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Descartes’ Exercises

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Zeno Vendler
Zeno Vendler*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA92093, U.S.A.
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Extract

The influence of St. Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises on Descartes’ work, including the Meditations, has been recognized and discussed by many historians. I just mention a few fairly recent and easily accessible instances. In The Metaphysics of Descartes (Oxford: Clarendon 1965), J. L. Beck suggests that the literary form of the Meditations is most likely due to the Ignatian meditations to which Descartes had been exposed during his training at the Jesuit college of LaFlèche (31). Arthur Thomson in ‘Ignace de Loyola et Descartes’ traces some elements in Descartes’ method and psychology to Ignatian sources, mainly focusing on the Discourse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 193 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1989

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References

1 I use the following editions: Obras Completas de San Ignacio de Loyola, Candido de Dalmases, ed. (Madrid: La Editorial Catolica 1963); The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Louis J. Puhl, trans. (Westminster, MD: Newman Press 1962). I shall refer to the text by using the section numbers adopted by both of these editions.

2 I use the following editions of Descartes’ works: Œuvres de Descartes, vols. 1-12, Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, eds. (Paris: Cerf 1897-1909) to be quoted as AT; The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vols. 1-2, John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dingald Murdoch, trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1984-85) to be quoted as C.

3 Archive de Philosophie 35 (1972) 61-85

4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 17 (1979) 11-27

5 The role of the Exercises in Jesuit spirituality and practice is described in Joseph de Guibert, The Jesuits, Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, ed. George E. Ganno, trans. William Y. Young (Chicago: Loyola University Press 1964).

6 ‘Un autre moyen d’action religieuse … étaient les retraites, qui se donnaient vers le milieu de l’année scholaire, et duraient ordinairement huit jours complets. Les études étaient alors suspendue, toute communication avec les parents, même epistolaire, absolument défendue, et le temps uniquement consacré aux exercises spirituels. Ceci se pratiquait dans tousles colléges de la province de France.’ Camille de Rochemonteix, Un Collège de Jésuits aux XVlle & XVIIIe Siècles, Le College Henri IV de La Flèche (Le Mans: Leguicheux 1889), vol. 2, 140-1. The author includes a sample of the ‘fruits’ of the exercises, containing various ‘resolutions,’ which the students retained as a souvenir (215-18).

7 Thomson, 64

8 Thomson quotes the following personal communication from Professor F.C. Copleston: ‘Dans l’ensemble il me semble probable que Descartes a fait quelque retraites à La Flèche, probablement pendant la Sainte Semaine; mais je ne pourrais pas l’affirmer absolument’ (Ibid. 62, n. 7). His hesitation is probably due to the fact that the young Descartes often got excused from some strenuous duties owing to his weak health.

9 Manuale sodalitatis beatae virginis in domibus et gymnasiis societatis Jesu toto Christiano orbe institutae… (Paris: 1619). Originally published in 1608. See Thomson (61, n. 1).

10 De Rochemonteix quotes the Jesuit Constitution on this point: ‘Le but de la Compagnie étant le salut des âmes, elle n'enseigne les belles lettres que pour aider le prochain à mieux connaître Dieu, notre créateur et Seigneur, et à mieux le servir’ (Vol. 2, 103).

11 See J. Sirven, Les Années d'Apprentissage de Descartes (Albi: Imprimerie Cooperative du Sud-Ouest 1928), 9.

12 In Harry J. Frankfurt's apt phrase, ‘Descartes’ aim is to guide the reader to intellectual salvation’ (Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen [Indianapolis-New York: Bobbs-Merrill 1970) 4).

13 Indeed, Ignatius judges this exercise to be suited even for those ‘who have little natural ability’ (18).

14 Thomson, 69

15 I shall consider the following current and popular translations of the Meditations: Lawrence J. Lafleur (Indianapolis-New York: Bobbs-Merrill 1960); Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis-Cambridge: Hackett 1979).

16 AT VII 17, C II 12 (Lafleur: ‘Now, however’ [17]; Cress: ‘Therefore, now’ [13]).

17 AT VII 24, C II 16

18 Ibid.

19 AT VII 52, C II 37 (Cress: ‘lately’ [34]) 20 AT VII 62, C II 43

21 Ibid.

22 AT VII 63, C II 44 (Cress: ‘recently’ [40])

23 AT VII 65, C II 45 (Lafleur: ‘in the preceding Meditations’ [62])

24 AT II 89, C II 61

25 Concerning the early life of St. Ignatius, see James Broderick, Saint Ignatius Loyola, The Pilgrim Years, 1491-1538 (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy 1956).

26 Broderick, 112

27 Adrien Baillet, Vie de Monsieur Descartes (Paris: La Table Ronde 1946)

28 Jack Rochford Vrooman, Rene Descartes, a Biography (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1970), 55

29 Baillet, 38

30 Vrooman, 60-4

31 Vrooman, 57

32 Baillet, 38-9 (my translation)

33 Baillet, 73 (my translation). The key passage reads in original: ‘il employa l’autorité qu'il avait sur son esprit pour le porter a entreprendre ce grand voyage. Il lui en fit même une obligation de conscience.’

34 Baillet, 83. It is important to note that Cardinal Berulle was one of the principal advocates of the use of the Spiritual Exercises in France. See Thomson, 80.

35 Preliminaries, C I 2

36 Descartes, Philosophical Letters, Anthony Kenny, ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1970), 17

37 Quoted by the editors in C I 79.

38 To Mersenne, April 1634 (Kenny, 26). Descartes quotes Ovid: ‘Bene vixit bene qui latuit’ (Tristia III, IV, 25), which literally means ‘He lived. well who lived hidden.’ This fine point ties in with Descartes’ allusion to a masked appearance.

39 My thanks are due to my assistant, Miss Allison Shalinsky, for her kind and capable help in the research.