Descartes is perhaps the most widely studied of all the great philosophers. Students in countless introductory courses find that their imagination is captured by the lonely quest for knowledge described in Descartes' masterpiece, the Meditations on First Philosophy. The radical critique of preconceived opinions or prejudices (praejudicia) which begins that work seems to symbolize the very essence of philosophical inquiry. And the task of finding secure foundations for human knowledge, a reliable basis for science and ethics, encapsulates, for many, what makes philosophy worth doing. The excitement felt on first encountering Cartesian philosophy does not diminish as one delves deeper. Descartes' inquiries into the nature and structure of the material universe, his views on human freedom and the existence of God, and his account of the human condition and the relationship between mind and matter, all exert a powerful intellectual pull on us even today. And even when the details of the system are forgotten, Descartes' starting point in the quest for truth, his Cogito ergo sum (“I am thinking, therefore I exist ”) remains the most celebrated philosophical dictum of all time.

THE TRUTH RULE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE CARTESIAN CIRCLE

Descartes writes in the second paragraph of the Third Meditation: “So I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true ” (AT VII 35: CSM II 24). I call this principle the truth rule. In the third paragraph, Descartes decides that it is premature to take the truth rule to be established. He writes of “very simple and straightforward”propositions in arithmetic and geometry: “the . . . reason for my . . . judgment that they were open to doubt was that it occurred to me that perhaps some God could have given me a nature such that I was deceived even in matters which seemed most evident” (AT VII 36: CSM II 25). The matters that seem most evident, in the context of paragraph two, are beliefs based on clear and distinct perception, so that these beliefs (together with any that seem less evident) are themselves open to doubt. Descartes writes: “in order to remove . . . this . . . reason for doubt, . . . I must examine whether there is a God, and, if there is, whether he can be a deceiver” (AT VII 36: CSM II25). In the Third Meditation, Descartes offers an argument for the existence of a nondeceiving God. The truth rule is finally proved in the Fourth Meditation. Descartes concludes, on the ground that God is no deceiver, that “if . . . I restrain my will so that it extends to what the intellect clearly and distinctly reveals, and no further, then it is quite impossible for me to go wrong” (AT VII 62: CSM II 43).

No one contributed more to the early development of algebra than Descartes. In particular, he was able to unify arithmetic and geometry to a significant extent, by showing their mutual connections in terms of an algebraic notation. This was an achievement that eclipsed his other scientific work, and Descartes believed that algebra could serve as a model for his other enterprises. The connection between algebra and his other scientific work was explored, via a consideration of the question of method, in Descartes' first published work, the Discourse on the Method of rightly conducting one's reason and seeking the truth in the sciences, together with the Optics, the Meteorology and the Geometry which are essays in this method (1637). What we are ostensibly presented with here is a general treatise on method, to which are appended three examples of the method.

What difference, if any, does the specific character of an individual's body make to the way that individual thinks, to his thoughts and to the sequence or association of his thoughts? What must the body be like, so that its contribution to thinking is reliable, and perhaps even useful? What nonepistemic benefits does the body bring to the mind? Although Descartes did not himself ask these questions in just these terms, answering them is central to the success of his enterprise. In any case, he provided the materials for addressing those issues, which he would have formulated as a problem about how divine epistemic benevolence - a guarantee of the possibility of demonstrative scientific knowledge - is expressed in the way that the body is structured, as it affects the mind.

Physics and its foundations were central to Descartes' thought. Although today he is probably best known for his metaphysics of mind and body, or for his epistemological program, in the seventeenth century Descartes was at very least equally well known for his mechanistic physics and the mechanist world of geometrical bodies in motion which he played a large role in making acceptable to his contemporaries. In this essay I shall outline Descartes' mechanical philosophy in its historical context. After some brief remarks on the immediate background to Descartes' program for physics, and a brief outline of the historical development of his physics, we shall discuss the foundations of Descartes' physics, including his concepts of body and motion and his views on the laws of motion.

BACKGROUND

Before we can appreciate the details of Descartes’ physics, we must appreciate something of the historical context in which it emerged and grew.

Most important to the background was, of course, the Aristotelian natural philosophy that had dominated medieval thought. Aristotelian natural philosophy had come under significant attack in what came to be known as the Renaissance.

“I resolved one day to . . . use all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths I should follow” (Discourse Part I: AT VI 10: CSM I 116). Thus Descartes introduces his account of his celebrated first solitary retreat during the winter of 1619-20. But he goes on to note that he decided to postpone actually embarking on his life's work until he had reached “a more mature age than twenty-three, as [he] then was ” (Part II: AT VI 22: CSM 1122). Toward the end of the winter of 1619-20, then, he began to travel, and this occupied “the next nine years”; only after these “nine years ” did he finally work out his philosophy, which was to be “more certain than the commonly accepted one” (Part III: AT VI 28, 30: CSM I 125-6). This period of Descartes' early life is obscured by the errors of his chief biographers, which have been repeated down the centuries. There is a marked tendency to bring forward his interest in science and the search for its foundations - an interest which in fact developed gradually and relatively late.

Descartes' concept of science can be understood only by paying careful attention to the historical context in which it was constructed. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century involved two related developments: a change in scientific practice (or, more accurately, a whole series of such changes) which is reflected in the founding of new scientific societies such as the Royal Society and the Academie royale des sciences, and a complementary change in how natural philosophers described the kind of knowledge that resulted from the new scientific practices. Descartes contributed to both developments. He shared this distinction with such eminent figures as Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, William Harvey, Robert Boyle, Christian Huygens, and Isaac Newton, all of whom were concerned both with improving our knowledge of nature and with clarifying the status of that knowledge.

It would be an obvious oversimplification to classify all the natural philosophers of the seventeenth century as, in some fundamental sense, proposing the same scientific theories. It is equally unsatisfactory to suggest that they all accepted the same theory of science or the same model of scientific knowledge.

Jauhar, a private servant of the Mughal Emperor Humayun (r. 1530–1540; 1555–1556) made these observations while describing a moment during Humayun’s flight from the Indian subcontinent. In 1540, a brilliant and able Afghan, Sher Shah, seized control of the kingdom in India established by Humayun’s father Babur in 1526, and Humayun was ousted from power. That a painter was among the few people who accompanied him into exile certainly indicates the importance of painting at his court; while information that the artist was asked to observe and record aspects of the natural world allies Mughal painting to the innovative, if more fanciful, documentary interests of such works as the Ni’matnama. However, painting as precise record of specific events, personalities, or objects is not known among the pre-Mughal Indian traditions we have discussed.

Humayun’s retreat from India was slow. In 1542, he was in the deserts of Sind (now within Pakistan) where his fifteen-year-old empress Hamida Banu Begam gave birth to a son. This child, the future Emperor Akbar, was then left with guardians and attendants while Humayun continued to the court of the Safavid Shah Tahmasp of Iran to ask help in regaining his territories. Successful, and wildly impressed by the splendor of the court he had visited, Humayun returned east with military reinforcements. He captured Kabul (presently the capital of Afghanistan) after a series of battles with his brother Kamran, who had taken advantage of Humayun’s misfortunes to proclaim his own independence and power. Humayun then used Kabul as a base for his campaign to return to India.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, painters in India were already heirs to an unbroken artistic tradition of great antiquity and extraordinary brilliance. Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious sanctuaries had long been decorated with carved and painted figures, and these were often accompanied by illustrative wall murals and ornamental designs. The libraries and treasuries of these temples usually housed religious manuscripts; often illustrated and decoratively embellished, these books preserved religious teachings for the use of devotees. As early as the fifth century, the Kama Sutra had mentioned that painting was an established and expected social accomplishment, and contemporary paintings at the Buddhist site of Ajanta are among the most sensuous and sophisticated visual images known from any source (fig. 2). Even today, both unpretentious village houses and royal palaces are decorated with paintings on ceremonial occasions, a longstanding practice, while village storytellers continue to perform in front of narrative scrolls painted in traditional style. Painting, therefore, was never an exclusive or elitist activity, nor one limited to a particular social or religious community.

The majority of the paintings from Ajanta evoke that sense of three-dimensional volume that is so distinctive of Indian sculpture. By the sixteenth century, however, the wall-paintings at such shrine sites as Lepakshi (near Vijayanagar) were instead most expressive through two-dimensional surface design (fig. 3). This was due in part to the relative decline of the sculptural tradition in India, as well as to greater specialization among artists – painters no longer felt obliged to create sculptural effects.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

Aurangzeb died in 1707, but the Mughal empire endured, at least officially, for another 150 years. It lasted until the British exiled and imprisoned the last Mughal ruler after the uprising in 1858. Shah 'Alam Bahadur Shah succeeded Aurangzeb in 1707. Continuous political turmoil prevented him, however, from entering the long-standing Mughal capital, Delhi, after his coronation. Delhi again became the imperial residence in 1712, but the empire continued to suffer seriously from financial problems, political intrigue, inadequately prepared rulers, and invasions. Moreover, Delhi experienced difficulties that reflected on the entire state. In 1739 the city was sacked by the Iranian ruler Nadir Shah and again in the 1750s by Afghans who entered India four times. In fact, as Delhi became increasingly vulnerable, it also became virtually all that was left of the Mughal empire. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, two Delhis emerged – the older Mughal city where the king still resided in Shah Jahan's fort, and British Delhi which increasingly encroached upon and transformed the older city.

As the empire weakened, the nawabs of Murshidabad, Awadh and Hyderabad established their own successor states, while Sikh, Jat, Maratha and other Hindu rulers asserted their independence, carving out numerous little kingdoms from what once had been a single empire. The architecture sponsored by the rulers and inhabitants of these new domains is heavily dependent on the Mughal style established under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, yet in each case new formal interpretations and meaning are given to older forms. The results are often highly creative expressions, reflecting these houses' political allegiance and religious affiliation.

By 1700, Rajput palaces contained gardens, courtyards, pavilions, and darbar halls in the Mughal fashion; court dress and manners often followed Mughal standards; and, in the arts, many painters used finer pigments to paint subtler perceptions of the natural world in softer colors and more experimental styles. Neither architects nor painters working for Rajput patrons adopted anything more than this superficial appearance of Mughal taste, however. Even when painting portraits – a Mughal-inspired subject – the Rajput artist showed no sustained interest in the visual specificity, or individual psychological comprehension, that was so distinctive a Mughal contribution to Indian art. Figures remained types. The regard for human portraiture so remarkable in the works of such Mughal artists as Govardhan or Hashim is found virtually nowhere in Rajput painting; compare, for example, figs. 117 and 124. This is, of course, a matter determined by the context of patronage. Some of the greatest Mughal painters were Hindus by personal faith, but the demands of the patron took precedence over the artist’s individual cultural affiliation. In fact, throughout the history of Indian painting, artists took jobs where they were available, and whether or not they were for patrons with whom they shared religious beliefs.

This difference of attitude is nowhere more obvious than in the treatment of space. A sense of spatial depth – whether or not successful by European terms – is basic to the mature phase of Mughal painting (for example fig. 111). By creating a visual equivalent for empty space, in which solid forms are carefully located, the boundaries and thus the inherent separateness of these forms is affirmed.

Whether we are dealing with imperial Mughal paintings during Jahangir’s reign, the Rajput style at Jodhpur, or pahari traditions, periods of innovation are followed by the resurgence of conservative, continually valid, pan-Indian artistic values. Two paintings from the pahari region are especially useful in defining these values. In Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra with His Small Son and Courtiers (fig. 166), the architectural setting and the arrangement of the people derive directly from Raja Balwant Singh Performing his Toilet Before Retiring (plate N), painted by Nainsukh more than half a century earlier, and the Mughal Muhammad Shah with Courtiers (plate O). The painting could not have been executed without these prototypes. Nonetheless, the dancing women and the foreground soldiers – hierarchically less important figures – are very much smaller in scale than the courtiers, and they in turn are dominated by the massive raja. As in the allegorical portraits of Jahangir which changed the direction of Mughal painting about 1615, we have been transferred back to a world of symbolism and hierarchy.

Arjuna and His Charioteer Lord Krishna Confront Karna (fig. 167) is in an even more conservative style. Like The Departure of Damayanti for Nisadha (fig. 157), this depicts an episode described in the Mahabharata. However, the earlier work placed the gods firmly on earth, inhabiting palaces and courtyards in which the patrons of the paintings would themselves have felt comfortable. The only space in the scene of Arjuna and Krishna, however, is flat on the surface; the confrontation is expressed through strong, formal surface patterns, flat shapes, and proportions based even more obviously on hierarchy rather than nature.

Shah Jahan, Jahangir's third son, emerged victorious in the power struggle that developed after Jahangir's death and assumed the Mughal throne in 1628. His thirty-year reign is dominated by an outward sense of prosperity and stability unmatched even during Akbar's rule. At the same time, almost every aspect of courtly culture became increasingly formalized. Shah Jahan was portrayed as an aloof ideal king. Official histories thus present him as a just leader and staunch upholder of orthodox Islam, but they give little insight into the emperor's personal thoughts. Yet Shah Jahan's unreserved preference for Dara Shukoh, his eldest son, an eclectic mystic thinker, suggests other aspects of this ruler's character never alluded to in court histories. The painted image of Shah Jahan parallels the literary one. The emperor is portrayed in an idealized manner – while he ages over time, his features remain flawless. His inner character is never revealed. Rather, his role as semi-divine king of the world, a play on his name, is the focus of each portrait. His face is always surrounded by a halo, as in late representations of Jahangir. In some of these illustrations the metaphoric nature of the king's semi-divine and just quality is taken so far as to show small angels above his head, often crowning him, while at his feet are the lion and the lamb of peace. Even more than light imagery, paradisical imagery now evolves from verbal to visual forms, particularly in Shah Jahan's architecture.

In the A’in-i-Akbari, Abu’l Fazl named the major painters at Akbar’s court, beginning with Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad. Third on this list, which seems to be hierarchic, is Daswanth, of whom it was written:

The Akbarnama narrative dates the death of the painter to 1584, and corroborates his insanity and suicide.

The character of Daswanth as an artist is elusive, for few of his works exist. A signed and certainly authentic page is found in the Tutinama and provides further evidence for that manuscript’s imperial origin and Akbar period date; the illustration is early and immature, however. While he must have worked on the Hamzanama as well - its dates coincide with the years of his greatest activity in the court workshops - successful attributions to his hand have yet to be made. The greatest, fully mature illustrations by Daswanth known to us are in a Razmnama (Book of Wars) manuscript begun in 1582. These are paintings that he designed, but did not fully execute.