Whitehead on Plato's Cosmology

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 67 Viro Nobilissimo ac celeberrimo D. D. Renato des Cartes Salutem a Domino Nobilissime Vir, Litterae tuae ad Senatum Academiae nostrae exaratae XIII. Cal. Mart. Egmondae , lectae sunt in Curia VII. Cal. April. tma cure Apographo literarum tum tuarum ad Illustrissimum Dominum legatum, turn ipsius exceUentissimi D. legati ad illustres hujus Provinciae ordines. Rebus autem omnibus, sessionibus aliquot bene expensis sententia est lata, cujus ut et testimonii in ea memorati gemini apographo his inclusum vides, acquiesces uti speramus, et amplissimi senatus Academici curare ac fidem ultro agnosces. Quod superest Deum Opt. Max. supplices rogamus, ut laboribus et studiis nostris utrimque clementer benedicat. Groeningae XVI. Cal. May 1645. Nobil. D. Addictissimus Matthias Pasor Philosophiae professor et p. t. Academih a secretis. Iussu senatus Nous ne croyons pas trop nous hasarder en pr6sumant que la lettre latine de Descartes ~t Matthias Pasor, du 26 mai 1645, mentiorm6e par J. Orcibal et G. Milhaud, est la r6ponse ~ la lettre officielle ci-dessus, qui accompagnait les Acta du S6nat de l'universit6 de Groningue et 6tait sign6e de son secrdtaire Pasor. Notons que ce m~me 26 mai 1645, nous dit A. Baillet, Descartes "r&rivit au sieur Tobie d'Andr6 pour le remercier en son particulier de ses bons offices et pour le prier de presenter en son nom ses tr6s-humbles actions de graces aux juges." 10 PAUL DmON Villiers-sur-Morin, France WHITEHEAD ON PLATO'S COSMOLOGY In the Fall of 1934 Professor Alfred North Whitehead offered a course at Harvard called Cosmologies Ancient and Modern, a title suggested in the second paragraph of Part II of his book, Adventures o[ Ideas. When he began these lectures Whitehead was 73 years old. He had been rather seriously ill the previous Spring and did not come to class until the third week of the term, the opening lectures of the course having been given by his assistant, Dr. Kaiser. When he finally appeared in the lecture room in Emerson Hall, Whitehead seemed frail, even a little older than his years. His high collar of clerical style (that year he favored a cravat of rich blue) and his gentle way of speaking conveyed the air of a benevolent vicar. Despite 10 A. Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Descartes, Paris 1691, t. II, p. 256. 68 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY his recent illness and delayed start, Whitehead taught the course with confidence and good humor; so far as I recall, he did not miss a class after taking over the desk where William James and Santayana had sat as his predecessors. There were about 40 Or 50 Harvard men in Philosophy 12b, most of them graduate students. On Saturday mornings, three or four Radcliffe girls might come to visit. Whitehead disapproved of this practice, not, I suppose, for anti-feminist reasons, but because the girls were not duly registered members of the course. I took down Whitehead's lectures verbatim in a kind of amateur speed-writing I had developed in my first year of graduate study. It was not unsuited to the old metaphysician's leisurely pace. His classroom delivery was quite unlike that of those formal lectures from which he constructed his well-known philosophical books. Whitehead dispensed his wisdom to us in the form of intelligent and amiable chats. He talked slowly, pausing occasionally to gaze out the window. A diagram on the board would take up a little time---("I do not understand why they should devise chalk the lecturer cannot see!"). There were moments too for stories like that of the tipsy Cambridge don trying to unlock his door with a matchbox, muttering "Damn the nature of things!" To his summaries of particular philosophical doctrines, Whitehead would append "That's Epicurus!" or "That's Hume!" or, in the case of Russell, "That's Bertie!" I have omitted from my transcription of his commentary on Plato a number of passionate little interjections like "Readthe Symposium!" or "For God's sake, be clear-headedI'" Philosophical writings recommended by Whitehead as relevant to his course included Plato's Timaeus, especially 28-63, and A. E. Taylor's commentary on that work; Lucretius's De Rerum Natura, and Cyril Bailey's Greek Atomists...