Princess Elizabeth and Descartes: The Union of Soul and Body and the Practice of Philosophy - Essay Example

Princess Elizabeth and Descartes: The Union of Soul and Body and the Practice of PhilosophyElizabeth has a strong correspondence relationship with Descartes. The two helped built and strengthen each other especially in matters relating to soul–body union. However, Elizabeth’s only concern was whether it was still possible maintaining the close soul-body ties given the dualist commitments of Descartes (Shapiro 509). Elizabeth writes to Descartes to inquire about the how the thinking substance (human soul) determines the voluntary actions and body spirits of an individual.

As Elizabeth writes: “Tell me please how the soul of a human being (it being only a thinking substance) can determine the bodily spirits and so bring about voluntary actions. For it seems that all determination of movement is made either by the impulsion of the thing moved, or it is pushed either by that which moves it or else by the particular qualities and shape of the surface of the latter. Physical contact is required for the first two conditions, extension for the third. You entirely exclude the one from the notion that you have of the soul, and the other appears to me incompatible with an immaterial thing” (Shapiro 504).

Elizabeth seeks to know the interaction between soul and body. As she puts is, “How can something immaterial and non-extended move something material and extended?” (Shapiro 508).While responding to Elizabeth, Descartes heavy lies on the scholastic body-soul union which exists between body and real heaviness quality. Though Descartes emphasizes that soul-body interaction should never be conceived as a union between two bodies, which is an implicit suggestion Elizabeth’s opinion on the union is a misconception, she is not satisfied with Descartes’ response to her question.

In her subsequent letter, Elizabeth indicates that she is not able to comprehend and understand how the non-extended and immaterial soul moves the body. She further admits, “'it would be easier for me to concede matter and extension to the soul, than the capacity to move a body and be moved by it to an immaterial thing” (Shapiro 512).In trying to answer Elizabeth’s question, philosophers think that body-soul unity is just but an extension of interactionism theory. Interpreters alludes that Elizabeth concedes Descartes’ ideas in some of her last letter, where she admitted the body moves the soul and vice versa.

The relationship between body and soul can be philosophically conceived into two alternatives; substance dualism and reductionist materialism. Substance dualists (like Descartes) believes the soul-body union is founded on the philosophical principle of interaction. On the other hand, reductionist materialists (such as Hobbes) claim that this soul-body union based on a Cartesian dualism principles of philosophy (Shapiro 516). Work CitedLisa Shapiro. Princess Elizabeth and Descartes: The union of soul and body and the practice of philosophy, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 1999, 7:3,503-520.