Elizabeth and Descartes
Elizabeth asks Descartes to explain to her how the soul is able to determine the spirits of the body to produce voluntary movements such as walking or eating. The response Elizabeth gets from Descartes is not convincing. The reason for holding to this position is hereby explained.
The determination of motion requires an impulsion to trigger voluntary actions such as movement. This impulsive movement is triggered by the mind, which causes the body to move. The voluntary actions are not triggered by soul, as Descartes tends to suggest in his explanation.
He further says, that the union of the body and soul is properly explained by the senses (Bruce para. 5). He fails to elaborate on how this combination works and makes a person for example to move. Therefore, this answer does not create understanding and the imagination of how soul is related to the voluntary actions that human beings get involved into. The soul of a person is like a spirit and it is not responsible for voluntarily actions that people engage in. Voluntary actions are brought as a result of the connection between the mind of an individual and the body. The mind perceives things and makes decisions. The decisions made then compel a person to take voluntary action such as moving. For instance, if someone is invited for a meeting, it is the mind or the cognitive part of the person that will compel that person to make a commitment to attend the meeting. Soul does not come into play in such voluntary actions. Therefore, the answer provided by Descartes was insufficient and did not address the question asked.
Works Cited
Bruce, Hauptli. Lecture supplement on the Descartes-Elizabeth correspondence. Retrieved. http://www2.fiu.edu/~hauptli/DescartesandPrincessElizabethCorrespondenceLectureSup plement.htm
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