Princess Elizabeth on the Mind-Body Problem

[@SomebodyLikeXeo]

Thank you for all the work you are doing. Uploading your courses makes philosophy much more accessible. Thank you!

[@canisronis2753]

Bravo! thank you!

[@cristinaroman45]

Thanks you very much, You helped to me because I didnt understand. This video is perfect to prepare for taking a examen

[@ingridarmona6526]

thx for this video ^_^, my lecturers videos are fine but he constantly swallows during them making them nearly unwatchable for me so this is perfect

[@Kinging76]

I think the door to this question is through neuroscience and psychology, the animal/human mind has the ability to not only control each and every function of the body but also shape the body according to the environmental requirements for survival. the mind is something that has learned to create the body. and it is doing that in the forms of the existence of different creatures including humans.

[@myothersoul1953]

Different forms of existence or different explanations of existence?

[@meowwwww6350]

Nice

[@myothersoul1953]

David Chalmers should date Princess Elizabeth.

[@karadayi3300]

Thank you very for this explicit info! Please, what do you think about the below analogy? Elisabeth was right because considering this analogy, the distinct poles of a magnet, the negative and the positive pole. These poles are different or separable (dualism), but both have a connection with each other they have to can into contact. Looking from this view they have the same properties that's why they can come into contact. To conclude, since the mind is immaterial (unextended) and the body is material and existing in spaces, they can't come into contact. The mind and the body being separable is true because our mind or soul doesn't die, but our body dies. This is because our mind or soul will be rendering account during the Judgement day.

[@f.ludovico3105]

Brilliant video as ever professor! But what about Wittgenstein? Didn’t he in a sense refused the assumption that there is a mind behind the body? (Btw it’s very rare seeing you mentioning him)

[@f.ludovico3105]

What about Wittgenstein? Didn’t he in a sense refused the assumption that there is a mind behind the body?

[@geraldharrison5787]

Princess Elizabeth was not the first to raise the so called 'problem of interaction'. The problem was first raised by Gassendi in the first edition of the Meditations (1641). Elizabeth didn't start corresponding with Descartes until 1643. It is also unlilkely that she independently raised it, given she almost certainly would have read Gassendi's making it in the first edition (and it was published and addressed in subsequent editions too, even though Gassendi's original text was removed). So, Gassendi deserves the credit, not Elizabeth. Not that much credit is deserved, for the objection is a terrible one. But it's Gassendi's criticism. Descartes thought the objection was silly. He said so. Not to her. He liked her and he didn't think what he was saying to her would be published! But to Gassendi. Indeed, he thought it did not begin to raise a problem. Descartes' responses to Elizabeth were replies to a friend. They were private letters never intended to be published. We know what Descartes actually thought of the objection, for it was published at the time. This is what he said to Gassendi (quite rightly): "[The problem of interaction is] a ‘problem’ that doesn’t exist because it· assumes something that is false and can’t in any way be defended, namely that two substances whose natures are different (like the soul and the body) can’t act on each other. ·To see how silly it is to assume this as something to be taken for granted, consider the fact those who admit the existence of real accidents such as ·individual instances of· heat, weight and so on have no doubt that these accidents can act on the body; yet there is much more of a difference between them and it, i.e. between accidents and a substance, than there is between two substances ·such as mind and body" Descartes thought it was a terrible objection. He was right. First, why on earth think that material objects can only causally interact with other material objects? That is pure dogma. It is not a self-evident truth of reason and it appears positively false. For by hypothesis, our minds appear to be immaterial objects and they appear as well to be causally interacting with material entities, namely our bodies. I will my arm to move and it moves. That's an apparent immaterial event causing a material one. So, the evidence is that immaterial objects can and do causally interact with material ones. Second, one does not have to explain how something might occur before one has good evidence that it is occurring. I don't know how this computer works. But I have good evidence it is working - it appears to be working. Descartes does not owe an explanation of 'how' our minds cause our bodies to do things. We have good evidence they do: they appear to. To think that if Descartes can't explain 'how' , then this undercuts the evidence 'that' it occurs is absurd. (Plus, exactly what is even wanted here? What can one ever say here apart from 'by doing so'? FOr that is all one can say about material-material causation too). Third (and note, the two points above are sufficient to demonstrate there to be no problem here at all), even if - even if - material and immaterial objects cannot interact, what this implies is not that the mind is material, but that the material is mental! For again, the whole point is that minds exist more certainly than any and all material objects. So if my mind - something that appears to be immaterial and to exist with the utmost certainty - appears to be interacting with a sensible body, and if it is impossible for immaterial entities to interact with anything material, then the conclusion is that my sensible body is not a material entity at all, but a mental one. That is, the implication of the problem of interaction - if problem it is (and it isn't) - is not materialist monism, but immaterialist monism. Idealism, not naturalism. So, the 'problem' of interaction is no problem at all and if it was it would imply immaterialism monism, not materialism monism. And Descartes was perfectly well aware of this at the time and pointed it out in no uncertain terms. And Elizabeth of Bohemia didn't raise it - at least not first, and not independently - Gassendi did (and we can safely assume that she read Gassendi doing so, as it was published in the first edition).

[@aleksandarnedeljkovic8104]

i found you here also . I don't know why some people explain that she raised some problem .

[@aleksandarnedeljkovic8104]

As counterexample to i can say my body to riase my hand and it does , you can also say to your body to raise hand and not to actually raise hand . There is matter of will that is not asserted

[@kadaganchivinod8003]

why there are no much women intellectuals like Princess Elizabeth in the history of philosophy professor?

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

Good question. I doubt there's a uniform answer. The book Stephen Phillips and I edited for Oxford, Introduction to World Philosophy, contains texts from 24 women writers from a variety of traditions. There are many others we did not include because their writings are not as accessible to beginning-level students. One answer is that women haven't, until recently, had the same educational opportunities as men. Another is that the women who did have those opportunities were often of the nobility and had other kinds of responsibilities. Queen Elizabeth I of England, for example, was highly educated in languages, mathematics, and philosophy, but had a country to run. It's not an accident, I think, that many women philosophers of the medieval and early modern periods were in convents, where they were in contact with libraries, had the time to study and write, and could use their education in this way.

[@kadaganchivinod8003]

@@PhiloofAlexandria Yeah, I agree... Nietzsche and Schopenhauer say something like Nature made them limited. Could you say something about it?