Frans van Schooten's contribution to Descartes' \textit{Discours de la méthode} (Q1759318)

Frans van Schooten (1615--1660) is known, among other things, for having prepared the Latin translation with commentary of Descartes' \textit{Géométrie} (1649). The present paper undertakes to show that he was also involved in the original edition, with collateral findings about the production of the \textit{Discours de la méthode} and the three ``essais de cette méthode'': \textit{La dioptrique}, \textit{Les météores} and \textit{La géométrie}. A notebook from 1632 indicates that the 17-year old van Schooten had access to the text of the last of these, with a pagination showing that the other two essays were already written. Van Randenborgh suggests, with plausible arguments, that van Schooten had come in contact with Descartes through Jakob van Gool (Golius), since 1631 Descartes' teacher and connected professionally and privately to van Schooten's father. Similarities between drawings of string constructions of conic sections in \textit{La géométrie} and van Schooten's 1632 notebook, supported by other kinds of evidence, also makes van Randenborgh suggest that these drawings in the \textit{Géométrie} were not only cut in wood by van Schooten but also due in the original to him. From Descartes' words it is then argued that the \textit{Géométrie} cannot have been written before 1628, the moment of Descartes' return to Holland, after nine years of struggling with the material following upon his first visit there. The essays were only delivered to the printer in 1635, plausibly delayed after the Galileo trial, as was \textit{Le monde} (whose material only appeared in digested form in 1644 in \textit{Les principes de la philosophie}). The \textit{Discours de la méthode} itself is shown to have been written after the essays.