File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_2001/foucault.0111, message 53


From: Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms-AT-kabelfoon.nl>
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 10:01:06 +0100
Subject: Re: What does Foucault mean by Cartesian pole 


20-11-01 2:06:21, Yves Winter <winter-AT-lsealumni.com> schreef:

Descartes wrote a letter to a friend in Leiden (Holland), who was a physician. Described the symptoms of his disease quite extensively. It 
was clear that he knew he was poisoned and that he expected his friend to recognise the symptoms as signs of arsenic poisoning. The letter 
has been discoverd a few uears back in a mueum in Germany. It seems that D became in an instrument in a groomy politcal conflict at the 
Swedis court.


erik 


>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.
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>




   

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