Abstract
This paper explores Elisabeth’s remark that ruling and studying each demands an entire person, with the aim of understanding why she might think ruling and intellectual pursuits like philosophy are incompatible with one another. While Elisabeth identifies several barriers to philosophizing, she does not suggest that time constraints are an impediment to both philosophizing and ruling. Situating Elisabeth with respect to Plato, Machiavelli, and Aristotle suggests that she holds there are many similarities between governing and philosophizing. The methodology and skill set of a ruler and a philosopher are very similar; both need to organize their thoughts, consider an array of possible alternatives, gather background information, and be decisive; both take virtue, truth, and justice as their ends, and they are driven by a central concern for something other than themselves. Though both can be moved to high emotions by external forces, they can cultivate the self-awareness that can serve in modulating those emotions in a variety of ways. However, a difference lies in the ways in which the objects of their decisions are constrained in time. This difference in turn disposes each to different emotions. Insofar as their lives are tightly integrated, a ruler and a philosopher would have different affective profiles and organize their lives around different principles. In virtue of these differences, a ruler and a philosopher would indeed need to be two entire persons.
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Notes
- 1.
While it might be tempting to read this as a somewhat snarky remark in light of Descartes’s concern that Elisabeth might be jealous of his new relationship with Christina, I prefer to read this as a straightforward statement of fact.
- 2.
See for instance 1 August 1644, AT 4.132; S 83; 24 May 1645, AT 4.209–210; S 89–90; 29 November 1646, AT 4.579–581; S 151–152 21; February 1647, AT 4.619–620; S 155–156; 11 April 1647, AT 4.630; S 159; May 1647, AT 5.48–49; S 163.
- 3.
30 June 1648, AT 5.195–196; S 170; July 1648, AT5.210; S 172; 23 August 1648, AT 5.226; S 174. See Shapiro (2019).
- 4.
30 June 1648, AT 5.195; S 170; 23 August 1648, AT 5.226; S 174. In the Calendar of State Papers there are records a number of letters between Elisabeth and Thomas Roe between 1639 and 1641, and records of correspondence being forwarded to her from her brother Rupert in January 1645–1646.
- 5.
Elisabeth raises this point a number of times: 24 May 1645, AT4.208f; S 88–89; 16 August 1645, AT 4.269; S 100. See also 29 November 1646, AT 4.578f; S 151 and 21 February 1647, AT 4.618f; S 155. It also appears in Descartes’s letters: 8 July 1644, AT 5.65f; S 81–82; 18 May 1645, AT 4.201; S 86; May or June 1645, AT4.219–220; S 91–92.
- 6.
See 24 May 1645, AT4.208f; S 88–89; 22 June 1645, AT 4.233f; S 93f. See also Descartes’s letter of 21 July 1645, AT 4.251; S 96.
- 7.
See Descartes to Elisabeth, September 1646 (AT 4.486ff; S 139ff).
- 8.
In his essay in this volume, Paganini makes a similar point, and he goes further, arguing that this reading by Elisabeth is a distinctive intervention in the interpretive debates of the seventeenth century.
- 9.
I found the discussions of Aristotle on political virtue in Annas (1996), and of the conception of political virtue in Machiavelli, Aristotle, and Montaigne in Kingwell (1996) helpful for finding a way into these figures. Unfortunately, I cannot consider how Elisabeth’s remarks might be responsive to Montaigne here.
- 10.
See also her letter of 25 April 1646, AT 4.406; S 134.
- 11.
See the letters of 6 May 1643 (AT 3.661; S 62) and 10 June 1643 (AT 3.684–685; S 68).
- 12.
Letter of 1 August 1644 (AT 4.132; S 83f).
- 13.
See for instance 30 September 1645 (AT 4.303; S 115), for a generalization about the temperamental biases we bring to our evaluations, or 28 October 1645 (AT 4.322; S 123) regarding how we are affected by theatre.
- 14.
In this vein, we might see conjectural histories about the origins of inequality offered in Poulain de la Barre’s De l’égalité des deux sexes (1673) as an early form of this kind of empirically informed account of value.
- 15.
13 September 1645, AT4.289; S 110; 30 September 1645, AT4.303; S 115.
- 16.
1 August 1644, AT 4.133; S 84; 22 June 1645, AT 4.235; S 94; see also Descartes’s letter of 6 June 1647, AT 5.60; S 165.
- 17.
27 December 1645, AT 4.339–340; S 128.
- 18.
One case that comes to mind is that of an existentialist philosopher involved in the Resistance movement of Second World War. The commitment to a moral point of view entailed life-risking actions. However, it is also possible to see figures like Galileo and Descartes as philosophers in this vein, who persisted in their scientific pursuits, even under threat of sanction and punishment by church authorities.
- 19.
Thanks to Sarah Hutton for pressing me to consider the seventeenth-century senses of the term “person.”
- 20.
Descartes to Elisabeth 15 September 1645 (AT 4.293; S 112).
- 21.
It is perhaps to highlight this point that Elisabeth suggests reading Machiavelli’s The Prince to Descartes. He genuinely seems to find the work somewhat foreign to him.
- 22.
Hence Descartes’s pretention to undertaking the Meditations when he had no pressing practical demands.
- 23.
Thanks to Dominik Perler for pressing this point.
- 24.
To be fair, policy makers, or at least those committed to empirically informed policy, do something similar in seeing if their assumptions about states of affairs can in fact be supported by evidence. They do not, however, typically investigate the warrant of key concepts—say, social good. That is left to philosophers.
- 25.
Whiting (1986) makes this point.
- 26.
The very fact that their lives are so systematically organized, I suspect, leads to a kind of loneliness borne of a certain intensity—the antithesis of what Hume calls a ‘carefree manner’. In this regard, it is striking that Elisabeth consistently invokes the friendship between herself and Descartes, and friendship is a theme that runs through the correspondence. See for instance AT 4.131; S 83; AT 4.233; S 93; AT 4.519; S 144; AT 4.617; S 154; AT 5.96; S 167.
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Shapiro, L. (2021). Princess Elisabeth and the Challenges of Philosophizing. In: Ebbersmeyer, S., Hutton, S. (eds) Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618–1680): A Philosopher in her Historical Context. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71527-4_7
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