[...] Only Dirck, or Theodore Rembrantsz, an astronomer and surveyor in North Holland, made his acquaintance in that time, when the most remote and obscure villages were hardly less fertile in the growth of philosophy, than the flourishing cities of commerce….
Dirck Rembrantsz was a Dutch peasant, native the village of Nierop, at the end of North Holland, facing Friesland. The exercise he made in the trade of shoemaker in the place of his birth, provided him barely with the means necessary to maintain his subsistence. But he had found ways to overcome his fortune by an exquisite knowledge of mathematics, that he could not help but to grow beyond the detriment of the work of his hands. Mr. Descartes' famous name, linked with the minor satisfaction he had received from the mathematical books he had read in the vernacular, resulted into the leave of his village for consulting [the philosopher].
His [Descartes'] fame had portrayed him as a man of the world, who was easy to access, and the idea of a secluded philosopher did not withheld him, even when the entrance of his solitude was guarded by some Switzers. But he was put off by the valets of Descartes as a bold farmer, and they only informed the master of the house, after Rembrantsz returned two or three months later, in the same outfit as the first time, and demanded to speak to Mr. Descartes, with the resolution of a man who seemed to confer with him on important business.
His appearance did not contribute to a better reception than before, and when the news was brought to Mr. Descartes, he was depicted as an importunate beggar, who in the eyes of the servants used his wish to the talk about philosophy and astrology, as an excuse to ask for charity. And to avoid going into that, Descartes sent him some money and wished him [Rembrantsz] to say that he would dispense the trouble to speak to him [any further]. Rembrantsz, whose poverty not had affected his heart, refused the generosity of our philosopher, and decided that his hour had not yet come, and he returned home this time, in the hope that a third trip would become more succesful. This reply was reported to Mr. Descartes, who regretted not have seen the peasant and who ordered his people to give him notice, when he returned.
Rembrantsz returned a few months later and this peasant, who had such a passion to meet Mr. Descartes that he already had made two trips in vain, was recognized, and he was finally satisfied in what he had sought so hard and with such perseverance.
Descartes recognized his skills and merits in this field and would pay back his [Rembrantsz'] troubles with interest. He [Descartes] was not satisfied with the teaching of all his problems, but provided him with the methodology to correct his arguments. He welcomed him yet among a number of his friends, without paying attention to the lowness of his position, but considered him among those of the first rank, and he assured him that his house and his heart was open to him at all times.
From that time on, Rembrantsz, who lived only five or six miles apart from Egmond, frequently visited Descartes, and with his school he became one of the leading astronomers of his time. He had mastered so well the knowledge of his [Descartes'] principles, that in the rest of his life he only build on these foundations.-- Adrien Baillet (1691) La vie de Monsieur Descartes, part 2, pp. 553-556, translated by Huib Zuidervaart in THE CORRESPONDENCE OF DIRCK REMBRANTSZ VAN NIEROP (1610-1682), edited by M. Rijks.
There are, I am guessing, about forty-thousand professional philosophers world-wide. I am an experienced enough historian of philosophy to assert confidently that even if our civilization continues and digital storage is perfected most of us will -- just a handful excepted -- be forgotten within a generation or two, three, even if we would deny that the Golden Age of analytical philosophy is past. As it is, only a few of us are actually read outside a small, narrow group of specialists at any given moment; a charismatic PhD supervisor may stretch this audience a bit wider. Even most of those that today have a disciplinary or wider public audience are almost certainly incapable of competing in an enduring fashion for scarce, future curricular time, or the more intimate choices of discerning future readers. It's easy to imagine that Berkeley will disappear from the curriculum once the empiricism/rationalism divide is set aside as parochial or, to hit closer to home, that Davidson will be a mere footnote to Quine and Whitehead, while Mandeville, De Grouchy, and Swift will be rediscovered time and again by readers trying to make sense of living in a (let's stipulate, Chinese-speaking) corrupt, commercial civilization (recall this review).
If we reflect on our situation, I suspect most of us console ourselves with the idea that through our teaching we touch the minds of the young and, in so doing, help give their lives, which will radiate in all kinds of unexpected directions, some shape. I know that some of my peers are convinced that they are part of a progressive (even scientific) enterprise within the intellectual division labor in which their contributions allow future generations to progress even closer to the truth; even if they remain anonymous to future generations they will have participated in a great trans-historical project. Such delusions are harmless. Some of us contribute more concretely by offering philosophical reflections that might help our communities navigate what may seem urgent and confused matters. I am not denying, of course, that even the most distinguished (reflexive and privileged, etc.) of our philosophical peers is undoubtedly mostly just enjoying her intellectual activity immersed in the problems and puzzles that animate her thought drawing a generous salary that secures her from the more common anxieties consequent hunger and lack of shelter.
Even so, sometimes the unremarkable play a walk-on role in history, and this is not dispiriting. Let me explain.
They couldn't spare to name a street after Rembrandtsz Van Nierop in his hometown, Nieuwe Niedorp, West Friesland, despite being the author of the relatively successful De Nieropper Almanacs (recall my posts, here and here, on the significance of the genre in the Dutch painter Collier). Yet, Rembrandtsz Van Nierop's life-work played a non-trivial role in a world-historical episode in the history of science and philosophy. For, as George Smith and I have recounted, Christiaan Huygens relied, in the decisive step in his empirical argument, on a map (see also here) drawn by Van Nierop (see p. 20 in Rijks) in order to deny the universal reach of Isaac Newton's inverse-square law (which Huygens limited to planetary motions) and, thereby, vindicating the sober, rational mechanical philosophy against the muddled, hocus pocus emanating from the mystical magus of England.
So, in conclusion, I characterize the walk-on philosophers: they can be heroes without dazzlement (recall). Unlike our modern Chauncey Gardiners, Zelig or Forrest Gump, who just happen to be present for great occassions, the walk-on philosopher lives up to her everyday responsibility that come with her overlapping, social and professional roles (as instructor and mentor to the public, etc.). A walk-on philosopher does not seek the limelight, but develops his skills, so that he can merit acknowledgment of his discerning peers. Of course, by joyfully excelling at her craft she may well walk -- accompanied with fortune -- memorably into the annals of history.
We now know that Huygens was misled by limited data.
*Baillet goes out of his way to tell his reader that after completing a near-final draft of his book, he is including the story of D. Rembrandtz Van Nierop on the urging of some of his Dutch informants. By the end of the 17th century, the Netherlands were sliding back into olicharchy, but the egalitarian ethos (so visible in Mandeville) was not extinguished yet.
**It's an open question, of course, if the Copernicanism of the Dutch Astronomy is an update of Descartes or merely the explicit acknowledgment of the obvious.
First, in general, yes.
But second, your post can't help but remind me of this:
"This also must be confessed, that the most durable, as well as justest fame, has been acquired by the easy philosophy, and that abstract reasoners seem hitherto to have enjoyed only a momentary reputation, from the caprice or ignorance of their own age, but have not been able to support their renown with more equitable posterity. ... The fame of Cicero flourishes at present; but that of Aristotle is utterly decayed. La Bruyere passes the seas, and still maintains his reputation: But the glory of Malebranche is confined to his own nation, and to his own age. And Addison, perhaps, will be read with pleasure, when Locke shall be entirely forgotten." (Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section I, as if you need reminding.) Which just goes to show that guessing which 20th c philosophers will be footnotes to which other 20th c philosophers is a mug's game.
Posted by: Michael Kremer | 09/09/2014 at 03:17 PM
Michael, thank you, even so can I ask you to re-read this little digression:
http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2014/07/on-immortality-and-fleeting-impressions.html
Posted by: Eric Schliesser | 09/09/2014 at 03:20 PM
On September 1st 1542, the Leipzig humanist and professor of Latin and Greek Joachim Camerarius received a goblet worth 16 guilders from his grateful colleagues in the faculty of arts for his engagement in administering the university. Camerarius is certainly no central figure in the history of philosophy (though maybe to some extent in the history of classics). He was honored for what we call today the "service to the profession". I think at times that this is misleading, because our real service is to the discipline and its tradition. I personally try to honor this obligation of 'carrying on' by trying to do justice to some of those bygone colleagues which rarely appear in standard accounts of the history of philosophy - not because I am convinced that what they have to say is urgently to be heard in this time, but because I suspect that their collective work has contributed to who and what we are today as philosophers. This is at the same time a humbling and a gratifying experience - humbling because doing philosophy in the Germany of the Thirty Years War was certainly more difficult than today, and gratifying because in the context of their own time, some of them were diligent and sharp minds furthering the advancement of knowledge in much the same way we still try to do that today. So one - though, of course, not the only - way of shaping a healthy professional attitude is to serve as Baillet to the Rembrandtsz Van Nierops of history. Today's colleagues trying "to progress even closer to the truth" will have to console themselves with the hope that future generations will not lose their antiquarian curiosity or that they will survive in the acts of the university as having received a goblet for their service.
The source for the Camerarius anecdote:
Posted by: Stefan Heßbrüggen | 09/09/2014 at 07:39 PM
Link was eaten in the last comment - if you can insert it, please do, else here it is: http://books.google.ru/books?id=CeU-k_n-A2cC&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Posted by: Stefan Heßbrüggen | 09/09/2014 at 07:40 PM
Stefan, thank you. I very much agree with your statement that "real service is to the discipline and its tradition. I personally try to honor this obligation of 'carrying on' by trying to do justice to some of those bygone colleagues which rarely appear in standard accounts of the history of philosophy - not because I am convinced that what they have to say is urgently to be heard in this time, but because I suspect that their collective work has contributed to who and what we are today as philosophers. This is at the same time a humbling and a gratifying experience - humbling because doing philosophy in the Germany of the Thirty Years War was certainly more difficult than today, and gratifying because in the context of their own time, some of them were diligent and sharp minds furthering the advancement of knowledge in much the same way we still try to do that today. So one - though, of course, not the only - way of shaping a healthy professional attitude is to serve as Baillet to the Rembrandtsz Van Nierops of history." (I would just use the plural 'traditions.') I have reflected a bit about this 'carrying on' here and at NewAPPS.
Posted by: Eric Schliesser | 09/09/2014 at 09:46 PM
Just to clarify: in a very rough approximation, I use the singular in order to refer to philosophy as what you could call a 'social fact' shaped by institutions and externalities, i. e. as a single identifiable strand of our (read: Western) culture (all this should be read with Rortyan undertones). This single tradition is shared by all people belonging to different traditions in the plural when meeting in a search committee. This seemingly puts me at odds with attempts to broaden this context to include 'reflexive traditions' that do not belong to this 'zapadnocentric' mainstream. But I hope that it is possible to use 'philosophy' as a purely descriptive, social category devoid of any elevated or, to use Rorty's term, 'redemptive' connotations, so that folks could do things 'we' do doing philosophy without doing 'philosophy'.Spelling this out in detail will have to wait until I have tenure.
'Zapadnocentric' derives from the Russian word for 'West' - a neologism I find quite handy at times…
Posted by: Stefan Heßbrüggen | 09/09/2014 at 10:44 PM
I don't know why you think it's a delusion that I am a very small part of a world historical progressive project. All of those who have contributed to freedom from domination, to liberating knowledge, to the irrelevance of arbitrary characteristics, to an understanding of some aspect of the universe, and so on, are doing their part. If they think they are playing a role in the progress of humanity, they are not deluded.
Posted by: Sam Rickless | 09/10/2014 at 08:17 AM
Most of the things you mention are noble, Sam, but few are a consequence of scientific conception of philosophy. Having said that, all of these projects are fragile achievements and should be celebrated even if the "progress of humanity" seems rather shallow in the Summer of 2014.
Posted by: Eric Schliesser | 09/10/2014 at 08:23 AM