The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Elisabeth of Bohemia

1618–1680

Also known as Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Elisabeth of the Palatinate, Elisabeth, Princess Palatine

Exiled princess whose letters to Descartes asked how an immaterial mind could move a body, and pressed him on the passions, virtue, happiness and how to rule.

Painted portrait of a young woman with dark curls and a pearl necklace, in an orange dress with a lace collar
Portrait by Gerard van Honthorst, 1636, when Elisabeth was about eighteen.Gerard van Honthorst · Public domain · See the original

Elisabeth’s father was Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and her mother Elizabeth Stuart, sister of Charles I; she was their eldest daughter. Frederick’s brief reign as King of Bohemia helped set off the Thirty Years War, and the family lived in exile in The Hague, where Elisabeth was tutored in languages, mathematics, philosophy and the sciences; her siblings nicknamed her “the Greek”. She took part in her family’s political affairs, including talks over the Treaty of Westphalia. In 1667 she became abbess of the Lutheran convent at Herford, where she gave refuge to Labadists and Quakers.

Her philosophical writings that survive are almost all letters to Descartes, from 1643 until his death in 1650. Descartes dedicated his Principles of Philosophy to her and wrote The Passions of the Soul at her request. She refused to let her side of the correspondence be published, and it appeared only long after her death, from copies found in a packet of letters near Arnhem. A gifted mathematician, she also helped to spread Cartesian natural philosophy in Germany, and corresponded with scientists, Quakers and, briefly, Malebranche.

Key ideas

How can a mind move a body?
If the mind is an unextended, immaterial substance, how can it cause the body to move, when causing motion seems to require contact and extension? Elisabeth asked Descartes either to explain this kind of causation or to say more about the mind’s nature, and his answers did not satisfy her.
Argues against René Descartes’s Mind and body
Thought depends on the body
We can direct our own thoughts, so thinking is not simply a bodily process. Yet illness and the condition of the body plainly affect our capacity to reason, which suggests that the mind may not be a substance wholly independent of the body.
Virtue and luck
Descartes made virtue a matter of firm resolve to do what we judge best. Elisabeth objected that good intentions can still go wrong, that luck affects even our capacity to reason, and that we cannot be content without knowing the consequences of our actions, which would take an “infinite science”.
The ruler’s problem
Rulers must make decisions that affect many people, on incomplete information and under the press of their own passions. Machiavelli, writing about the state hardest to govern, helps in achieving stability, she argued, but says little about governing a state that is already stable.
Tradition
Western
Region
The Hague and Herford

Influences

Influenced by

Elisabeth of Bohemia1618–1680

Influenced by

Elisabeth of Bohemia1618–1680

Where these links come from

Key works

  • Correspondence with Descartes, 1643

Sources

  1. Lisa Shapiro, Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy