RENE DESCARTES: He Thinks, Therefore He IS!
We're proud to present the FATHER of Modern Philosophy…
written by Fred Van Lente drawn by Ryan Dunlavey colored by Adam Guzowski
Script for Action Philosophers: René Descartes:
ACTION PHILOSOPHER #4: RENÉ DESCARTES!
Script by Fred Van Lente
Art by Ryan Dunlavey
ACTION PHILOSOPHERS created by Ryan Dunlavey & Fred Van Lente & © tm 2005 them. All Rights Reserved, you punk-ass bitches.
PAGE ONE
Panel 1: BLANK
CAPTION: LADIES AND GENTS! Without further adieu, we’d like to present the FATHER of MODERN PHILOSOPHY…
CAPTION ACTION PHILOSOPHER #133:
LOGO: RENÉ DESCARTES!
CREDITS: Fred Van Lente WRITES and Ryan Dunlavey DRAWS, therefore they ARE!
Panel 2: BLANK
CAPTION: René?
CAPTION: Renny-baby?
CAPTION: C’mon out and KNOCK ‘EM DEAD, son!
Panel 3: BLANK
FLOATING BALLOON: I’m over HERE.
CAPTION: Uh … then why don’t you come OUT? W-we got >heh< PAYING customers here who slapped down good money for this here PHILOSOPHY COMIC…
CAPTION: And the show must GO ON, to coin a cliché! >Heh!<
FLOATING BALLOON: It’s just… There’s a SLIGHT problem…
PAGE TWO
Panel 1: BLANK
FLOATING BALLOON: …I am here to explicate the FOUNDATIONS of my PHILOSOPHY, oui?
CAPTION: That’s why you get the BIG BUCKS, baby!
FLOATING BALLOON: W-well, central to my METHOD is HYPERBOLIC DOUBT…
FLOATING BALLOON: …a rigorous critiquing of EVERYTHING I previously held to be true! A discarding of ALL ideas that cannot be PROVEN by ironclad REASON and LOGIC!
CAPTION: OKAY…
Panel 2: BLANK
FB: So…now…as a result of my thorough CRITIQUING…
FB: …I’m not even sure I ACTUALLY EXIST!
CAPTION: Whaaaaaat? That’s CRAZY TALK!
CAPTION: For one thing, your SENSES tell you that you exist!
Panel 3: COMMON OPTICAL ILLUSION: THE TWO FACES-OR-VASE TRICK
FLOATING BALLOON: But I cannot trust my senses ALONE, for they are so easily DECEIVED!
FLOATING BALLOON: Does this picture show a VASE or a pair of FACES?
Panel 4: SLEEPING MAN DREAMS THIS PANEL – INSIDE THE THOUGHT BUBBLE are the floating balloons indicated below.
FLOATING BALLOON: How do I even know this conversation is even HAPPENING?
FLOATING BALLOON: For all I know, I could be ASLEEP and DREAMING it!
Panel 5: PEEKING OUT FROM BEHIND THE PANEL BORDERS IS A HIDEOUS DEMON.
FLOATING BALLOON: God HIMSELF could be a CRUEL DECEIVER, purposefully flooding my senses with MISINFORMATION!
DEMON: Heh, heh, heh…
Panel 6: BLANK, EXCEPT FOR A BURST OF ENERGY – that is going to form the light bulb in the next panel.
CAPTION: But … doesn’t the fact you DOUBT your own existence count for ANYTHING?
CAPTION: I mean … that MODE OF THOUGHT is real, and must therefore emanate from some ACTUAL entity?
BURST: Sacre bleu… You are RIGHT…
PAGE THREE
Panel 1: BLAZING LIGHT BULB IN MIDDLE OF PANEL THROWS OUT RAYS!
LIGHT BULB: …je PENSE, donc je SUIS!*
LIGHT BULB: COGNITO, ergo SUM!**
LIGHT BULB (BIG): I THINK, THEREFORE I AM!
CAPTION (sl): *: R.D., Discourse on Method (1637)
CAPTION (sl): **: R.D., Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
Panel2: LIGHT BULB WITH LIGHT BULB OUTLINES RADIATING OUT OF IT. Psychedelic, man.
LIGHT BULB: My soul holds this idea with such CLEAR and DISTINCT certainty that it MUST be true.
LIGHT BULB: Such CLARITY shall make an excellent CRITERION as I review the OTHER ideas in my mind to see whether or not THEY are true as well.
Panel3: DESCARTES LOOKS DOWN AT HIS OWN BODY – BUT HIS SKULL IS OPEN, AND THE GLOWING LIGHT BULB IS WITHIN IT. NO BACKGROUNDS throughout this section. Descartes wears the uniform of a soldier in the THIRTY YEARS’ WAR.
LIGHT BULB: My SENSES suggest that my SOUL/MIND is attached to some kind of BODY!
LIGHT BULB: EXTENDED substance – RES EXTENSA – from my RES COGITANS – THINKING substance!
LIGHT BULB: But my senses are UNTRUSTWORTHY INFORMANTS!
Panel 4: WINDOW IN THE BLANK – ACROSS THE STREET – PEOPLE WALKING
FLOATING BALLOON: When I look across the street and see people WALKING there, all I really KNOW are MOVING CLOTHES!
FLOATING BALLOON: How do I know that those are really PEOPLE walking and not just TEXTILE-WRAPPED AUTOMATONS?
FLOATING BALLOON: Because my mind has ADJUDGED that they are!
Panel 5: REVERSE ANGLE – ON THE SIDEWALK WE SEE THESE PEOPLE ARE, IN FACT, LIVING ROBOT MANNEQUINS SHAMBLING ALONG IN A HERKY-JERKY, MARIONETTE-LIKE FASHION.
FLOATING BALLOON: Awareness of the contents of the MIND precedes any awareness of EXTERNAL REALITY!
PAGE FOUR
Panel 1: THE THREE KINDS OF IDEAS: Represented by a CHIMERA, a LION, and GOD (with a MANE like a lion’s). A caption underneath each idea explains what it is.
FLOATING BALLOON: My internal INVENTORY of my mind’s contents reveals three distinct TYPES of ideas:
CAPTION #1: FICTITIOUS ideas, which the mind INVENTS…
CAPTION #2: …ADVENTITIOUS ideas, which the mind RECEIVES from the EXTERNAL WORLD…
CAPTION #3: …and INNATE ideas, which the mind receives INSTINCTUALLY!
Panel 2: OUTER SPACE HERO GIVES THE RASPBERRY TO DOWNCAST ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CAPTION: “Ironically, the only category I can be SURE exists is FICTION, since it presupposes the existence of my MIND (which is the only thing I have proven EXISTS)!”
SPACE HERO: HAW! Suck my ION-DRIVE WAKE, denizen of NON-FICTION!
LINCOLN (sl): Aw.
Panel 3: LIGHT BULB BOUNCES OFF BRICK WALL
LIGHT BULB: In order for ADVENTITIOUS ideas to be REAL, they have to exist independently of my own WILLPOWER!
SFX: BONK!!
LIGHT BULB: I cannot mentally make this wall DISAPPEAR, so it is POSSIBLE that it exists independently from my mind!
Panel 4: STAT PANEL 3: EXCEPT THE LIGHT BULB IS THINKING (THOUGHT BALLOON) OF THE WALL ITSELF
LIGHT BULB: If an idea was placed into my mind from OUTSIDE of me, the CAUSE must have as much REALITY as I conceive to be in the wall ITSELF!
SFX: BONK!!
LIGHT BULB: Traditionally, this is known as the PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON!
Panel 5: GLOWING GOD HOLDS REPORT CARD at which all the grades are A+ (infinity symbol)
FLOATING BALLOON: For example, I hold an idea of a GOD that is INFINITELY PERFECT…
GOD: I am AWESOME!
FLOATING BALLOON: …and, according to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, that idea could ONLY have been planted by a something that IS infinitely perfect!
FIVE
Panel 1: DR. FRANKENSTEIN LOOKS AT FRANKENSTEIN’S BRIDE ON SLAB and is disappointed it doesn’t look like the hot-looking MODEL in the picture he holds.
FLOATING BALLOON: We can also EXTRAPOLATE from this principle to assert that a cause cannot create an effect that is MORE PERFECT than itself!
FLOATING BALLOON: (Even though I can imagine the fictitious IDEA of the “perfect woman,” I cannot ACTUALIZE the perfect woman myself!)
DOC FRANK: >sigh< Back to the DRAWING BOARD…
Panel 2: GOD CREATES A LIGHT BULB BY HOLDING HIS HANDS TOGETHER AND EMITTING CRACKLING ENERGY. No background.
LIGHT BULB: It follows, then, that fallible, finite ME could only have been caused by a PERFECT, INFINITE source!
LIGHT BULB: In other words, I exist –
LIGHT BULB: -- therefore, GOD EXISTS!
Panel 3: LIGHT BULB THINKS OF A LIGHT BULB IN A THOUGHT BALLOON, WHICH THINKS OF A GOD IN A THOUGHT BALLOON!
FLOATING BALLOON: (Though it is theoretically possible I could have been created by a cause EQUAL to me…)
FLOATING BALLOON: (…THAT finite, fallible cause would have the idea of the INFINITE PERFECT as well, which must have been implanted by an infinitely perfect SOURCE!)
Panel 4: CU ON DESCARTES’S ASS: BRANDED THERE IS A SEAL OF GOD GIVING A THUMB’S UP – AROUND WHICH IS THE COPY: Approved by Inspector #1.
FLOATING BALLOON: Our INNATE IDEA of the infinitely perfect GOD is the MARK of the craftsman stamped on his WORK!
Panel 5: STAT PAGE TWO, Panel 5: But put an “X” through the Deceiver Demon!
FLOATING BALLOON: If God is PERFECT, it follows that he is not a DECEIVER!
FLOATING BALLOON: One DISSEMBLES only to protect VULNERABILITIES, which a perfect being would not HAVE!
Panel 6: STAT PAGE THREE, Panel 3: DESCARTES LOOKS DOWN ON HIMSELF
DESCARTES: And since God created my senses, memory, and other INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES, and if he is not a DECEIVER…
DESCARTES: …then my senses, on the WHOLE, can be TRUSTED!
SFX: POIT!
SIX
Panel 1: DESCARTES LOOKS UP AT THE SUN – a glowing orb in the sky.
DESCARTES: Yet this alleged “EXTERNAL WORLD” (which I have not yet proven EXISTS) evidences two very DIFFERENT sets of properties!
DESCARTES: My EYES tell me the sun is very SMALL, and the sensation of HEAT on my SKIN suggests it is very CLOSE BY!
Panel 2: THE SUN IN SPACE – WITH THE PLANETS CIRCLING AROUND IT.
FLOATING BALLOON: But my MIND knows that this is not TRUE! ASTRONOMICAL and MATHEMATICAL DATA show that the sun both VERY BIG and VERY FAR AWAY!
FLOATING BALLOON: These INHERENT factors of the sun’s being – VOLUME and DISTANCE – are its PRIMARY PROPERTIES! And deriving from those are SECONDARY properties such as COLOR and ODOR!
Panel 3: PROPORTION FRACTIONS: ON ONE, LIGHT BULB ON TOP, OVER GEOMETRICAL CIRCLE (with diameter and point drawn in) and on the other, DESCARTES’ HEAD OVER THE VIEW OF THE SUN IN THE SKY.
FLOATING BALLOON: ALL things, but especially ME, are SPLIT between these PRIMARY and SECONDARY properties!
FLOATING BALLOON: Thus the MIND and the BODY are two RADICALLY DIFFERENT ENTITIES – we humans are inherently DUALISTIC!
Panel 4: A SCENE OUT OF THE MATRIX (OR TOMMY): DESCARTES STRAPPED DOWN TO A GURNEY – God, dressed as one of the “Agents” from the Matrix, throws a switch a pumps via tubes into Descartes eyes, noses and mouth and ears from a big container marked “HOKUM”.
FLOATING BALLOON: Since my SENSES are part of my BODY and not of my MIND, I cannot be creating these stimuli MYSELF (i.e., through INVENTED ideas).
FLOATING BALLOON: God could not be feeding these secondary properties directly TO me, since we have established already that He is not a DECEIVER.
Panel 5: STAT PAGE TWO, Panel 4: But with an “X” through it.
FLOATING BALLOON: Nor could I be DREAMING these secondary properties, for MEMORY ties the events of our waking lives together. (In a dream I do NOT remember all the dreams I had before THAT one.)
FLOATING BALLOON: I REMEMBER all of my life up until this point, so I must be AWAKE!
Panel 6: CU – DESCARTES – STROKING HIS CHIN – COMING TO A GREAT REVELATION
DESCARTES: Therefore…I have no other CHOICE but to conclude…
DESCARTES: …that I receive passive perceptions of an EXTERNAL WORLD…
PAGE SEVEN
Panel 1: PULL BACK – DESCARTES THROWS HANDS OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS ONE-ROOM HUT. There’s little more than a table, a chair, and a wood-burning stove called a poêle.
DESCARTES (BIG): …because an external world ACTUALLY EXISTS!
CAPTION: Descartes hit upon his revolutionary METHODOLOGY while serving in the THIRTY YEARS WAR.
CAPTION: In November 1619 he found himself stuck in a SNOWBOUND little room in NEUBERG, Germany.
Panel 2: BORED, GLUM DESCARTES SCRATCHES 2+2=4 IN THE GROUND WITH A STICK while sitting in the chair in the little room.
CAPTION: Little WONDER his mind turned toward PHILOSOPHICAL PURSUITS.
DESCARTES (THOUGHT): Sooooo BOOOOORRRED...
DESCARTES (THOUGHT): I wonder if it’s ever possible for ALL human knowledge to attain the PRECISE ACCURACY of MATHEMATICS?
Panel 3: OVERJOYED DESCARTES KICKS OPEN DOOR TO SNOW-COVERED HUT
CAPTION: That EVENING, the young soldier had a DREAM that convinced him that GOD had indeed shown him the clearest path to TRUTH.
DESCARTES: As long as the MIND is careful to avoid the PITFALLS laid out for it by the BODY’S faulty perceptions…
DESCARTES: …ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE of all things IS attainable by HUMAN REASON!
Panel 4: DESCARTES IS SURROUNDED BY CHEERING, ADORING CROWDS AS HE MAPS OUT SOME CARTESIAN COORDINATES.
CAPTION: Descartes applied his exacting method to physics, astronomy, psychology, anatomy, and, most importantly, MATH.
DESCARTES: NATURE can be defined through NUMBERS!
CAPTION: His system of CARTESIAN COORDINATES formed the BEDROCK of ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY!
Panel 5: AT THE TRIAL OF GALILEO, DESCARTES HIDES A COPY OF A BOOK CALLED “THE WORLD” BEHIND HIS BACK WHEN AN INQUISITOR TURNS THREATENINGLY TOWARD HIM.
CAPTION: He also wrote a comprehensive treatise on PHYSICS, The World, but changed his mind about PUBLISHING it once GALILEO was put on TRIAL for supporting SIMILAR ideas.
INQUISITOR: You got a PROBLEM with that, Frenchie?
DESCARTES (sl): Who, ME? >Heh!< … Non!
PAGE EIGHT
Panel 1: BRATTY, QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN claps her hands and a courtier runs out.
CAPTION: Unfortunately for HIM, his fame reached the eccentric young queen of Sweden, CHRISTINA.
CHRISTINA: I have the best of EVERYTHING…
CHRISTINA: …so I want the best PHILOSOPHY TUTOR too! Bring the Frenchman to ME!
COURTIER: Y-yes, mum!
Panel 2: FREEZING COLD DESCARTES TRUDGES THROUGH A BLINDING BLIZZARD TOWARD THE SWEDISH PALACE
CAPTION: Christina scheduled their sessions for FIVE A.M. sharp, three days a WEEK.
DESCARTES: A-CHOO! !@#$! SWEDISH WINTERS!!
CAPTION: TWO MONTHS into his new job Descartes caught a COLD that quickly snowballed into PNEUMONIA.
Panel 3: DESCARTES DIES ON HIS DEATHBED; THE DOCTORS WHO ARE BLEEDING HIM LOOK UP TO SEE THE CLOCK ON THE WALL READS 4 O’CLOCK.
CAPTION: He struggled for a WEEK, then expired on February 11, 1650…
DESCARTES (sl): Spare the FRENCH BLOOD! >Gak!<
CAPTION: …at FOUR IN THE MORNING, perhaps to avoid another appointment with the KOOKY QUEEN!
Panel 4: PEASANTS EXCITEDLY REMOVE BODY PARTS FROM DESCARTES’ COFFIN AS IT IS TRANSPORTED BACK TO FRANCE! One peasant has his LEG.
CAPTION: Many believed that since Descartes had LOGICALLY PROVEN God’s existence, he would be a shoo-in for SAINTHOOD!
CAPTION: As his body was transported from Stockholm back to FRANCE, overeager PILGRIMS picked apart the corpse for RELICS!
PEASANT: LOOK, MA! I got the DRUMSTICK! Ayuk!
Panel 5: FRENCH PRIEST LOOKS GLUMLY INTO COFFIN (WE CAN’T SEE WHAT WAS IN THERE). Behind him looms the tower of the St. Germain cathedral.
CAPTION: One of the most REVERED figures in French history, Descartes was laid to rest at the cathedral of ST. GERMAIN DES PRES in Paris’s LATIN QUARTER…
Panel 6: REVERSE ANGLE: ALL THAT LIES IN DESCARTES’S COFFIN IS A LIGHT BULB!
CAPTION: …what was LEFT of him, anyway.
CAPTION: We END, therefore we WAS!
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