosophy. Now available as an eBook or paperback, at Amazon.com B08M8DS3BX
