Beckett's Philosophical Notes on Geulincx Published

Nicolas Doutey has edited a critical edition of Samuel Beckett's reading notes on the 17th-century Flemish philosopher Arnold Geulincx, published by Les solitaires intempestifs. Beckett encountered Geulincx's works in 1936 while researching for a biography of the philosopher, and later described Geulincx's philosophy as a 'fascinating Guignol World' in a 1956 letter to Mary Hutchinson. Geulincx radicalized Cartesian dualism, arguing that the mind does not produce bodily movements, a stance encapsulated in the phrase 'Where you have no power, refrain from willing,' which appears verbatim in Beckett's novel Murphy, while Geulincx is named in Molloy. Doutey emphasizes that Beckett's engagement with Geulincx does not make him a philosopher; rather, philosophical concepts are dramatized through scenes, characters, and situations. For instance, the protagonist of Act Without Words I is repeatedly thrown back on stage by a machine-like God, and his suicide attempts are thwarted by disappearing tools, leaving him immobilized under a blinding light reminiscent of Happy Days.