ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author deals with an exposition of the account Rene Descartes gives of mind-body interaction in the letters he wrote to Elisabeth, letters that form the first line of defense for Descartes' interactionism among those commentators who are committed to defending Descartes' position. He examines Descartes' answer to Elisabeth, and argues that it is inconsistent with the foundations Descartes gives to his theory of motion. The author attempts to sketch out an answer that Descartes could have given to Elisabeth, an answer that seems both philosophically interesting, and consistent with rest of his writings. Descartes believed in two kinds of stuff, mental stuff and material stuff, substances distinct in nature that go together to constitute a single human being. But Descartes also took it for granted that these two substances were capable of genuine causal interaction, and that the state of the sensory organs and the brain can cause sensation and imagination in the mind.
