Discussion Of Elisabeth's Objections To Descartes

In this paper, my goal is to outline the objections Elisabeth raises to Descartes in their correspondence, explain Descartes’ response to those objections, and demonstrate the inadequacy of Descartes’ response to Elisabeth’s objections while considering and addressing possible objections to that point.
The crux of Elisabeth’s objection to Descartes is the precise mechanism by which a non-extended and immaterial thing, like the soul, affects an extended and material thing, like the body. Elisabeth uses Descartes’ own conceptions of substances, being material and immaterial things, and the specific examples of the body and the soul, to raise a pressing question to Descartes’ ontological argument. Elisabeth says to Descartes, “You entirely exclude the one (extension) from the notion you have of the soul, and the other (physical contact) appears to me incompatible with an immaterial thing,” (Letter 1). The issue she raises is a precise one and she presses Descartes to provide an explanation about how exactly something without physical shape or form can move something with a distinct physical body. She also asks of Descartes to provide a “more precise definition of the soul,” further specifying, “that is to say, of its substance separate from its action, that is, from thought.” Furthermore, it is much

The body can exist independently from the soul as a material, extended thing but it is not a thinking thing. The body can only cause sensory perceptions by acting on the soul but otherwise exists as a simple non-thinking thing, fully separate from the soul. Descartes says to Elisabeth, “to conceive of the union between two things is to conceive of them as one single thing,” (Letter 4), suggesting that the body and soul are simultaneously one union of things, enabling the soul and body to affect each other, and fully distinct material and immaterial