In the 1640’s Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes engaged in a philosophically rich correspondence. The most well-known aspect of the correspondence begins with a question Elisabeth asks Descartes about his account of the interaction between soul and body. This objection, often called the ‘problem of interaction’, has received much attention in contemporary scholarship and this attention frequently focuses on the exchange between Elisabeth and Descartes. Following the lead of Descartes himself, the majority of scholars treat (...) the problem of interaction as the core, or even the entirety, of Elisabeth’s objections to Descartes from this stage in the correspondence. In this paper I argue that the driving force of Elisabeth’s objections to Descartes’ account is not the problem of interaction. Rather, Elisabeth’s objections to Descartes fundamentally concern Descartes’ account of the nature of the soul. While Elisabeth clearly offers the problem of interaction, it is only one of several worries each of which is designed to show that Descartes’ account of the soul is insufficient. I argue that Elisabeth raises three distinct problems to Descartes’ account of the nature of the soul: the causal interface problem, the vapors problem and the principal attribute problem. (shrink)

O que esta resenha busca é a apresentação e análise do artigo Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia as a Cartesian – publicado como o décimo sétimo capítulo do livro The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism –, da comentadora Lisa Shapiro, também tradutora das correspondências entre Descartes e Elisabeth para a língua inglesa e grande pesquisadora do tema.

This article examines Elisabeth of Bohemia's account of the emotions. I argue that Elisabeth's objections against Descartes' ethics, which is often characterized as ‘Neo-Stoic’, show striking similarities to the arguments that the ancient Peripatetics made against classical Stoic approaches. Like the Peripatetics, she challenges the feasibility as well as the desirability of Descartes' ethical injunctions regarding emotional control. In particular, Elisabeth joins the Peripatetics in holding that certain external goods are essential for happiness and that the (...) emotions are necessary for motivating, guiding and correcting action. In aligning Elisabeth's thinking about the emotions with the Aristotelian tradition, I depart from various other interpretations, especially from those who see her position as a precursor of later feminist accounts, or as embodying a distinctively female perspective. (shrink)

Elisabeth was the first of Descartes' interlocutors to press concerns about mind-body union and interaction, and the only one to receive a detailed reply, unsatisfactory though she found it. Descartes took her tentative proposal `to concede matter and extension to the soul' for a confused version of his own view: `that is nothing but to conceive it united to the body. Contemporary commentators take Elisabeth for a materialist or at least a critic of dualism. I read her instead (...) as a dualist of a different variety from Descartes: a forerunner of twenty-first century naturalistic dualism which calls for empirical investigation of the psychological and its posits to be taken just as seriously as physics and its posits. -/- I argue that Elisabeth, a keen scholar of mechanistic physics, objected not to substance dualism per se but to the residual Scholasticism of Descartes' account of mind-body causality and his dogmatism about principal attributes. She queried Descartes' categorisation of the `action' of thought as mind's principal attribute, and his identification of it with the merely negative property of immateriality, holding instead that further philosophical and empirical investigation into the nature of the mind is necessary. I problematise the materialist interpretation of Elisabeth with reference to later letters where she dismissed the materialist Objections of Hobbes and Gassendi and continued to urge further clarifications to Cartesian dualism. I explore Elisabeth's contrasting of statements of mechanistic physics with statements about thought, and her call for further investigation into the properties of the mind, and argue they mark her out as a forerunner of contemporary naturalistic dualism which proposes substance dualism as a best interpretation of recent psychology and of the difference in logical form between current physics and current psychology. (shrink)

This book showcases Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine, one of the foremost female minds of the 17th century. Best known today for her important correspondence with the philosopher René Descartes, Elisabeth was famous in her own time for her learning, philosophical acumen, and mathematical brilliance. She was also well-connected in the seventeenth-century intellectual circles. Elisabeth’s status as a woman philosopher is emblematic of both the possibilities and limitations of women's participation in the republic of letters and (...) of their subsequent fate in history. Few sources containing her own views survive, and until recently there has been no work on Elisabeth as a thinker in her own right. This volume brings together an international team of scholars to discuss her work from a cross-disciplinary perspective on the occasion of her fourth centenary. It is the first collection of essays to examine a range of her interests and to discuss them in relation to her historical context. The studies presented here discuss her educational background, her friendships and contacts, her interest in politics, religion, and astronomy, as well as her views on politics, her moral philosophy and her engagement with Cartesianism. The volume will appeal to historians of philosophy, historians of political thought, philosophers, feminists and seventeenth-century historians. (shrink)

This study provides a comprehensive intellectual biography of Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. The author highlights Elisabeth’s place in the Western intellectual tradition and contextualizes her contributions within the social and cultural landscape of seventeenth-century Europe.

This chapter is a re-consideration of the powerful set of objections to the Cartesian theory of mind that Princess Elisabeth offered in her 1643–49 correspondence with Descartes. Much of the scholarly discussion of this correspondence has focused on Elisabeth’s initial criticisms of Descartes’ views of mind–body interaction and union, and has presented these criticisms as assuming the general principle that objects with heterogeneous natures cannot interact. However, this account of the criticisms fails to capture not only their basic (...) import, but also their connections to Elisabeth’s remarks later in the correspondence regarding both the ability of rational deliberation to lead us to happiness, and the freedom of our will from determining conditions. The attempt here is to offer a new account of Elisabeth’s objections to Cartesian interaction that serves to relate them to her critical evaluation of Descartes’ views of happiness and freedom. Such an account leads us to see Elisabeth as challenging Descartes throughout to take seriously the extent to which our mind is not merely a rational thinking thing, but also something that is profoundly conditioned by the passions that it receives from the body. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to highlight an aspect of Elisabeth’s intellectual life that has received little scholarly attention so far, namely Elisabeth’s involvement with the sciences of her day. Firstly, this paper provides a survey of Elisabeth’s interest in and engagement with various scientific disciplines, such as mathematics, medicine, natural philosophy, and microscopy, drawing on her letter exchange with Descartes and several other intellectuals as well as additional documents, such as dedications of scientific works to (...) Elisabeth. Secondly, this paper investigates Elisabeth’s involvement with one particular scientific discipline, namely astronomy. Analyzing Elisabeth’s letter exchange with Andreas Colvius and Constantijn Huygens and additional letters and testimonies, I show that Elisabeth played an active part in at least three current debates in astronomy, namely concerning the discoveries of the satellites of Jupiter, the emerging maps of the moon, and the invention of the new telescopes. Based on the evidence provided in this paper, it is argued that Elisabeth’s intellectual biography should be broadened. It is not sufficient to perceive her only as a critic of Descartes’ philosophy, as this characterization does not accommodate her scientific commitments, but rather as a multitalented intellectual. (shrink)

Between the years 1643 and 1649, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes exchanged fifty-eight letters—thirty-two from Descartes and twenty-six from Elisabeth. Their correspondence contains the only known extant philosophical writings by Elisabeth, revealing her mastery of metaphysics, analytic geometry, and moral philosophy, as well as her keen interest in natural philosophy. The letters are essential reading for anyone interested in Descartes’s philosophy, in particular his account of the human being as a union of mind and (...) body, as well as his ethics. They also provide a unique insight into the character of their authors and the way ideas develop through intellectual collaboration. Philosophers have long been familiar with Descartes’s side of the correspondence. Now Elisabeth’s letters—never before available in translation in their entirety—emerge this volume, adding much-needed context and depth both to Descartes’s ideas and the legacy of the princess. Lisa Shapiro’s annotated edition—which also includes Elisabeth’s correspondence with the Quakers William Penn and Robert Barclay—will be heralded by students of philosophy, feminist theorists, and historians of the early modern period. (shrink)

Between the years 1643 and 1649, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes exchanged fifty-eight letters—thirty-two from Descartes and twenty-six from Elisabeth. Their correspondence contains the only known extant philosophical writings by Elisabeth, revealing her mastery of metaphysics, analytic geometry, and moral philosophy, as well as her keen interest in natural philosophy. The letters are essential reading for anyone interested in Descartes’s philosophy, in particular his account of the human being as a union of mind and (...) body, as well as his ethics. They also provide a unique insight into the character of their authors and the way ideas develop through intellectual collaboration. Philosophers have long been familiar with Descartes’s side of the correspondence. Now Elisabeth’s letters—never before available in translation in their entirety—emerge this volume, adding much-needed context and depth both to Descartes’s ideas and the legacy of the princess. Lisa Shapiro’s annotated edition—which also includes Elisabeth’s correspondence with the Quakers William Penn and Robert Barclay—will be heralded by students of philosophy, feminist theorists, and historians of the early modern period. (shrink)

Sabrina Ebbersmeyer and Sarah Hutton have assembled a rich collection of essays on Elisabeth of Bohemia that were initially presented at a 2018 conference at the Center for the History of Women Phi...

This paper examines Elisabeth of Bohemia’s critique of Descartes’ internalist conception of happiness. According to this conception, we can all become happy because we can all make full use of our rational faculties and constantly follow our best judgments. Happiness is nothing but an “internal satisfaction” that arises when we act in accordance with these judgments. Elisabeth challenges this conception by pointing out that it is far too optimistic and that it neglects what is external to our (...) own mind. Quite often, we cannot make full use of our rational faculties because we are in the grip of passions and diseases or because we are under time pressure and can neither make the best decisions nor foresee their consequences. The paper focuses on these two objections, arguing that Elisabeth replaces Descartes’ internalist conception of happiness with a more complex conception that takes both internal and external factors into account. On her view, not only the right use of our rational faculties but also the right conditions for using them are required for obtaining happiness. In defending this view, Elisabeth presents an alternative to Descartes’ position and should therefore be seen as an original thinker engaging in a philosophical debate. (shrink)

In this work I intend to explore the textual and conceptual roots of the moral view in the Early Modern Rationalism of Cartesian spectrum as detected by Elisabeth of Bohemia. To this intent, I will drive my analysis, first, to the remark Descartes adds to his own provisional morality of the Discourse in the Letter of August 4th, 1645 to Elisabeth. Second, I will approach the two aspects of her reply to Descartes, both in her Letter of (...) September 13th 1645, which I call a) the contextual aspect – with which she excludes the hypotheses of an infinite science at the service of assessing the good and b) the self-related aspect, with which the philosopher of Bohemia address the moral objectiveness as an intrinsic practical value, obtained by the passions that may lead to reasonable actions. The upshot is a practical and affective moral view, in which the normative trait of some passions of the soul can be taken as the explanation of an intentional infrastructure of the mind, without, however, a theory of ideas as such playing an explicit role. Instead of a representational endeavor, Elisabeth of Bohemia claims a kind of self-awareness from the discovery of a passionate function as an expression of the adequate measure between happiness and morality of actions. That kind of awareness, I shall demonstrate, is what objectiveness consists in. (shrink)

This article provides a first inventory of the extant correspondence of Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine and later Abbess of Herford. Elisabeth, one of the most famous women philosophers of the seventeenth century, is best known today for her comprehensive exchange of letters with the French philosopher René Descartes. Additionally, her relation to the Quakers, especially to Robert Barclay and William Penn, has received some scholarly attention.1 Less known is the fact that, throughout her lifetime, Elisabeth (...) corresponded with family members, scientists, philosophers, politicians, and learned men and women from various European countries.2 The range and content of her extant... (shrink)

In the history of European ideas, Princess Elisabeth is conventionally viewed as little more than a curiosity, a clever but ultimately unimportant exiled princess who became the confidant, critic, and muse of a far more famous man, René Descartes. Contrary to this view, however, this article argues that Elisabeth made a significant contribution to the development of western philosophy in her own right. Drawing on her letters to Descartes, as well the diaries and correspondence of her associates and (...) a range of secondary sources, it demonstrates that an early understanding of the modern emotions akin to that which later found form in the work of the moral sentiment theorists can be found in Elisabeth’s thought. In particular, drawing on her understanding of the embodied mind, Elisabeth of Bohemia began to develop a hybrid understanding of the passions, identified a role for the emotions in the pursuit of virtue, and began to reconceive the relationship between reason and the emotions that had until then dominated seventeenth-century thought. (shrink)

Descartes’s correspondence with Elisabeth is among the most important we have for understanding the philosophical thought of a canonical figure. Elisabeth’s perspicacious queries drew forth Descartes’s very famous elaboration of mind/body union. The correspondence also contains the bulk of Descartes’s important statements on morality—a topic touched on only briefly in his books. It seems likely that this part of the correspondence helped set Descartes on the course that resulted in his last book, The Passions of the Soul. Moreover, (...) Elisabeth’s letters to Descartes are her only extant philosophical writings. In Lisa Shapiro’s volume we have, for the first time, translations of the thirty-three letters of Descartes and the twenty-six of Elisabeth complete and unabridged. This is, therefore, a very welcome addition to existing English editions of Descartes’s works and an important resource for studying early modern philosophy written by women. (shrink)

: This paper focuses on Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia's philosophical views as exhibited in her early correspondence with René Descartes. Elisabeth's criticisms of Descartes's interactionism as well as her solution to the problem of mind-body interaction are examined in detail. The aim here is to develop a richer picture of Elisabeth as a philosophical thinker and to dispel the myth that she is simply a Cartesian muse.

In May 1643 Elisabeth of Bohemia addressed a question to Descartes which inaugurated a six-year Correspondence, until his death. He dedicates his mature metaphysical work to the Princess (Principles of First Philosophy, 1644) and writes Passions of the Soul (1649) as one of the results of the dialogue with the philosopher of Bohemia. The silencing of the last hundred years of historiography on Elisabeth of Bohemia's legacy in this epistolary exchange caused distortions and, in some (...) cases, underpinned the bias as a rule and as the history. One of the consequences of this distortion is the interpretation according to which her first question would consist of a critique of substantial dualism. In this study I suggest an interpretation of the nature of the first question, in order to clarify the philosopher's thinking and her role in dialogue, in a comprehensive way, without subscribing to the literary paradigm of the Cartesian soliloquy, and its bias. (shrink)

By pushing Descartes to more clearly explain the union of body and soul beyond the functioning of a ‘strong’ passion, namely sadness, Elisabeth wants Descartes to review his idea of the passions, and his understanding of the ‘theory of the four humors’. This chapter aims at showing that Descartes turns away from Galen’s theory of the humors, which he globally adopts in the 1633 Treatise of Man. With the shift in his conceptualization of the humors between this Treatise and (...) the Treatise of the Passions (1649), Descartes analyzed more specifically the inner feelings, consciousness, and the passions, by considering that a man is not simply a body, but a psychophysical being, with a body and a soul. (shrink)

In this rich and detailed study of early modern women's thought, Jacqueline Broad explores the complexity of women's responses to Cartesian philosophy and its intellectual legacy in England and Europe. She examines the work of thinkers such as Mary Astell, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway and Damaris Masham, who were active participants in the intellectual life of their time and were also the respected colleagues of philosophers such as Descartes, Leibniz and Locke. She also illuminates the (...) continuities between early modern women's thought and the anti-dualism of more recent feminist thinkers. The result is a more gender-balanced account of early modern thought than has hitherto been available. Broad's clear and accessible exploration of this still-unfamiliar area will have a strong appeal to both students and scholars in the history of philosophy, women's studies and the history of ideas. (shrink)

While most scholars who have discussed the letters of Elisabeth and Descartes exchanged in 1646 on the subject of the Prince focused on Descartes, whether he was Machiavellian or not, I shall deal here more in depth with the position of Elisabeth. I shall address then four main points: the so-called “methodological” question raised by Descartes about the Prince and quickly dismissed by Elisabeth; the issue of political realism, that is one of the great themes of Machiavelli’s (...) thought; the problem of the “good man,” namely whether and how the natural law can bind in a “wicked” world; Elisabeth’s focus on the passions against Descartes’s political and providential mereology. Finally, I shall try to draw some more general conclusions as regards the place of Elisabeth in the broader context of seventeenth century political philosophy, especially in regard to Hobbes. (shrink)

'Those most capable of being moved by passion are those capable of tasting the most sweetness in this life.'Descartes is most often thought of as introducing a total separation of mind and body. But he also acknowledged the intimate union between them, and in his later writings he concentrated on understanding this aspect of human nature. The Passions of the Soul is his greatest contribution to this debate. It contains a profound discussion of the workings of the emotions and of (...) their place in human life - a subject that increasingly engages the interest of philosophers and intellectual and cultural historians. It also sets out a view of ethics that has been seen as a radical reorientation of moral philosophy.This volume also includes both sides of the correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, one of Descartes's keenest disciples and shrewdest critics, which played a crucial role in the genesis of The Passions, as well as the first part of The Principles of Philosophy, which sets out the key positions of Descartes's philosophical system.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Princess Elisabeth and Anne Conway were contemporaries whose lives present many striking parallels. From their early interest in Descartes’ philosophy to their encounter with Van Helmont and the Quakers in their maturity, both were brought into contact with the same sets of ideas and forms of spirituality at similar points in their lives. Despite their common interest in philosophy, and their many mutual acquaintances, it is difficult to ascertain what either knew about the other, and whether either knew anything (...) about the other’s philosophy. This paper reviews the evidence for connections between them and their knowledge of one another. After outlining the parallels in their personal circumstances and the sources for their knowledge of each other, I discuss key intermediaries: Henry More, the Hartlib Circle, Francis Mercury van Helmont and the Quaker leaders Robert Barclay and George Keith. Although they were certainly aware of one another, the answer to the question of whether there was any philosophical inter-change between them remains especially elusive. (shrink)

The “problem of voluntary actions”, traditionally known asthe “problem of substantial union”, is one of the most controversialissues in the Cartesian doctrine. It is about seeking to understand howthe soul, being just an immaterial substance, whose nature consists onlyin thinking, could determine the animal spirits to carry out voluntary actions.The modus operandi, from which Descartes intended to explain howthe thinking substance would determine the movements of the pinealgland, is what greatly botheredElisabeth of Bohemia. In this article, we will present (...) the central aspectsof Descartes’ responses to the problem raised by the princess, especiallywhen trying to show that he is insoluble, because, according to the philosopher,it is a poorly formulated question. Thus, in his correspondencewith Elisabeth, the role of the philosopher is limited to identifying and clarifying mistakes, which certainly did not satisfy Elisabeth’s philosophicalgenius. (shrink)

This paper explores Elisabeth’s remark that ruling and studying each demands an entire person, with the aim of understanding why she might think ruling and intellectual pursuits like philosophy are incompatible with one another. While Elisabeth identifies several barriers to philosophizing, she does not suggest that time constraints are an impediment to both philosophizing and ruling. Situating Elisabeth with respect to Plato, Machiavelli, and Aristotle suggests that she holds there are many similarities between governing and philosophizing. The (...) methodology and skill set of a ruler and a philosopher are very similar; both need to organize their thoughts, consider an array of possible alternatives, gather background information, and be decisive; both take virtue, truth, and justice as their ends, and they are driven by a central concern for something other than themselves. Though both can be moved to high emotions by external forces, they can cultivate the self-awareness that can serve in modulating those emotions in a variety of ways. However, a difference lies in the ways in which the objects of their decisions are constrained in time. This difference in turn disposes each to different emotions. Insofar as their lives are tightly integrated, a ruler and a philosopher would have different affective profiles and organize their lives around different principles. In virtue of these differences, a ruler and a philosopher would indeed need to be two entire persons. (shrink)

Desde o ano de 1643, Descartes (1596-1650) e a princesa Elizabeth (1618-1680) já trocavam cartas a respeito da geometria, da metafísica e até da física cartesiana. Todavia, no ano de 1645, por conta de um grave estado melancólico da princesa, houve uma intensa correspondência entre ambos. À princípio, o debate se mantinha em torno das condições especificas da princesa. O tema central girava em torno de questões fisiológicas e morais (ou psicofisiológicas). À medida, porém, em que a troca de correspondência (...) se intensificava, o debate ia tornando-se cada vez mais teórico, passando pela discussão da Vida Beata, de Sêneca, até forçar Descartes a apresentar os primeiros esboços de sua própria concepção moral. Dessa troca de correspondência, escolhemos duas cartas de setembro de 1645: uma do filósofo a Elizabeth (carta CDIII) e outra da princesa a Descartes carta (CDVI). (shrink)

Women philosophers of the past, because they tended not to engage with each other much, are often perceived as isolated from ongoing philosophical dialogues. This has led—directly and indirectly—to their exclusion from courses in the history of philosophy. This article explores three ways in which we could solve this problem. The first is to create a course in early modern philosophy that focuses solely or mostly on female philosophers, using conceptual and thematic ties such as a concern for education and (...) a focus on ethics and politics. The second is to introduce women authors as dialoguing with the usual canonical suspects: Cavendish with Hobbes, Elisabeth of Bohemia with Descartes, Masham and Astell with Locke, Conway with Leibniz, and so on. The article argues that both methods have significant shortcomings, and it suggests a third, consisting in widening the traditional approach to structuring courses in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine was famous in her own time for her learning, her philosophical acumen and her mathematical brilliance. Her wide-ranging interests extended to religion, science, politics and philosophy, and she was well-connected with seventeenth-century intellectual circles. But she has since suffered the fate of so many brilliant women of the past.

This paper examines and reflects on Princess Elisabeth’s of Bohemia exchange with Descartes concerning the notorious difficulties of his doctrine of human nature as a union of two independent and mutually exclusive substances mind and body. The aim is to situate her questions in the context of the debate Descartes’s doctrine spurred among his contemporaries and to show the philosophical interest of her own contribution to the understanding of and clarification of the issues confronting Descartes.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are arguably the most important period in philosophy’s history, given that they set a new and broad foundation for subsequent philosophical thought. Over the last decade, however, discontent among instructors has grown with coursebooks’ unwavering focus on the era’s seven most well-known philosophers—all of them white and male—and on their exclusively metaphysical and epistemological concerns. While few dispute the centrality of these figures and the questions they raised, the modern era also included essential contributions from (...) women—like Margaret Cavendish, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Émilie Du Châtelet—as well as important non-white thinkers, such as Anton Wilhelm Amo, Julien Raimond, and Ottobah Cugoano. At the same time, there has been increasing recognition that moral and political philosophy, philosophy of the natural world, and philosophy of race—also vibrant areas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—need to be better integrated with the standard coverage of metaphysics and epistemology. -/- A New Modern Philosophy: The Inclusive Anthology of Primary Sources addresses—in one volume—these valid criticisms. Weaving together multiple voices and all of the era’s vibrant areas of debate, this volume sets a new agenda for studying modern philosophy. It includes a wide range of readings from 34 thinkers, integrating essential works from all of the canonical writers along with the previously neglected philosophers. Arranged chronologically, editors Eugene Marshall and Susanne Sreedhar provide an introduction for each author that sets the thinker in his or her time period as well as in the longer debates to which the thinker contributed. Study questions and suggestions for further reading conclude each chapter. At the end of the volume, in addition to a comprehensive subject index, the book includes 13 Syllabus Modules, which will help instructors use the book to easily set up different topically structured courses, such as "The Citizen and the State," "Mind and Matter," "Education," "Theories of Perception," or "Metaphysics of Causation." -/- And an eresource offers a wide range of supplemental online resources, including essay assignments, exams, quizzes, student handouts, reading questions, and scholarly articles on teaching the history of philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 223-224 [Access article in PDF] Jacqueline Broad. Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 191. Cloth, $55.00. In this impressive study of early Modern Philosophy, Jacqueline Broad analyzes the influence that Cartesianism has had in the development of feminist thought. Her work covers the early modern philosophy of Elisabeth of Bohemia, (...) Margaret Cavendish, Ann Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham and Catherine Trotter Cockburn. She points out the paradoxical relationship between current feminist philosophy and the writings of early Modern women. Broad concentrates on the metaphysical issues of mind-body dualism, thinking matter, and the role of reason in knowledge.Recent feminists have argued that even though Cartesianism appears to emphasize an egalitarian concept of reason, it entails a male bias which excludes women from philosophy. Broad covers the work of Genevieve Lloyd, Hilda Smith, Margaret Atherton and other feminists. Her goal is to show that the common Cartesian interpretation of early women's writings obscures the anti-Cartesian and anti-dualist aspects of their thought. Like Lloyd, she argues that historically women were associated with a lesser form of reason following the rise of Cartesianism.The conflict between reason and femininity is noted in the complexity of early Modern thought. Broad argues that even though Elisabeth is remembered as a critic of Descartes, many of her suggestions are not as anti-dualist as some scholars believe. Broad highlights the critical content of Elisabeth's letters to Descartes and discusses her criticisms of dualism and her Cartesian method of discovering truth and certainty. On the basis of her letters she contends that Elisabeth can be regarded as a precursor to feminist philosophers who give an equal role to the body and emotions in their metaphysical and ethical writings.Like Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish rejects Cartesian dualism. The common thread that runs through early Modern feminist philosophy is the argument that interaction between two unlike substances is inconceivable. Broad argues that like Cavendish, Anne Conway ascribes spiritual characteristics to the body and material properties to the soul. According to Broad, their ontological views amount to a rejection of the stereotypes of femininity.Broad argues that Mary Astell's metaphysical views diverge from the modern Cartesians of her time. Although she is indebted to Descartes, Broad contends that she supports a metaphysical system which avoids some of the gender biases identifiable in Cartesianism. Astell, for example, does not find a life based on reason as a rival to a life concerned with the body; her emphasis on rationality is simply a reaction to the stereotype of women as irrational material beings.Damaris Masham is generally considered a philosophical rival of Astell, but Broad argues that Masham's arguments are focused on the same presuppositions as Astell's. She argues that both philosophers champion women's education, criticize the occasionalism of Norris and believe in interaction between the corporeal and incorporeal worlds. Broad emphasizes the common theological outlook inspired by Cambridge Platonism. Contrary to the interpretation of Ruth Perry, she finds that there is sufficient evidence that Masham was positively inspired by the second part of Astell's Serious Proposal.Broad concludes with an analysis of Catherine Cockburns' metaphysics and moral philosophy. According to Cockburn, women's ignorance is simply the result of being discouraged from rational pursuits. Cockburn's defense of Locke's notion of thinking matter and her rejection of Cartesian notions of substance mark the end of the Cartesian influence on women philosophers in England. [End Page 223]Broad has shown that a reverence for reason and dualistic theories do not necessarily go hand in hand. She points out that early Modern feminist thinkers are not simply handmaidens to the great philosophical masters. As other scholars have argued, one can find unique approaches to substance as well as original moral positions.This text is a significant contribution to the literature on early Modern philosophy. Broad's in depth analysis will not fail to interest scholars in metaphysics, the history of philosophy and moral theory. Kathy... (shrink)

Elisabeth is widely known as a critic of René Descartes’ account of mind–body interaction and scholarly interpretations of her view on the will most often pose the question about the freedom of the will in relation to bodily impulses such as the passions. This chapter takes a different perspective and focuses on the problem of the compatibility of free will and providence, as it is discussed in a sequence of six letters that Elisabeth and Descartes wrote between September (...) 1645 and January 1646. The chapter focuses on this specific metaphysical problem in order to ask what Elisabeth’s remarks on the topic can tell about her general philosophical method as well as about her particular philosophical worries. The chapter divides into three parts. The first part discusses Elisabeth’s initial philosophical interest in the question of free will and providence, and recounts the arguments presented by her and Descartes. The second part discusses the philosophical foundation for Descartes’ position and Elisabeth’s criticism of this position. The final part compares Elisabeth’s criticism of Descartes’ account of the compatibility of free will and providence with her criticism of his account of mind–body interaction, which she develops in her three first letters to him, written in 1643. It is argued that at the core of both criticisms we find Elisabeth’s search for answers based on reason and a dissatisfaction with Descartes’ reliance on the incomprehensible nature of God as a basis for some of his philosophical arguments. (shrink)

This is an analysis of the philosophy behind the exchange of letters between Descartes and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.

Justus Lipsius was a 16th -century renaissance humanist and literary scholar who, crucially for the history of philosophy, was involved in the publication and reinterpretation of Stoic thought, primarily focusing on the works of Seneca. Despite a fair amount of scholarship on Lipsius’s contribution to the history of philosophy, the role of Stoicism in the early to mid-17th century is still not well understood. In this thesis I show, through close examination of Lipsius’s work, that Neo-Stoic ethics in the 17th (...) century amounts to a view about the relationship between providence and human actions. After identifying ways that Stoic philosophy was used to explain this connection, I derive two key normative duties that are constitutive of a Neo-Stoic account of ethics: 1) a duty to accept the determinations of providence (whatever they may be) and 2) the duty to develop a large body of rational knowledge about the universe. In the remainder of this thesis, I map the influence of these Neo-Stoic positions on Rene Descartes, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, and Nicolas Malebranche’s moral philosophy. I contend that all these Cartesian-inspired thinkers draw upon the foundational components of Neo-Stoicism in their accounts of ethics. I first consider how the correspondence between Descartes and Elisabeth represents a debate about the viability of certain Neo-Stoic theses. And then, I argue that Malebranche’s moral philosophy should be read as the natural progression of the Neo-Stoic “seeds” planted throughout this correspondence. In developing a conceptual framework for what constitutes a Neo-Stoic position and mapping the influence of this system on prominent Cartesian thinkers, my thesis tells a conceptual story about the history of Stoicism. My thesis particularly seeks to emphasize the way that Stoicism becomes intertwined with the history of 17th century moral philosophy based on the desire of Early Modern figures to balance voluntarist and intellectualist intuitions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 223-224 [Access article in PDF] Jacqueline Broad. Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 191. Cloth, $55.00. In this impressive study of early Modern Philosophy, Jacqueline Broad analyzes the influence that Cartesianism has had in the development of feminist thought. Her work covers the early modern philosophy of Elisabeth of Bohemia, (...) Margaret Cavendish, Ann Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham and Catherine Trotter Cockburn. She points out the paradoxical relationship between current feminist philosophy and the writings of early Modern women. Broad concentrates on the metaphysical issues of mind-body dualism, thinking matter, and the role of reason in knowledge.Recent feminists have argued that even though Cartesianism appears to emphasize an egalitarian concept of reason, it entails a male bias which excludes women from philosophy. Broad covers the work of Genevieve Lloyd, Hilda Smith, Margaret Atherton and other feminists. Her goal is to show that the common Cartesian interpretation of early women's writings obscures the anti-Cartesian and anti-dualist aspects of their thought. Like Lloyd, she argues that historically women were associated with a lesser form of reason following the rise of Cartesianism.The conflict between reason and femininity is noted in the complexity of early Modern thought. Broad argues that even though Elisabeth is remembered as a critic of Descartes, many of her suggestions are not as anti-dualist as some scholars believe. Broad highlights the critical content of Elisabeth's letters to Descartes and discusses her criticisms of dualism and her Cartesian method of discovering truth and certainty. On the basis of her letters she contends that Elisabeth can be regarded as a precursor to feminist philosophers who give an equal role to the body and emotions in their metaphysical and ethical writings.Like Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish rejects Cartesian dualism. The common thread that runs through early Modern feminist philosophy is the argument that interaction between two unlike substances is inconceivable. Broad argues that like Cavendish, Anne Conway ascribes spiritual characteristics to the body and material properties to the soul. According to Broad, their ontological views amount to a rejection of the stereotypes of femininity.Broad argues that Mary Astell's metaphysical views diverge from the modern Cartesians of her time. Although she is indebted to Descartes, Broad contends that she supports a metaphysical system which avoids some of the gender biases identifiable in Cartesianism. Astell, for example, does not find a life based on reason as a rival to a life concerned with the body; her emphasis on rationality is simply a reaction to the stereotype of women as irrational material beings.Damaris Masham is generally considered a philosophical rival of Astell, but Broad argues that Masham's arguments are focused on the same presuppositions as Astell's. She argues that both philosophers champion women's education, criticize the occasionalism of Norris and believe in interaction between the corporeal and incorporeal worlds. Broad emphasizes the common theological outlook inspired by Cambridge Platonism. Contrary to the interpretation of Ruth Perry, she finds that there is sufficient evidence that Masham was positively inspired by the second part of Astell's Serious Proposal.Broad concludes with an analysis of Catherine Cockburns' metaphysics and moral philosophy. According to Cockburn, women's ignorance is simply the result of being discouraged from rational pursuits. Cockburn's defense of Locke's notion of thinking matter and her rejection of Cartesian notions of substance mark the end of the Cartesian influence on women philosophers in England. [End Page 223]Broad has shown that a reverence for reason and dualistic theories do not necessarily go hand in hand. She points out that early Modern feminist thinkers are not simply handmaidens to the great philosophical masters. As other scholars have argued, one can find unique approaches to substance as well as original moral positions.This text is a significant contribution to the literature on early Modern philosophy. Broad's in depth analysis will not fail to interest scholars in metaphysics, the history of philosophy and moral theory. Kathy... (shrink)

Descartes's Fictions traces common movements in early modern philosophy and literary method. Emma Gilby reassesses the significance of Descartes's writing by bringing his philosophical output into contact with the literary treatises, exempla, and debates of his age. She argues that humanist theorizing about poetics represents a vital intellectual context for Descartes's work. She offers readings of the controversies to which this poetic theory gives rise, with particular reference to the genre of tragicomedy, questions of verisimilitude or plausibility, and the figures (...) of Guez de Balzac and Pierre Corneille. Drawing on what Descartes says about, and to, his many contemporaries and correspondents embedded in the early modern republic of letters, this volume shows that poetics provides a repository of themes and images to which he returns repeatedly: fortune, method, error, providence, passion, and imagination, for instance. Like the poets and theorists of his age, Descartes is also drawn to the forms of attention that people may bring to his work. This interest finds expression in the mature Cartesian metaphysics of the Meditations, as well as, later, in the moral philosophy of his correspondence with Elisabeth of Bohemia or the Passions of the Soul. This volume thus bridges the gap between Cartesian criticism and late-humanist literary culture in France. (shrink)

The work of women philosophers in the early modern period has traditionally been overlooked, yet their writing on topics such as reality, time, mind and matter holds valuable lessons for our understanding of metaphysics and its history. This volume of new essays explores the work of nine key female figures: Bathsua Makin, Anna Maria van Schurman, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Damaris Cudworth Masham, Mary Astell, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, and Émilie Du Châtelet. Investigating issues from eternity (...) to free will and from body to natural laws, the essays uncover long-neglected perspectives and demonstrate their importance for philosophical debates, both then and now. Combining careful philosophical analysis with discussion of the intellectual and historical context of each thinker, they will set the agenda for future enquiry and will appeal to scholars and students of the history of metaphysics, science, religion and feminism. (shrink)

Philosophy: The Classic Readings is a collection of accessible readings from the history of philosophy specifically intended for the introductory student. The readings were chosen for courses that focus on metaphysics and epistemology. Each reading contains a brief introduction to the philosopher's life and works, thought-provoking study questions, and a bibliography for further reading at the end of each chapter. The philosophers include Plato, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Bertrand Russell and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia.

Descartes is not well known for his contributions to ethics. Some have charged that it is a weakness of his philosophy that it focuses exclusively on metaphysics and epistemology to the exclusion of moral and political philosophy. Such criticisms rest on a misunderstanding of the broader framework of Descartes’ philosophy. Evidence of Descartes’ concern for the practical import of philosophy can be traced to his earliest writings. In agreement of wisdom that is sufficient for happiness. The Third part of his (...) Discourse on the Method presents what he calls a provisional morality, a morality to govern our behaviour while we are in the process of revising our beliefs and coming to certainty. In the tree of philosophy, in the Preface to the French translation of the Principles of Philosophy, morals are listed as one of the fruits of the tree, along with medicine and mechanics. It is also a theme in the letters he exchanged with the Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia in the mid-1640s, together with another concern the passions, what they are, and more importantly, how to control them. These themes are intertwined again in Descartes last major work, The Passions of the Soul (1649). Descartes did not write extensively on ethics, and this has led some to assume that the topic lacks a place within his philosophy. It is an attempt to outline Descartes’ ethical ideas mainly in Discourse on the Method. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Focused upon Descartes’ writings and letters, this paper considers the exponentially-charged relationship between sadness, melancholy, doubt and philosophical inquiry. The first sections examine the relation between sadness in the Cartesian corpus and melancholy as a traditional pathological classification, with both set against a larger seventeenth century intellectual discourse. The letters exchanged between the Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and the Palatine and Descartes between 1643 and 1649, that is, just prior to the death of the philosopher in 1650, (...) reveal the central paradigm of this particular relationship between sadness and melancholy. The call to use philosophy as a cure against sadness also enters consideration, with the theatrical, artificial nature of the philosophical cure presented as essential not only to Descartes’ relation to sadness, but also to philosophical method in general. The moral aspect of the establishment of mental habits and their emendation by philosophy hence yields central insights into the larger Cartesian project, here viewed as essentially premised upon a medical vocation. (shrink)

Eileen O'Neill - Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.1 122-124 Sarah Hutton. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. viii + 271. Cloth, $75.00. In 1690 a Latin translation of a philosophical treatise, originally written in English by Anne Conway , was published anonymously. The English manuscript did not survive, but in 1692 the Latin version of Conway's text was translated into (...) English as The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Conway was widely known by seventeenth-century philosophers and religious writers, including the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More; Descartes's correspondent, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia; Robert Boyle; physician and vitalist philosopher, Francis Mercury van Helmont; as well as numerous Quaker leaders. And her Principles were read with critical approbation by such figures as Leibniz. Further, Conway's text is probably the most anthologized of the writings of seventeenth-century women philosophers. It is curious, then, to discover a dearth of critical literature on the Principles. When Peter Loptson produced the first modern edition of the Principles , he attempted to interest contemporary philosophers in Conway's essentialist metaphysics. He did a superb job of elucidating Conway's position that: there are individual essences.. (shrink)

English summary: This book examines the philosophy of Elisabeth of Bohemia in conjunction with Descartess. She maintained a philosophical dialogue with another philosopher employing pertinent arguments. In addition, she perhaps developed her own theses, truly philosophical theses which can be better understood in consideration with her numerous correspondents. The study seeks to better understand Elisabeths role in Cartesian thought, and to determine her own philosophical thought. French description: Le titre meme de ce volume, sous forme d'interrogation, est a (...) comprendre comme un postulat. Il s'explique comme suit : il s'agit de s'interroger sur la pensee philosophique d'Elisabeth tout autant que sur celle de Descartes. La reflexion d'Elisabeth semble en effet posseder une dimension philosophique a deux titres au moins : d'abord parce que la princesse entretient un dialogue philosophique de haute tenue avec un autre philosophe, en deployant des arguments pertinents; ensuite parce qu'elle developpe peut-etre elle-meme des theses qui lui sont personnelles, qui seraient des theses au sens fort et pleinement philosophique du terme, et dont l'etude pourrait etre affinee par la prise en consideration de ses tres nombreux autres correspondants. Reste un scrupule : celui de trahir le souhait meme d'Elisabeth de cantonner ses echanges intellectuels au plan prive, en la propulsant en pleine lumiere et en lui faisant endosser une posture philosophique qu'elle a soigneusement evitee de son vivant. Qu'on songe qu'elle voulait que cet echange soit code! Mais comme le premier traitre fut Descartes lui-meme, transmettant les lettres d'Elisabeth a Christine de Suede, considerons-nous comme habilites, en bons cartesiens, a divulguer la pensee de la princesse palatine. C'est a ce prix en effet, que nous pourrons redefinir le role de cette derniere dans le cartesianisme, determiner s'il existe une pensee propre d'Elisabeth et enfin, si elle existe, savoir en quoi elle consiste. (shrink)

This volume takes cue from the idea that the thought of no philosopher can be understood without considering it as the result of a constant, lively dialogue with other thinkers, both in its internal evolution as well as in its reception, re-use, and assumption as a starting point in addressing past and present philosophical problems. In doing so, it focuses on a feature that is crucially emerging in the historiography of early modern philosophy and science, namely the complexity in the (...) production of knowledge. The book explores the applicability of this approach to a long-considered armchair philosopher, namely René Descartes, who is now more and more understood as a full-blown scientist, networker, and intellectual éminence grise rather than as the mere philosopher of the cogito, as well as the originator of different ‘Cartesianisms’ which encompassed many ideas and approaches for long captured by dichotomic historiographical categories as rationalism and empiricism, or speculative and experimental philosophy. The essays gathered in the volume aim to address the ways in which Descartes’s philosophy evolved and was progressively understood by scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals from different contexts and eras, either by considering direct interlocutors of Descartes such as Isaac Beeckman and Elisabeth of Bohemia, early modern thinkers who developed upon his ideas and on particular topics as Nicolas Malebranche or Thomas Willis, those who adapted his overall methodology in developing new systems of knowledge as Johannes Clauberg and Pierre-Sylvain Régis, and contemporary thinkers from continental and analytic traditions like Emanuele Severino and Peter Strawson. (shrink)

Insofar as historians of philosophy aim to get the story right, it is now widely recognized that they must reckon with works of early modern women philosophers—oft-neglected philosophers who read, and were read by, canonical luminaries such as Descartes and Leibniz. Thomas’s volume collects thirteen new contributions to the scholarship on the metaphysics of such authors: Mary Astell, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Émilie Du Châtelet, Bathsua Makin, Damaris Masham, and Anna Maria van Schurman. Cavendish, (...) Conway, and Du Châtelet receive multiple chapters.The quality of each chapter is excellent. Most could have been published as journal articles in their own right. Thus, though... (shrink)