Journal of the History of Philosophy

Occasionalism and General Will in Malebranche STEVEN NADLER OCCASIONALISM IS A MUCH MORE COMPLEX and interesting doctrine than the traditional textbook mythology would have us believe. First, it is clear that occasionalism was not simply an ad hoc remedy for a perceived mind-body problem facing Cartesian dualism. Rather, it was a full-bodied philosophical account of the nature of causal relations generally, motivated in part by the desire to demonstrate the true metaphysical foundations of Cartesian physics and the mechanical philosophy. 1 Moreover, occasionalism had to reconcile in a single theory of causation several distinct (and often apparently irreconciliable ) sets of concerns, both philosophical and theological. It is this second issue I wish to focus on here, particularly as it pertains to how we understand Malebranche's version of the doctrine. There has been a great deal of inconsistency and disagreement in the way in which Malebranche's occasionalism has been interpreted by commentators, whether by his critics or partisans, among both his contemporaries and recent scholars. In fact, at least two distinct and apparently incompatible readings of his theory emerge, and we are left having to choose between two different pictures of causation and God's role therein. On one picture, God's activity as cause is constant and ubiquitous, and is required in order to maintain a lawlike correspondence in the states of things. The other picture more closely resembles Leibniz's preestablished harmony, with God originally establishing such a correspondence once and for all by means of a few general volitions. In other words, there is something funny about the way in which Malebranche's occa- ' SeeThomas M. Lennon, "Occasionalismand the Cartesian Metaphysicof Motion,"Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume I (1974): 29-4o. See also Steven Nadler, "Occasionalism and the Mind-Body Problem," Oxford Studies in the History of Philosophy,forthcoming; and "Doctrines of Explanation in Late Scholasticismand the Mechanical Philosophy," The CambridgeHistoryof Seventeenth-CenturyPhilosophy,forthcoming. [31] 3 2 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31-'1 JANUARY 1993 sionalism has been read. In this paper, I try to get to the bottom of the confusion and point out the proper way to understand his account. The mechanics of Malebranche's doctrine most easily lends itself to the following reading, which I here call the "traditional" reading. Finite creatures, whether bodies or minds, have no causal efficacy, no power whatsoever to effect real changes in each other. God is the only true causal agent. The apparent causal interactions among finite entities are, in fact, simply ongoing manifestations of the divine activity. God, then, is constantly engaged in the workings of the world, bringing about changes in and among souls and physical objects on the occasion either of contact between bodies or of a volition in a human mind. To be sure, God's activity as cause is not ad hoc, but is governed by general laws instituted by God at creation. But unlike Descartes's God, Malebranche's deity does not simply let nature take its course once motion has been imparted to it.* Rather, Malebranche's God is personally, directly, and immediately responsible for bririging about effects and causal changes in nature--for example, for altering the direction and velocity of the motion of one billiard ball when it is struck by another. There is no question that many of Malebranche's contemporaries understood his position to involve a constant activity by God. Leibniz, for example, takes such an ongoing participation by God in the affairs of the world to be one of the important differences between his own theory of preestablished harmony and occasionalism. The system of occasional causes, he insists, demands "a perpetual supervisor.., a little as if a man were charged with constantly synchronizing two bad clocks which are in themselves incapable of agreeing"; while his own theory suggests "the natural agreement" of substances , such as would exist between two very exact clocks.3 He accuses Malebranche of introducing "continuous miracles" into the course of nature at every moment, and of having God "intervene" with the laws of bodies and of thought.4 To Leibniz's mind, there is no mistaking occasionalism for a preestablished harmony. Now I shall argue that...