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Clerselier, Claude (1614–1684)
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- By Delphine Antoine-Mahut, École Normale Supérieure, Lyon
- Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
- Published online:
- 05 January 2016
- Print publication:
- 01 January 2015, pp 126-128
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Summary
Clerselier was a lawyer at the Parlement of Paris, paymaster general in Auvergne, and resident for the King of France in Sweden. He was the brother-in-law of Pierre Chanut, who married Clerselier's sister Marie-Marguerite and became a go-between for Descartes and Queen Christina of Sweden. He was also the brother-in-law of Jacques Rohault, one of Descartes’ followers, whom he hoped would marry one of his two daughters as a way of establishing links with his philosophical family.
Descartes and Clerselier met in Paris in 1644 and subsequently developed a close working relationship and friendship. With the Duc de Luynes, Clerselier translated the French edition of Meditations on First Philosophy (as Les méditations metaphysiques) (1647, republished in 1661). We also owe to him the revised Picot translation of the Principles of Philosophy for the fourth Paris edition of 1681, and the publication of Descartes’ correspondence in three volumes (1657, 1659, and 1667), arranged not in chronological order but by following an order of reasons that supported the reception of Cartesianism in the same period.
Generally speaking, Clerselier's choices, including his translation choices, show his strong desire to protect Descartes’ reputation after his death. Let us consider two examples of this. First, his posthumous publication of the Treatise on Man – accompanied by the Treatise on the Formation of the Fœtus (today known by the title Description of the Human Body), Louis de la Forge's Remarques, and the French translation of the preface to Florent Schuyl's Latin edition (1662) – offers a preface that highlights the real distinction of mind and body and Augustine's authority. Clerselier imports into the text of Treatise on Man (which Descartes wrote first) the metaphysical developments of the Meditations, which Clerselier considers to be first in the order of reasons and the only guarantee against an empirico-materialist interpretation of Treatise on Man. Second, Clerselier claims in the preface to the third volume of his edition of Descartes’ correspondence to have forged a letter to Gilles Personne de Roberval in which Descartes defends himself against the latter's attacks. This letter was read publicly on July 6, 1658, during a session of Louis Habert de Montmor's Académie; it comprised long excerpts from The World, which Clerselier did not edit until 1677, reestablishing the initial continuity between this work and chapter 8 of the Treatise on Man.
Meyssonnier, Lazare (1611–1673)
- from ENTRIES
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- By Delphine Antoine-Mahut, École Normale Supérieure, Lyon
- Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
-
- Book:
- The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
- Published online:
- 05 January 2016
- Print publication:
- 01 January 2015, pp 513-514
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Meyssonnier was physician to King Louis XIII and professor of surgery in Lyon. The main body of his work can be found in the Pentagonum philosophico médico and, in particular, in the republication of the Miroir de beauté et de santé corporelle by Louis Guyon de la Nauche (1625), after 1633. Following successive rewording and expansion, this work became the leading practical and theoretical medical course in French. It was published the same year as the posthumous edition of Descartes’ Treatise on Man (1664) and contains numerous references to Dioptrics, Passions of the Soul, and the letters exchanged with Descartes at the beginning of the 1640s.
Meyssonnier was introduced to Descartes by Mersenne, to whom he had sent Pentagonum on February 25, 1639. In a letter to Mersenne dated January 29, 1640, Descartes reports that he had received him in person. He also expresses reservations regarding the mix of “astrology, palmistry, and other such nonsense” that he believes punctuates the volume (AT III 15). In a brief letter to Meyssonnier of this same date and another more detailed one that was addressed to him care of Mersenne, Descartes responds to this royal physician's apparent inquiries concerning the function of the pineal gland (or conarium) and whether corporeal memories are stored there exclusively (see memory). First, he explains that the function of the pineal gland, given its unity, mobility, and unique position near the center of the brain, is to unite (but not preserve) the innumerable impressions that are received by the two eyes, two ears, and other senses before they are perceived by the soul.