Abstract

In his successful book Descartes’ Error Antonio Damasio states that the dualism of substances led Descartes to conceive an absolute separation between the mind and the body, due to which the mind would not communicate with the body and vice versa. Therefore Descartes (1) would not foresee any form of interaction between mind and body and (2) would have imposed the clinical model of Western medicine and hindered the affirmation of psychosomatic medicine for centuries. Through the analysis of the correspondence between Descartes and Elizabeth of Bohemia, this essay documents how both statements of the Portuguese neurologist do not find correspondence in Cartesian texts and are therefore to be considered incorrect.