In my personal opinion, a soul is the inner part of the body, the immaterial substance that controls, affects, and influences every single movement of the body. The body in its turn serves as a sarcophagus, in which a soul exists.
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While reading the letters between Descartes and Elisabeth of Bohemia we become witnesses of an argumentation between two philosophers on the subject of the unity between the soul and the body. Elisabeth doubts that the body is anyhow controlled by the soul, as an immaterial substance cannot control or influence a physical object. She bases her reasoning on the fact that any movements of the body are merely impulses caused by the substance or object being moved, rather than a command or will of an immaterial soul. “For although we supposed them inseparable (which nonetheless is difficult to prove regarding infants in their mother’s womb and deep faints), still, like the attributes of God, we can, by considering them separately, acquire a more perfect idea of them” (Atherton 12). Descartes, on the other hand, proposes a model consisting of three major parts: soul, body, and the unity between them. He emphasizes that the body is characterized by extension, “from which follow those of figure and movement” (Atherton 13), and the soul is characterized by its ability to think “in which are comprised the perceptions of the understanding and the inclinations of the will” (Atherton 13). Descartes states the connection between the body and the soul is vivid, through the ability of soul to move the body, and the capacity of the body to reflect the soul’s passions and feelings. Elisabeth, however, does not agree with these notions, are has an idea of the body to be controlled by something other than the soul: “since no material cause presents itself to the senses, one would have attributed it….to its contrary, the immaterial, which cannot have any communication with it” (Atherton 16).
Works Cited
Atherton, Katherine. Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period. Hackett Publishing, 1994
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