إليزابيث البالاتيناتية

الأعمال

• 1643المراسلات مع ديكارت (Correspondence with Descartes)

  كيف تحرّك نفس غير مادية الجسد؟ سؤال إليزابيث يفتح مراسلة ست سنوات في العقل والأهواء والحياة الطيبة. ولم تُطبع رسائلها هي إلا عام 1879.

الموقف

In her first letter Elisabeth asks Descartes how the soul, an immaterial thinking substance, can move the body to voluntary action. Descartes answers with the notion of a primitive union of mind and body; she replies that she can more easily grant extension to the soul than the power to move a body to something immaterial. The exchange is the classic statement of the interaction problem of dualism, and her objection has never been fully answered. In later letters she turns to ethics, challenging Descartes’ Stoic advice that reason can govern the passions. Descartes’ “Passions of the Soul” (1649) grew from this correspondence; her side of it was first printed in 1879.

الحياة والسياق

Elisabeth of the Palatinate (1618–1680), eldest daughter of the “Winter King” Frederick V of Bohemia, grew up in exile at The Hague, where she studied languages, mathematics and philosophy. She met Descartes there and corresponded with him from 1643 until his death in 1650; he dedicated his “Principles of Philosophy” to her. After years of political difficulty she became abbess of the Protestant abbey of Herford in 1667.

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