Descartes: A Biography

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Descartes and Princess Elizabeth 

of adapting the rigour of his method to the limited ability of an uneducated

woman:

Although I think that it is very necessary to have understood well, once in a lifetime,

the principles of metaphysics, because they provide us with knowledge of God and

of our soul, I also think that it would be very harmful to occupy one’s understanding

byfrequently thinking about them, because the understanding could not as easily be

available to the imagination and the senses. It is best to be satisfied with retaining

in one’s memory and one’s belief the conclusions that have once been drawn from

the principles of metaphysics, and to devote one’s remaining study time to those

thoughts in which the understanding acts together with the imagination and the

senses. (iii.)

However, apart from underlining the contribution of the imagination and

the senses to most of the knowledge we acquire, and the extent to which

a little metaphysics goes a long way, this does little to answer Elizabeth’s

original question.

Descartes is slightly more helpful when he writes about the interaction

of mind and body, and about how we might conceive of their union. He

emphasizes that we conceive of the union of mind and body by using

our experience, rather than by relying on the thoughts that result from

metaphysical speculation. Those ‘who never philosophize and who use

only their senses have no doubt that the soul moves the body and that the

body acts on the soul. But they think that the body and soul are both the

same thing; in other words, they conceive of their union, for to conceive of

the union of two things is to conceive of them as one thing’ (iii.). In

other words, we know that the soul and body interact, since we have direct

experience of their interaction in almost everything we do. If this is taken

together with the advice offered in his first letter, Descartes seems to be

suggesting that we use different concepts, which are acquired in different

ways, for thinking about the mind or body separately and for thinking

about their intimate union. He confirms this, although the sense of what

he is saying is not much clearer, in the same letter ofJune.

The human mind is incapable of conceiving very distinctly, and simultaneously, both

the distinction and union of body and soul. The reason is that, in order to do so, it

would be necessary to conceive of them as one single thing and, at the same time, as

two things – which is inconsistent...since your Highness suggested that it is easier

to attribute matter and extension to the soul, than to attribute to the soul the ability

to move and to be moved by a body without having any matter itself, I beseech you to