Heather asked:

I was looking at Jurgen Lawrenz's Pathways article Discourse on Malady, and I have a question... Are
MS and Le Mondeone in the same (as a text) or what is their association? I am researching some of
the persecutions that occurred during the early modern period of philosophy; and Descartes' burning
of Le Mondeis part of my research. I would appreciate any information you could give me. Thanks.

Heather Sokinas, a philosophy student.

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My quick answer is that they're not the same. But this needs a little explanation.

The first thing you need to understand is that my piece on Descartes is a parody. The man died ages
ago and it's not possible any more to "psychoanalyse" him. So the "MS" refers to the FICTION that an
essay by Descartes has been discovered which looks like an early version of the Discourse. But this
is just my writing, an imitation of the Discourse with some things changed, and the purpose was to
give you, readers and students of Descartes, something unusual to think about: namely that he was
very good at hiding himself from close scrutiny by others. I've come around to the view after reading
much of his autobiographical texts and testimony of others that one of his really big problems was
SUPERSTITION and I believe also that the "vision" he mentions in several of his writings and
especially the story of the demon were a terrifying nightmare he went through on that day. So the
design of the whole piece is intended to show that Descartes took up the struggle with himself to
banish both superstition and the demon by giving us a MIND/BODY duality and a totally
MECHANISTIC philosophy. In such a philosophy superstition and demons are impossible.

Now as regards Le Monde, this was Descartes' first book. It was due to be published in 1633, but
after Galileo's condemnation, Descartes (who was a catholic) took fright that the same thing might
happen to him and withdrew the book. The quotes I give from the book are genuine and show that he
had good cause for worry: for he, Descartes, could be interpreted as having INVENTED HIS OWN
GOD; after all, he practically dictates to God what laws of nature apply to any universe He might wish
to create and so on. Now the last book he published, the "Principles of Philosophy" is actually Le
Mondeall over again, but by now completely rewritten and a bit of a tragicomedy, because he was
trying the impossible of bending his own theories to make them innocuous to the theologians while
still rescuing what he could of his own thoughts (and still trying to replace Aristotle). So this last book
hasn't got the bite any more of the early one, because it has no teeth. Le Mondemeanwhile has
survived only as a fragmentary text.

In short, whatever I wrote Le Mondeis factually correct. Just be careful you don't mix it up with my
parody of the Discourse. As far as I am concerned, however, I have been trying to do what any
conscientious fiction writer might do when confronted with big holes and inexplicable facts in a
famous man's biography: plug them up with an imaginative reconstruction of what MIGHT truly have
happened and could therefore explain many a puzzling fact about the man's known biography.

As far as Le Mondeitself is concerned, you can chase up what Daniel Garber and Stephen
Gaukroger have written about it; they are two authors who deal extensively with Descartes' physics.

Jürgen Lawrenz

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