Continental Philosophy

A review of The Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Rene Descartes:

Lisa Shapiro's edition of the correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and Rene Descartes appears in a series, "The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe", dedicated to restoring the presence of women writing during the Early Modern period.  Its appearance in such a context gives rise to the reflection that Princess Elisabeth, unlike many others in this series, cannot ever have been said to be a woman lost to history or to the history of philosophy.  Descartes' side of the correspondence was included in the earliest collection of his letters, and while at that time Elisabeth denied permission to have her letters published, her side of the correspondence, although for a time lost, was rediscovered in the 1870s,  published at that time, and subsequently included in the Adam-Tannery edition of Descartes' works.  Nor have English speaking readers been deprived of translations.  There have been no less than two translations of both Elisabeth's and Descartes' letters published in book form comparatively recently.  John Blom included large portions of the correspondence in his Descartes:  His Moral Philosophy and Psychology (NYU Press, 1973) and Andrea Nye translated and published still more for her The Princess and the Philosopher:  Letters of Elisabeth of the Palatine to Rene Descartes (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 1999).  Indeed, not only is Princess Elisabeth not languishing lost and unknown, the question comes to mind:  Do we really need another edition of the Elisabeth-Descartes correspondence?

Happily, Lisa Shapiro's edition prompts the answer, yes.  Blom's and Nye's editions, while admirable in their respective ways, do not provide what she provides.  The focus of Blom's book is on Descartes and on those aspects of his correspondence that reveal something of his views on moral philosophy and psychology.  His collection includes, as well as letters from Elisabeth, correspondence with Pollot and Chanut, and finally, Descartes' sole letter to Queen Christina, on the sovereign good.

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