 Poulain does not seem to hold that there is a necessary dependence of mind upon body. He is not explicitly arguing for a materialist alternative to Descartes’ dualism, but rather emphasizing the interdependence between mind and body, without taking an explicit stand on what kind of metaphysical foundation this interaction requires. Poulain was young when he wrote his feminist treatises and though he was evidently familiar with a wide range of Cartesian topics, it is possible that he was not very deeply read in the Cartesian corpus. Compared to other Cartesians such as Rohault, de la Forge, Nicolas Malebranche, and Antoine Arnauld, Poulain did not contribute by examining unsolved problems in Descartes’ physics and metaphysics. Instead, his unrivalled contribution lies in his Cartesian analyses of the moral, political, physical, and metaphysical relations between the sexes.