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Updated 06-12-08
Elisabeth, Princess Palatine /Elisabeth
von der Pfalz (1618-1680)
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"CIVIL LIFE OFTEN LEAVES ONE DEPENDENT ON PERSONS OF SO
LITTLE REASON."
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Elisabeth was born in Heidelberg the eldest daughter of Friedrich V, the ruler of the Palatine (or Pfalz) and of Princess Elizabeth Stuart of England. Before she was a year old, her father and mother had gone to Prague to become king and queen of Bohemia; before she was two, they had been deposed in the opening phase of the Thirty Years' War. As the war continued, they also lost the Palatine and went into exile at The Hague in Holland. Until she was nine, Elisabeth remained with relatives in a safer part of Germany; then she joined her parents.
Elisabeth's mother would eventually have 13 children, of whom 10 survived to adulthood. Elisabeth and some of the other children were educated at Leyden, away from their parents. All were given a broad education --- in classical and modern languages, in science --- but it was Elisabeth who became a scholar, called "La Grecque" by her brothers and sisters, who could never quite understand her interest in such matters.
When Elisabeth was 14, her father died; his death considerably reduced the influence of the court-in-exile, but her mother continued to plan --- and to spend money on --- adventures to regain the Palatine and perhaps Bohemia. The older boys went off to fight; the other children left Leyden and lived at their mother's court. In 1633 a marriage between the Protestant Elisabeth and the Catholic King of Poland was discussed, but Elisabeth declined to become a Catholic. For Elisabeth, always more at ease with her studies than with courtly dalliance, the best thing about life at her mother's court was the opportunity to meet and talk with the Dutch and foreign scholars who came to The Hague.
In the early 1640s Elisabeth met Rene Descartes, the French philosopher who was living in Holland. One of the sections in his 1642 Meditationes de prima philosophia was "Of the Real Distinction between the Mind and the Body of Man," and it was Elisabeth's questions about this that initiated a correspondence which lasted from 1643 until Descartes' death in 1650. Elisabeth understood and accepted his theory of mind-body dualism, but felt that it did not sufficiently acknowledge the interrelation of body and mind; she agreed that peace of mind was a worthy goal, but did not see how it could be attained in the midst of emotional turmoil.
And for Elisabeth the early and mid-1640s were a time of turmoil: from 1642, her uncle, Charles I of England, --- the family's last hope for help in regaining their thrones --- was fighting his own civil war, and three of her brothers were with him; in 1645, another brother converted to Catholicism, for his family a personal betrayal. In the following year, yet another brother was involved in killing a man who had bragged of an affair with Elisabeth's sister; Elisabeth tried to play the role of rational peace-maker, and in the process angered her mother.
In 1646, Elisabeth returned to northern Germany and the relatives with whom she had spent her early years. The talks that would end the Thirty Years' War had begun, but it would be 1648 before there was peace, and three more years before Elisabeth returned to her home in Heidelberg. Her mother remained at The Hague, so for the next ten years it was to Elisabeth that the responsibility fell of helping her younger sisters and dealing with her elder brother, now the ruler of a much smaller and war-ravaged Palatine.
In 1662 Elisabeth joined the Protestant Abbey of Herford as a canoness; five years later she became abbess. Until her death she continued to try to help people, giving asylum to Anna Maria van Schurman and her companions who had been forced to leave Holland, and working for the release of members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) who had been imprisoned in Scotland.
Twenty-six letters to Descartes survive, as well as quite a few later letters to family and friends. The correspondence with Descartes has been of most interest to historians of philosophy, but the later letters are also revealing, showing that Elisabeth continued to question, to challenge, and to think for herself.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print:
Letters to Descartes
Later letters
Information about secondary sources.
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First, a note on a name: Some web sites use the English form "Elizabeth" instead of the continental form "Elisabeth," incidentally thus increasing the likelihood of confusion between the daughter (1618-1680) and the mother, Elizabeth Stuart of England (1596-1662).
1. In English:
(a) A passage from Elisabeth's second letter to Descartes (June 20, 1643), and a useful chronology of the first part of her life.
(b) Excerpts from eight letters to Descartes: the first is from Elisabeth's first letter (1643), and the others from 1645 and 1646. The portrait is by Willem van Honthorst c.1640, showing Elisabeth as the goddess Diana. The translations are by Andrea Nye (for information on Nye' study of Elisabeth, see below, under "In print").
(c) Excerpts from Elisabeth's correspondence with and about leaders of the Society of Friends (Quakers), including six 1676-77 letters from Elisabeth; note especially the letter to her brother, Prince Rupert, an advisor to Charles II of England (for another version of the October 1677 letter to William Penn, see "In print").
2. In French, the complete correspondence between Elisabeth and Descartes from 1643 to 1649 (her 26 letters and his 33).
3. Essays, etc:
(a) A link to the 1909 biography, A Sister of Prince Rupert, Elizabeth Princess Palatine and Abbess of Herford, by Jessie Bedford (writing under the pseudonym Elizabeth Godfrey); although later research calls into question some of Bedford's details, she gives in translation much of Elisabeth's correspondence. You can also download the work as a PDF file. (For information on the print version, see "Secondary sources.")
(b) "Princess Elisabeth and the Problem of Mind-Body Interaction" (1999), by Deborah Tollefsen, quotes from letters of 1643 and 1645 in translations by John J. Blom. The essay is also useful in summarizing earlier critical views of Elisabeth's interaction with Descartes.
(c) "Amour in Descartes' Thought and Life" (2001), by Floy Andrews Doull, discusses the relationship between Elisabeth and Descartes; passages from Elisabeth's letters are in Nye's translation.
(d) A 2005 "Lecture Supplement on the Descartes-Elizabeth Correspondence," by Bruce W. Hauptli.
4. Reviews (for excerpts from the translation see under "In print"; for information on the study's treatment of Elisabeth, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Margaret Atherton on Lisa Shapiro's 2007 translation, The Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Rene Descartes.
(b) Brenda Almond on Jacqueline Broad's 2002 study, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century.
5. Portraits:
(a) A c.1627 family portrait, made shortly after the 9-year-old Elisabeth arrived to join her parents at The Hague; she is shown at the right, next to her mother.
(b) A c.1645 miniature of Elisabeth, attributed to Alexander Cooper.
(c) In a group of four, two other contemporary portraits of Elisabeth: one after Gerrit van Honthorst, the other by Crispyn Van den Queborne.
6. A third of the way down the page, Descartes' dedicatory letter to Elisabeth of his 1644 Principia philosophiae, translated by John Veitch.
7. In this chapter of a book on Dutch and Quaker colonies in America, use your browser's search function to go to "Palatine" for William Penn's account of his first 1677 visit to Elisabeth at Herford, where he found "a woman of liberal and cultivated mind."
8. For historical background:
(a) A brief essay by Frank E. Smitha on the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), which determined the course of Elisabeth's life.
(b) From Wikipedia, brief biographies of her father, Friedrich V, and of her mother, Elizabeth Stuart.
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[Lisa Shapiro's translation not only gives all of the extant letters between Elisabeth and Descartes, but also gives in an appendix the 1676-1677 correspondence between her and the Quaker leadership, including seven of her letters to Robert Barclay and four to William Penn (excerpts can be seen online). Shapiro's introduction provides a clear and detailed description of the philosophical topics covered in the letters and of Elisabeth's views on those topics. The book's bibliography and index are useful. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and
Rene Descartes; edited and translated by Lisa Shapiro (The other
voice in early modern Europe). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2007. (xxviii, 246 p.: ill.)
LC#: B1873 .E55 2007; ISBN: 9780226204413,
9780226204420
Includes bibliographical references and index
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"I could not err in believing the contrary of what people
speak."
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[The correspondence between Elisabeth and Descartes had
begun in May 1643. His first letter included what Elisabeth saw
as the conventional "false praise" of which she heard
so much at her mother's court-in-exile. In her response she explains
the effects of such flattery:]
Such false praise would have been necessary to encourage me to
work to remedy them [her faults] had my upbringing, in a place
where the ordinary way of conversing has accustomed me to understand
that people are incapable of giving one true praise, not made
me presume that I could not err in believing the contrary of
what people speak, and had it not rendered the consideration
of my imperfections so familiar that they no longer upset me
more than is necessary to promote the desire to rid myself of
them. [p.67]
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"...the will... to follow the good that it knows."
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[On Descartes' praise of Elisabeth in his dedicatory letter to her in his 1644 Principia philosophiae (see the letter online) and on her use of his teachings. Elisabeth had tried and continued to try to get the scholars she met with at the Hague to study Descartes' works --- with only limited success:]
The pedants will say that you are forced to build a new morality in order to render me worthy of it. But I take this morality as a rule of my life, feeling my self to be only at the first stage which you approve there, the will to inform my understanding and to follow the good that it knows.
It is to this will that I owe an understanding of your works, which are obscure only to those who examine them by the principles of Aristotle, or with very little care. Indeed, the most reasonable of our doctors in this country have confessed to me that they have not studied them at all, because they are too old to start a new method, having exhausted the power of the mind and the mind in the old method. [p.83]
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"...no sooner calmed by reasoning than a new disaster produces
another anxiety."
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[Descartes' dualism meant that the mind should be able to detach itself from the ills of the body. So, when Elisabeth became seriously ill in the spring of 1645, he told her that the cause was her sadness about things out of her control and that the cure was simply not to think of them, to remain calm. Elisabeth pointed out that in her situation his cure just didn't work: her mother's debts were increasing; her brothers were fighting on the losing side in England; the discussions to end the Thirty Years' War were not going well for the Palatine:]
...[A]lthough I do not rest my felicity on things which depend on fortune or on the will of men at all, and although I do not judge myself to be be absolutely wretched knowing I will never see my house in order or those near to me away from misery, I still do not know how to consider the injurious accidents that befall them under any other notion than that of evil, nor how to consider the useless efforts I make in their service without some sort of anxiety. This anxiety is no sooner calmed by reasoning than a new disaster produces another anxiety. [p.89]
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"I feel the inconvenience of being but a little rational."
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[A month later, after Descartes (who has described the garden of his Dutch home at Egmond and his own peaceful contemplation of nature) had once again told her to see only the positive and to ignore the negative:]
If I could yet make my mind conform to your last precepts, there is no doubt that I would cure myself promptly of maladies of the body and weaknesses of the mind. But I confess that I find it difficult to separate from the senses and the imagination those things that are continuously represented to them in conversation and in letters, so that I do not know how to avoid them without sinning against my duty....
It is at this moment that I feel the inconvenience of being but a little rational. For if I were not so at all, I would find pleasures in common with those among whom I must live.... And if I were as rational as you, I would cure myself as you have done.
In addition, the curse of my sex keeps me from the contentment a voyage to Egmond, where I might have learned of the truths you draw from your garden, would have brought me. [pp. 93-94]
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"How is one to measure the evils... against the good?"
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[Discussing Seneca, Descartes had written, "One would be wrong to expose oneself to a great evil in order to procure only a small good for one's parents or one's country." Elisabeth demurred at what she saw as impractical. She also mourned the lack of time for study while she was visiting in the Dutch countryside:]
How is one to measure the evils that one brings upon oneself for the sake of the public against the good which will accrue to the public, without the evils' seeming greater to us inasmuch as our idea of them is more distinct? And which measure will we have for comparing those things that are not known to us equally well, such as our own merit and that of those with whom we live? A naturally arrogant person will always tip the balance in his favor, and a modest one will esteem himself less than he is worth.
In order to profit from the particular truths of which you speak, it is necessary to know exactly all the passions we feel and the prejudices we have, most of which are imperceptible. In observing the customs of the countries where we are, we sometimes find some very unreasonable ones that it is necessary to follow in order to avoid even greater inconveniences.
Since I have been here, I have experienced a very trying illustration of this truth. For I was hoping to profit from this stay in the country by having more time to employ in study, and I have found here, without comparison, less leisure than I ever had at The Hague, because of the distractions of those who don't know what to do with themselves. [p.115]
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"...better to avail myself of experience rather than reason."
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[At Elisabeth's request, Descartes had begun a treatise, Les passions de l'ame; one of the views expressed in it was that passions could and should be controlled by reason. Elisabeth, having read a manuscript of the work that he had sent to her in the spring of 1646, wanted more:]
...I find it much less difficult to understand all that you say on the passions than to practice the remedies you prescribe for their excess. For how is one to foresee all the accidents that can come upon one in life, as it is impossible to enumerate them? And how are we to prevent ourselves from desiring with ardor those things that necessarily tend to the conservation of man (such as health and the means to live), but that nevertheless do not depend on our free will?...
Since you have already told me the principle maxims concerning private life, I will content myself with now hearing those concerning civil life, even though civil life often leaves one dependent on persons of so little reason that up to this point I have always found it better to avail myself of experience rather than reason, in matters that concern it. [pp.133-34]
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"...impressions... which will always contribute to the contentment
of my life."
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[In the summer of 1646, Elisabeth went back to Germany, staying with relatives who showed more affection than had her immediate family at The Hague. However, she continued to rely on the intellectual stimulation of Descartes' letters:]
You are right to believe that the diversion that your letters bring me is different from that I have had while away, since it gives me a greater and more lasting satisfaction. Although I've found in the latter all that the friendship and the caresses of those close to me could give me, I consider them as something which could change, while the truths that the former bring me leave impressions in my mind which will always contribute to the contentment of my life....
I... try to present events to myself in as agreeable way as I can. Here I do not encounter much difficulty, being in a house where I have been cherished since my childhood and where everyone conspires to take care of me. Even though some of these efforts distract me sometimes from more useful occupations, I easily support this inconvenience through the pleasure there is in being loved by those closest to one. [pp.144-46]
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"There is nothing but my books...."
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[But by the following spring, even the affection of her relatives and Descartes' letters were not quite enough to ally her feelings of rootlessness. Her mother seemed to have no particular desire to have her return to The Hague; it was unclear how much, if any, of the Palatine would be returned to her family. Now, Descartes was considering leaving Holland and moving back to France:]
...[I]f you continue on the course of leaving the country, I would rescind the resolution I have made to return there, if the interests of my family do not call me back, and I will wait here until the outcome of the treaties... brings me back to my country [the Palatine]....
I am here in much better health than I ever was in Holland. But I would not want to have been here always, since there is nothing but my books to prevent me from becoming completely stupid. [pp.162-63]
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"...defends our sex from the imputation of imbecility and
weakness."
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[Descartes did not move back to France; instead, in the autumn of 1649 he went to the court of Queen Christina of Sweden, planning to stay a few months and then come to see Elisabeth in Germany. Descartes had written from Sweden, describing Christina (and hoping that his praise of the queen would not offend Elisabeth). In December Elisabeth replied: she wasn't jealous, but she was glad that he wasn't going to stay too long in Sweden. (In fact, Descartes would die there, two months after this last letter was written):]
Do not believe... that a description so advantageous gives me reason to be jealous. Rather it leads me to esteem myself a little more than I did before she gave me the idea of a person so accomplished, who defends our sex from the imputation of imbecility and weakness that the pedants would have given it....
I feel myself... guilty of a crime against her service, as I am glad that you extreme veneration for her will not require you to remain in Sweden. If you leave this winter, I hope that it will be in the company of M. Kleist, with whom you will find the best means of giving the happiness of seeing you again to
your very affectionate friend at your service,
Elisabeth [pp.181-82]
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Later letters
[Available online, Jessie Bedford's 1909 biography includes
many of Elisabeth's letters, given wholly or in part. Later research
has called into question a few of Bedford's statements, but the
story she tells is generally accurate. The book has a useful
index. The book's title refers to one of Elisabeth's brothers,
a Royalist hero to English readers:]
Bedford, Jessie. A sister of Prince Rupert, Elizabeth princess
palatine and abbess of Herford, by Elizabeth Godfrey [pseud.]
With a photogravure portrait and 16 other illustrations reproduced
from portraits, etc. London, New York, J. Lane, 1909. (xviii,
362 p. front., plates, ports)
LC#: D244.8.H5 B5
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"...if we only had the money."
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[After Descartes' death, Elisabeth's studies continued --- but her family obligations also continued. In the absence of her mother, Elisabeth was making arrangements for the marriage of a sister, Henrietta, to a Transylvanian prince. Their eldest brother, Karl Ludwig, was trying --- with few funds --- to rebuild what was left to him of a Palatine destroyed by the Thirty Years' War. He was not inclined to spend money on a marriage that would bring him no political advantage, so, in the autumn of 1650, Elisabeth had to beg him for help:]
For the equipment we should soon complete it if we only had the money or if your Highness would give us credit for what is necessary for linen, clothes and liveries....
We do not ask more than you would judge necessary, but 1000 fl. is as good as nothing; the wedding dress will cost more than that, without reckoning that of the bridesmaids. [p.231]
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"I am too used to being charged with the faults of others."
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[But when an irritated Karl Ludwig accused her of initiating this unwanted marriage, Elisabeth defended herself, pointing out that the plan had been that of the Electress of Brandenburg, an aunt who had been financially supporting the sisters since their return to Germany:]
If you had told me not to meddle in the matter I would have obeyed you gladly, for it is not my humour to push myself into affairs; I am too used to being charged with the faults of others in such business to seek it, but not having your orders for an excuse I could not oppose myself to the desire of the Electress that I should be present at all that was done --- but enough of this matter. [p.235]
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"...laughing,... dancing...."
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[Henrietta's marriage finally took place --- without much financial help from Karl Ludwig --- and in 1651 Elisabeth finally returned to Heidelberg, the home she had left 32 years before. For most of the 1650s, she enjoyed her life there: the university reopened at the end of 1651, and she met with scholars for the philosophical discussions she loved. In 1653 she went with Karl Ludwig and her youngest sister to a meeting of the Imperial Diet. While that trip was still being planned, a letter to Karl Ludwig offers a picture of a closer-knit family that Elisabeth usually describes:]
...[I]f we go to the Diet... we must all disaccustom ourselves of laughing at unusual clothes or grimaces, for when we do it in private we mind it also in public and make others mark it, and those that are offended by it may revenge themselves of our follies on you. [p.261]
[And from the Diet itself, Elisabeth wrote to a cousin, the Abbess of Herford:]
I have already danced my feet to bits, such a rushing about as I never saw in my life. I never left the dancing room, but went from one partner to another till we left. [p.253]
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"...when there was a crown to be won by it."
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[During this peaceful period, Elisabeth continued in her role of eldest sister. Having married one sister, she now began to make plans for another, Louisa, not to marry but to go to the Protestant Abbey of Herford as assistant to the cousin-abbess. The abbess distrusted the whole idea; at one point she accused Elisabeth herself of planning to become a Catholic (such a conversion had been talked about years earlier when a marriage between Elisabeth and the king of Poland had been discussed). Elisabeth assured her cousin:]
If I had any desire to do such a thing, I should have done it when there was a crown to be won by it; now nobody would give me a peppercorn for it.
As to the arguments [for conversion], I have long known them all and do not fear lest anyone should bring forward new ones, still less shrink from talking with priests nor to esteem and like them when they have any good in them, as I have done all my life and would if they were Turks and Heathens. [p.273]
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"We should be neither wise nor righteous overmuch."
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[The discussion of Louisa's future went on until 1658, when she settled the question herself by running away from The Hague to France and becoming a Catholic. In 1660, the 42-year-old Elisabeth, who had always been a visitor at someone else's court, began to consider taking on the role her sister had rejected. The cousin-abbess apparently feared that Elisabeth would institute unwanted reforms, so Elisabeth again reassured her:]
...I beg you... to believe that if I came to the Institution I should never have the presumption to think of reforming anything which your Grace could not do, nor of keeping a greater state than you have done so as to bring the Abbey into debt. God forbid I should have such an idea, which would be not a foolish rashness but an unpardonable theft...
Solomon gave a good rule when he said we should be neither wise nor righteous overmuch, for he knew that we have not the power to keep the bridle on our understanding, still less to accommodate it to circumstances.... [pp.289-90]
[And on a disgruntled canoness who was causing trouble for the abbess:]
...[I]t is a bad trade to stir up strife, but to restore peace and order is the part of wisdom and brings the best repute. [pp.291-92]
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"...to improve this community... by the presence of earnest
Christians."
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[In 1662 Elisabeth did go to Herford as a canoness and as assistant to the abbess. Five years later, her cousin died and Elisabeth was selected to succeed her. As abbess, she was now a ruler, with a vote at the Reichstag and with jurisdiction over not only the members of the abbey but also some 7000 people who lived in the area. In 1670 she invited Anna van Schurman and her Labadist companions to live there, describing her motive to a cousin:]
My sole desire in the matter is to render to God the hour due to Him, to aid these people in their good and Christian resolutions, and to improve this community, which is somewhat lacking in this respect, by the presence of earnest Christians, by authorizing to build upon our free and princely territories such houses as they may require, persuaded that this country can only gain by their presence, and that the citizens, merchants or workpeople will profit in many ways, and can receive no injury thereby. [p.311]
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"I must not do anything upon persuasion of others."
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["The citizens" did not agree, and despite Elisabeth's efforts, the Labadists had to move on, but Elisabeth kept up her contacts with reformers. In 1676 she began a correspondence with the Scottish Quaker, Robert Barclay, who had visited her and urged her (as Descartes had done years before) to think of herself before others, but now by "sinking down into a profound silence and stillness"; she responded to him much as she had done to Descartes:]
...[T]he silent waiting is no more in my power than flying through the air, since my calling gives me some diversions. I scarce have one hour of the day to myself...
It is a happiness indeed to... be free of the fetters that tie one to the world by Ceremonies and Inventions of many kinds which are not to be withstood by one that has not more grace than is felt at present by your true friend. [pp.323-24]
[And when Barclay urged her to abandon "outward affairs" and to dismiss ordained (i.e., non-Quaker) ministers:]
...[T]his I am certain, that... I must not do anything upon persuasion of others nor out of my own opinion until I have the light of faith for my conduct.... [p.325]
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"...to perform my duty to God and man both."
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[The Quaker leader William Penn visited Herford; although Elisabeth apparently honored his teachings, she continued to think for herself. After his second visit in 1677, she wrote to him, just two years before her death:]
I am deeply touched by the interest you take in my eternal welfare...; but God's grace must assist me, for, as you rightly say, He will only accept that which He has Himself inspired....
Above all I must feel Him sovereign in my heart, and fulfill whatever he commands; but I am really incapable of teaching others, for I am not myself taught by the Lord....
Think not that I mean to go back from what I said to you the evening before your departure; I delay merely until I can act in a way to perform my duty to God and man both. [p.330]
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Secondary sources
[Andrea Nye's study includes her translations of Elisabeth's
letters to Descartes and substantial excerpts from Descartes'
letters to her. Also give are a few passages of Elisabeth's other
letters. Nye provides historical background and explains both
Descartes' thought and the ways in which Elisabeth's views differed
from his. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Nye, Andrea. The princess and the philosopher: letters of
Elisabeth of the Palatine to Rene Descartes. Lanham, Md.: Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers, c1999. (xiii, 187 p.: ill.)
LC#: B1873 .N93 1999; ISBN: 0847692655, 0847692647
Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-184) and index
---------------------
[This collection includes Lilli Alanen's essay, "Descartes and Elisabeth: A Philosophical Dialogue?" which discusses whether or not Elisabeth can be considered a philosopher. After an account of opposing views, the essay describes the development and content of the correspondence with Descartes. Alanen concludes that although Elisabeth never produced the systematic presentation expected of a professional philosopher, the letters to and from Descartes constitute a genuine philosophical conversation in the Socratic style. Quoted passages are given in Alenen's own translation. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Feminist reflections on the history of philosophy / edited
by Lilli Alanen and Charlotte Witt (The new synthese historical
library; v. 55). Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
c2004. (xvii, 250 p.)
LC#: B72 .F38 2004; ISBN: 1402024886
Includes bibliographical references
---------------------
[Jacqueline Broad's study includes a chapter, "Elisabeth
of Bohemia," which sees in the correspondence with Descartes
less disagreement than earlier critics have seen, but also sees
Elisabeth as a precursor of later philosophers who emphasize
the role of the emotions in human relationships. Broad also gives
a useful of review of earlier studies of Elisabeth.
(See the book's table of contents online.):]
Broad, Jacqueline. Women philosophers of the seventeenth
century. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press,
2002. (x, 191 p.)
LC#: B105.W6 B76 2002; ISBN: 052181295X
Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-183) and index
----------------------
[Lisa Shapiro's article describes the change in Elisabeth's relationship
with Descartes from that of an admiring student to that of a
thoughtful challenger. Shapiro gives her own translations of
passages from Elisabeth's letters:]
Shapiro, Lisa. Princess Elisabeth and Descartes: The union
of mind and body and the practice of philosophy." British
Journal for the History of Philosophy, 7(1999). 503-20.
LC#: B1 .B75; ISSN: 0960-8788
-----------------------
[In her study Erica Harth deals in some detail with the correspondence of Elisabeth and Descartes (pp.64-78), providing her own translation of cited excerpts. The book's first two chapters provide useful historical background:]
Harth, Erica. Cartesian women: Versions and subversions of
rational discourse in the old regime (Reading women writing).
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, c1992. (xi, 267 p.)
LC#: PQ245 .H35 1992; ISBN: 0801427150
Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-257) and index
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[Andrea Nye's entry in this reference work, "Elisabeth, Princess Palatine: Letters to Rene Descartes," compares Descartes' dualism to Elisabeth's "thinking body and material mind." Most of Nye's comments can be found in her 1999 study (above), but are presented here in a more concise form. (See the book's table of contents online):]
Presenting women philosophers / edited by Cecile T. Tougas
and Sara Ebenreck. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.
(xvii, 266 p.; 26 cm)
LC#: B105.W6 P74 2000; ISBN:156639760X, 1566397618
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Updated 06-12-08
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