Descartes' Critics: Elisabeth of Bohemia

Who was Elisabeth?

- Pricess Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618-80), was daughter of Frederick V, Elector Palatine and sometime King of Bohemia. Her mother, Elizabeth Stuart, was sister of Charles I (executed in the civil war), and daughter of James VI of Scotland/I of English.

- She was highly educated and corresponded with a number of intellectuals of the period, not just Descartes, and Descartes too corresponded with many other people. In both cases they were members of what is sometimes called 'the Republic of Letters'.

- She read the Meditations not long after it was published in 1641 and corresponded with?Descartes from 1643 until his death in 1650. He acted as her philosophy tutor and in 1644 dedicated his book The Principles of Philosophy to her.

The Correspondence

- We are going to focus on the following:

????1. E to D, May 1643 --- Elisabeth's 1st letter

????2. D to E, May 1643 --- Descartes' 1st reply

????3. E to D, June 1643 --- elisabeth's 2nd letter

????4. D to E, June 1643 --- Descartes' 2nd reply

????5. E to D, July 1643 --- Elisabeth's 3rd letter

The First Letter

Descartes' Reply

- The soul has two properties:

????i) it's a thinking thing,?

????ii) it is united with the body on which it acts and is acted upon.

- The Meditations focused mainly on the first but said little about the second.

- He says, "I think that we have up to now confused the notion of the force by which the soul acts on the body with that by which one body acts on another".

- So, he seems to imply that there might be some other kind of causation between soul and body, different to physical causation. But what is it?

The Second Letter

Descartes' Reply

- Descartes draws a threefold distinction between

????i) soul,?

????ii) body,?

????iii) union of soul and body?

????He?says that it is difficult to comprehend the union, but it is obvious via the senses.

- So, Descartes admits that we only grasp the union of soul and body through experience, it remains obscure, and we can't get a clear and distinct idea of it.

- This is quite an admission, given that earlier he said this was one of the two core properties of the soul.

- After admitting that Elisabeth has made an important point, he adds: "feel free to ascribe matter and extension to the soul; for this means nothing else than to conceive it as united to the body". But he then adds that on further reflection it will become clear to her that "mind itself and the extension of this matter is different in kind".

The Third Letter

- Descartes' reply: There isn't one! His next letter isn't until November, a good few months later, and it's on a completely different topic.