Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold: to clarify the nature of Elisabeth’s adherence to Cartesian philosophy; to discover whether, on the question of the interaction between the mind and the body, Elisabeth’s objections really caused Descartes difficulty. On the first point, one should acknowledge that Elisabeth considers Cartesian philosophy less as an unquestionable doctrine than as a superior form of the culture of reason. On the second, the main difficulty concerns the “power of the soul to move the body.” But this power consists neither in the direct use of a mechanically defined force, nor in the exercise of a mysterious formal causation. All the power of the soul over the body relates to the natural or acquired correlation between certain thoughts and certain impressions in the brain. But Descartes, in his reply to Elisabeth in the spring of 1643, does not wish to develop these views immediately. He is not exactly embarrassed: he defers his explanations.