Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618–1680): A Philosopher in her Historical Context

221 Pages·2021·4.329 MB·English

by  Sabrina Ebbersmeyer, Sarah Hutton

Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences 9
Sabrina Ebbersmeyer
Sarah Hutton   Editors
Elisabeth of Bohemia
(1618–1680):
A Philosopher in her
Historical Context
Women in the History of Philosophy
and Sciences
Volume 9
SeriesEditors
RuthEdithHagengruber,DepartmentofHumanities,CenterfortheHistory
ofWomenPhilosophers,PaderbornUniversity,Paderborn,Germany
MaryEllenWaithe,ProfessorEmerita,DepartmentofPhilosophyandComparative
Religion,ClevelandStateUniversity,Cleveland,OH,USA
GianniPaganini,DepartmentofHumanities,UniversityofPiedmont,Vercelli,Italy
As the historical records prove, women have long been creating original
contributions to philosophy. We have valuable writings from female philosophers
from Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and a continuous tradition from the
Renaissancetotoday.Thehistoryofwomenphilosophersthusstretchesbackasfar
as the history of philosophy itself. The presence as well as the absence of women
philosophersthroughoutthecourseofhistoryparallelsthehistoryofphilosophyas
awhole.
Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir, the most famous
representatives of this tradition in the twentieth century, did not appear form
nowhere. They stand,sotospeak,ontheshoulders ofthefemaletitanswhocame
beforethem.
TheseriesWomenPhilosophersandScientistspublishedbySpringerwillbeof
interestnotonlytotheinternationalphilosophycommunity,butalsoforscholarsin
historyofscienceandmathematics,thehistoryofideas,andinwomen’sstudies.
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/15896
·
Sabrina Ebbersmeyer Sarah Hutton
Editors
Elisabeth of Bohemia
(1618–1680): A Philosopher
in her Historical Context
Editors
SabrinaEbbersmeyer SarahHutton
SectionforPhilosophy DepartmentofPhilosophy
DepartmentofCommunication UniversityofYork
UniversityofCopenhagen York,UK
Copenhagen,Denmark
ISSN2523-8760 ISSN2523-8779 (electronic)
WomenintheHistoryofPhilosophyandSciences
ISBN978-3-030-71526-7 ISBN978-3-030-71527-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71527-4
©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicensetoSpringerNature
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Fig.1 PortraitofElisabeth
ofBohemia.Engravingby
CrispijnvandenQueborn,
between1633and1652.
Amsterdam,Rijksmuseum
Contents
1 Introduction .................................................. 1
SabrinaEbbersmeyerandSarahHutton
PartI Elisabeth’sIntellectualWorld
2 Elisabeth of Bohemia’s Aristocratic Upbringing
andEducationatthePrinsenhof,Rapenburg4–10,Leiden,
c.1627/8–32 .................................................. 17
NadineAkkerman
3 ElisabethofBohemia’sLifelongFriendshipwithAnnaMaria
vanSchurman(1607–1678) .................................... 33
MirjamdeBaar
4 ElisabethofBohemiaandtheSciences:TheCaseofAstronomy ... 51
SabrinaEbbersmeyer
5 Princess Elisabeth and Anne Conway (1631–1679): The
InterconnectedCirclesofTwoPhilosophicalWomen ............. 71
SarahHutton
PartII Elisabeth’sPoliticalThoughtandItsContext
6 APersistentPrincess:HowElisabethofBohemiaConstructed
HerPersonalPolitics .......................................... 89
CarolPal
7 Elisabeth and Descartes Read Machiavelli in the Time
ofHobbes .................................................... 109
GianniPaganini
8 PrincessElisabethandtheChallengesofPhilosophizing .......... 127
LisaShapiro
vii
viii Contents
PartIII Elisabeth’sPhilosophicalThoughtinHerExchange
withDescartes
9 TheSoul’sExtension: Elisabeth’sSolutiontoDescartes’s
Mind–BodyProblem .......................................... 145
LilliAlanen
10 Elisabeth onFree Will,Preordination, and Philosophical
Doubt ........................................................ 163
MartinaReuter
11 IsOurHappinessuptoUs?ElisabethofBohemiaontheLimits
ofInternalism ................................................. 177
DominikPerler
12 TheFeminineBodyintheCorrespondenceBetweenDescartes
andElisabeth ................................................. 193
Marie-FrédériquePellegrin
13 WhatIsElisabeth’sCartesianism? .............................. 205
DenisKambouchner
Index ............................................................. 215
Note on Abbreviations
Thefollowingabbreviationsareusedthroughoutthisvolume:
AT RenéDescartes.OeuvresdeDescartes.11vols.EditedbyCharlesAdam
andPaulTannery,firstpublished,Paris1897–1913.Reprint:Paris:CNRS,
1996.
CSMK RenéDescartes.ThePhilosophicalWritingsofRenéDescartes.Translated
by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony
Kenny.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress:1984–1991.
S Elisabeth of Bohemia. The Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth
ofBohemiaandRenéDescartes.TranslatedbyLisaShapiro.Chicagoand
London:UniversityofChicagoPress:2007.
ix
Editors and Contributors
AbouttheEditors
SabrinaEbbersmeyer isAssociateProfessorforthehistoryofphilosophyatthe
UniversityofCopenhagen,Denmark.WorkingprimarilyonRenaissanceandEarly
Modernphilosophy,herresearchfocussesondebatesinmoralpsychologyandphilos-
ophyofmind,onhumanismandgenderinthehistoriographyofphilosophy.Shehas
publishedonnumerousRenaissanceandEarlyModernphilosophers,includingIsotta
Nogarola,BernardinoTelesio,ElisabethofBohemiaandGottfriedWilhelmLeibniz.
Sheisauthor ofHomoagens (BerlinandNewYork:deGruyter 2010),hasedited
thevolumeEmotionalMinds(BerlinandNewYork:deGruyter2012)andtranslated
theletterexchangebetweenElisabethofBohemiaandRenéDescartesintoGerman
(München:Fink2015).
SarahHutton is Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York, UK. She
haspublishedextensivelyonearlymodernphilosophyandintellectualhistory,espe-
cially on the Cambridge Platonists and in women and the history of philosophy
andscience.HerpublicationsincludeAnneConway.AWomanPhilosopher(CUP),
a revised edition of Conway Letters (first published by Marjorie Nicolson), and
BritishPhilosophyintheSeventeenthCentury(OUP).Shehasalsopublishedarti-
cles on Margaret Cavendish, Damaris Masham, Mary Astell, Catharine Macaulay
andÉmilieduChatelet.SheisPresidentoftheInternationalSocietyforIntellectual
History.
Contributors
NadineAkkerman English Language and Literature, Leiden University, Leiden,
TheNetherlands
LilliAlanen DepartmentofPhilosophy,UppsalaUniversity,Uppsala,Sweden
xi