Descartes & Elisabeth Discussion Questions 2023

Descartes & Elisabeth of Bohemia on Dualistic Interactionism QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Briefly re-cap for one another what Cartesian Dualistic Interactionism is. a. The immaterial mind/soul is separate from the material body, but the two causally interact. b. Descartes believes in this and Elisabeth questions this 2. What is Princess Elisabeth’s objection to Descartes’ view? Do you find it convincing? a. Elisabeth questions Descartes’ view, saying: “where does the immaterial interact with the material? And how does this happen?” i. Contact is required for one thing to initiate movement in another b. She finds his logic contradicting when he says that the immaterial can interact with the material 3. Descartes defends a Supernaturalistic worldview, while science gives a Naturalistic worldview. Explain what each type of view is committed to, and why they are incompatible. a. Supernaturalistic: some physical events have only non-physical causes b. Naturalistic: all physical events have only physical causes c. Three claims that are mutually incompatible i. Naturalism– part of new science ii. the soul is immaterial/ not physical iii. activity of the soul causes action in the body iv. If claims 2 and 3 are used, then 1 cannot be true 4. What do you think is the best argument in favor of dualism? Explain it as if you were trying to persuade someone that dualism was true. a. I think the best argument in favor of dualism is that if something is not possible, then we cannot conceive it. This is because people have intelligent thoughts and consciousness, so if something is logically impossible, then even our consciousness would not be able to perceive it. 5. What do you think is the best argument against dualism? Explain it as if you were trying to convince someone that dualism was false. a. Contact is required for one thing to initiate movement in another b. Descartes defines the soul as non-extended and immaterial c. Non-extended and immaterial things cannot make contact with other things d. So, non-extended and immaterial things cannot cause movement e. Therefore the soul (as defined by Descartes) cannot cause the body to move f. Therefore dualism cannot hold g. Elisabeth points out the inconsistency in Descartes’ view