Descartes and financial dualism

A friend commented, privately, upon my comment a few days back on Descartes and Spinoza and how they made their livings.

I said that Spinoza's living as a lens grinder does have a bearing on his philosophy and briefly explained why. Lenses made possible both the infinite and the infinitesimal, through both the telescope and the microscope. The world made possible by such instruments and the sciences they enable could indeed be deified.

My friend found this unsatisfying. But ... there is no accounting for taste.

What is a tad more biting ... he noted accurately that I had offered no explanation at all of how the material circumstances of Descartes' life had any connection tohis philosophy.

Here, then, is that explanation. Descartes sold real estate, which he appears to have inherited, and to have used the proceeds to buy bonds, supporting himself thereafter as a coupon clipper.

Consider those two sorts of asset: real estate and bonds. Real estate gets that name because it is to most intuitions really real, the solid stuff. Bonds? Paper -- promises -- thoughts. Ineffable stuff. Not quite so real.

Except that in Cartesian philosophy, thoughts are in a sense more real than real estate. I could be dreaming that I am sitting (say) on a blue couch in a cozy little house on a one acre piece of land. Or it could all be part of the deceit of an evil demon. But that I think ... Ican not doubt the reality of THAT. So ... the bonds, stuff of the world of thought, were a step up into greater knowability after the sale of the realty.

Or ... maybe not.

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