Originally published in 1958. Occasionalism is generally associated in the history of philosophy with the name of Malébranche. But long before this time, the Muslim Theologians of the ninth and tenth centuries had developed an occasionalist metaphysics of atoms and accidents. Arguing that a number of distinctively Islamic concepts such as fatalism and the surrender of personal endeavour cannot be fully understood except in the perspective of the occasionalist world view of Islam, the volume also discusses the attacks on (...) Occasionalism made by Averroes and St. Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

Malebranche is both an occasionalist and an advocate of the preformationist theory of generation. One might expect this given that he is a mechanist: passive matter cannot be the source of its own motion and so requires God to move it (occasionalism); and such matter, moving according to a few simple laws of motion, could never fashion something as complex as a living being, and so organisms must be fashioned by God at Creation (preformationism). This expectation finds a challenge (...) in Kant's depiction of the relation between causation and generation. According to Kant, preformation is the generation theory one would expect the advocate of the pre-established harmony to endorse, while the occasionalist would endorse a theory whereby God directly forms the organism upon every insemination. I make sense of Malebranche's position in light of Kant's suggestion by examining the relation Malebranche sees between science and metaphysics, the roles that he believes empirical investigations and final causes have in scientific practice and explanation, and the role of the supernatural in Malebranche's philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: The Cartesian Origins of the Question Towards the Origins of Occasionalism: Louis de la Forge The Origin of Physical Motion Minds and Bodies Cordemoy and the Cause of Motion Geulincx, Occasionalism and Self‐Consciousness.

These essays examine the philosophical, scientific, theological and religious themes and arguments of occasionalism, as well as its roots in medieval views on ...

This chapter develops Moral Occasionalism, according to which moral facts are grounded in certain natural facts, which are called sub-moral grounds, and these sub-moral grounds influence us in such a way as to induce largely correct moral beliefs. Moral Occasionalism is designed to explain the correlation of moral beliefs with the moral facts—and to do so in a way that is consistent with non-interactionist views, according to which moral facts neither influence nor are influenced by moral beliefs. It (...) is argued that moral non-naturalists and others who are committed to non-interactionist views ought to be in the business of defending Moral Occasionalism. The chapter shows that Moral Occasionalism has major advantages over its chief non-interactionist rival, namely David Enoch’s “godless pre-established harmony” view. The chapter anticipates and responds to several objections. (shrink)

Dan Korman and Dustin Locke argue that non-naturalists are rationally committed to withhold moral belief. A main principle in their argument, which they call EC*, can be read in either of two ways, which I call EC*-narrow and EC*-wide. I show that EC*-narrow is implausible. Then I show that, if Korman and Locke rely on EC*-wide to critique non-naturalism, then the critique fails. I explain how the availability of a view that I like to call moral occasionalism can be (...) used to respond on the non-naturalist’s behalf to the EC*-wide version of the argument. I also show how moral occasionalism is more useful for this purpose than an alternative third-factor account, namely David Enoch’s pre-established harmony view. (shrink)

Malebranche’s so-called conservation is continuous creation (CCC) argument has been celebrated as a powerful and persuasive argument for Occasionalism—the claim that only God has and exercises causal powers. In this paper I want to examine the CCC argument for Occasionalism by comparing it to Jaegwon Kim’s so-called Supervenience argument against non-reductive physicalism. Because the arguments have deep similarities it is interesting and fruitful to consider them in tandem. First I argue that both the CCC argument and the Supervenience (...) argument turn on the same general principle, what Kim calls Edward’s Dictum. It is doubtful that Malebranche or Kim succeed in grounding Edward’s Dictum, though Malebranche, I think, has more resources at his disposal to make his case. Even if this worry is waived, however, I argue that the completion of Stage 1 of the Supervenience argument can be used to raise a further worry for the CCC argument that cannot easily be resolved. (shrink)

The rich connections between metaphysics and natural philosophy in the early modern period have been widely acknowledged and productively mined, thanks in no small part to the work of Margaret Wilson, whose book, Descartes, served as an inspirational example for a generation of scholars. The task of this paper is to investigate one particular such connection, namely, the relation between occasionalist metaphysics and strict mechanism. My focus will be on the work of Nicholas Malebranche, the most influential Cartesian philosopher after (...) Descartes himself. I begin with two crucial facts about Malebranche’s philosophy: (1) Malebranche was an occasionalist, that is, he held that God was the only true cause, that all modifications of bodies and of minds can be produced by God alone. (2) Malebranche adhered firmly to strict mechanism. By strict mechanism, I mean the view, found most prominently in Descartes and in Boyle’s more ideological writings, that the qualities of bodies are exhausted by a very short list (size, shape, motion, and perhaps solidity) and that, most importantly, bodies interact only at contact by impact. Another way of describing this “contact action” requirement is as the thesis that the only fundamental laws of physics are laws of inertial motion and laws of the communication of motion at impact. In.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.4 (2000) 503-528 [Access article in PDF] Occasionalism and Occasional Causation in Descartes' Philosophy David Scott University of Victoria According to Descartes, the physical world's contact with the mind is through the sense organs and the brain, although the mechanics of this contact is by no means clear. Indeed, for many the idea that the physical world can act upon the mind (...) at all is a complete mystery on Descartes' principles, not least because the difference between the spatial and divisible nature of body and the non-spatial and indivisible nature of mind seems to preclude the possibility of body-mind contact or of a mechanism for such contact.1 Despite this, however, Descartes repeatedly affirms that body and mind interact causally. He claims that the fact of their disparate natures poses no special difficulty, and he even affirms that the mind and body can form a union (in the case of the human being).2In this paper I wish to examine two issues pertaining to the body-mind relation in Descartes' philosophy. First, I ask whether Descartes advances body-mind occasionalism: is there evidence in his writings of the view that bodies are not genuine causes of sensations, but are mere 'occasions' for God's production of sensations? Recently, it has been urged that Descartes begins his career as a body-mind causal interactionist, but perhaps ends as an occasionalist.3 [End Page 503] In Section 1 of what follows I argue against this. I attempt to show both that Descartes never strays from the body-mind interactionism which he is generally thought to espouse, and that he would undermine his proof of the material world if he did. The second issue I deal with concerns a position closely related to occasionalism which Steven Nadler has recently identified as body-mind "occasional causation."4 In Section 2 of the following I provide an interpretation of occasional causation as it appears in Descartes' reply to Regius in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet. I argue that Descartes' occasional causation amounts to a form of interactionism which I term "inefficacious body-mind transmissionism." 1. Does Descartes Espouse Body-Mind Occasionalism? 1.1. Daniel Garber's Case for Descartes' Move Toward Body-Mind Occasionalism Occasionalism, roughly defined, is a doctrine according to which God's will is the only genuine efficient or productive cause that exists, and all other so-called 'causes' are really just 'occasions' for the exercise of that will.5 As Daniel Garber understands the term in "Descartes and Occasionalism," an occasional cause is "a cause whose effect is produced through the activity of God," and not through the exercise of any causal power within finite things.6 Body-mind occasionalism is a logical inevitability in Descartes' philosophy, Garber claims, because for Descartes "God is responsible for all motion in the inanimate world."7 The idea is that because there is no causal action on the part of bodies, bodies cannot act causally on anything, let alone minds.8Because for Garber body-body occasionalism is "as clear as anything" in Descartes' philosophy, he sets out to find evidence in Descartes' writings for [End Page 504] the body-mind occasionalism which it implies. It is Garber's case for body-mind occasionalism that I contest below, where I argue that Descartes remains a body-mind interactionist throughout his life. Clearly, my assessment of Descartes puts me at odds with Garber's more general view that Descartes is a body-body occasionalist, at least on the assumption that Descartes has a logically consistent position on body-body and body-mind causation. For, to reiterate Garber's point, to be logically consistent overall Descartes cannot be both a body-body occasionalist and a body-mind interactionist. Of course, Garber and I need not be at odds on body-body occasionalism; for since we need not assume that Descartes is logically consistent, he and I could say that Descartes as a matter of historical fact holds both positions. Within the confines of... (shrink)

Instead of focusing on the Malebranche-Edwards connection regarding occasionalism as if minds are distinct from the ideas they have, I focus on how finite minds are particular expressions of God's will that there be the distinctions by which ideas are identified and differentiated. This avoids problems, created in the accounts of Fiering, Lee, and especially Crisp, about the inherently idealist character of Edwards' occasionalism.

Malebranche’s so-called Conservation is Continuous Creation Argument (CCCA) for Occasionalism can be construed as an instance of the Generalized Exclusion Argument. This shows that the CCCA and the two stages of the Supervenience Argument are isomorphic with respect to each other. This allows interlocutors in these disparate areas of philosophy to engage in fruitful dialogue.

Both transition and transformation link the ideal and material into a whole. Future is what “causes” the present, and the latter in turn is what “causes” the past. That kind of “reverse causality” needs free choice and free will in the present in order to be able to be realized unlike classical causality. A few properties feature the concept of “quantum occasionalism” as follows. Some hypothetical entity generates successively a series of well-ordered states. That hypothetical entity is called “coherent (...) state” in quantum mechanics and defined as a superposition of all possible states of the quantum system. The already generated well-ordered series can be interpreted as a causal sequence. Thus the generating cause remains hidden behind the visible well-ordering of the series and hides itself behind the perfect visible order created by it. That visible order only seems to cause itself by itself. (shrink)

This volume consists of papers originally presented at the international conference "Occasionalism: History and Problems," held in Venice in 2015; it contains twelve chapters, nine of which are in English, three in French. In their introduction, the editors describe occasionalism as a theory that was viewed by Medieval Christian philosophers as a "dangerous and treacherous" threat, only later to be "proudly asserted" in the post-Descartes era. This raises the question of to what degree this transition should be seen (...) as a result of interpretations of the commitments of Cartesian metaphysics, particularly with regard to questions concerning mind-body interaction. Many scholars have pointed out that to view... (shrink)

This essay was completed in January 2016 and accepted for publication in a collection on occasionalism by Nazif Muhtaroglu. It attempts to update the doctrine of occasionalism to make it independent of theism and fit better with contemporary physics and a modern understanding of causation. We find that modern physics provides an avenue to support the essential core of occasionalism.

This paper will survey the most prominent contemporary analyses of causation, and evaluate their compatibility, or otherwise, with the doctrine of Occasionalism, with the ultimate aim of formulating an occasionalist analysis of causation. Though reductive analyses of causation are incompatible with Occasionalism, it seems that the denial of reductionism is as well. I will suggest a solution to the problem, involving an analysis of causation as the relation of extensional identity, between God’s will that an event actually occur, (...) and the intensionally distinct event itself. (shrink)

This paper examines a common misreading of the mechanics of Malebranche's doctrine of divine causal agency, occasionalism, and its roots in a related misreading of Malebranche's theories. God, contrary to this misreading, is for Malebranche constantly and actively causally engaged in the world, and does not just establish certain laws of nature. The key is in understanding just what Malebranche means by general volitions'.

It is well known that the French Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) was both an occasionalist in metaphysics and a mechanist in physics. He consistently argued that God is the only true caus...

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 20, Issue 3, Page 627-630, May 2012.

Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology has employed a variant of occasionalist causation since 2002, with sensual objects acting as the mediators of causation between real objects. While the mechanism for living beings creating sensual objects is clear, how nonliving objects generate sensual objects is not. This essay sets out an interpretation of occasionalism where the mediating agency of nonliving contact is the virtual particles of nominally empty space. Since living, conscious, real objects need to hold sensual objects as sub-components, but (...) nonliving objects do not, this leads to an explanation of why consciousness, in Object-Oriented Ontology, might be described as doubly withdrawn: a sensual sub-component of a withdrawn real object. (shrink)

Occasionalism is the doctrine that relegates all real causal efficacy exclusively to God. This paper will aim to elucidate in some detail the metaphysical considerations that, together with certain common medieval theological axioms, constitute the philosophical steps leading to this doctrine. First, I will explain how the doctrine of divine conservation implies that we should attribute to divine power causal immediacy in every natural event and that it rules out mere conservationism as a model of the causal relation between (...) God and nature. This leaves concurrentism and occasionalism as the only compatible options. Then I will explain the argument that since no coherent conception of divine concurrence is possible, occasionalism emerges as the only model of the causal relation between God and nature compatible with the doctrine of divine conservation. (shrink)

In a recent article Fred Ablondi compares the different approaches to occasionalism put forward by two eighteenth-century Newtonians, Colin Maclaurin and Andrew Baxter. The goal of this short essay is to respond to Ablondi by clarifying some key features of Maclaurin's views on occasionalism and the cause of gravitational attraction. In particular, I explore Maclaurin's matter theory, his views on the explanatory limits of mechanism, and his appeals to the authority of Newton. This leads to a clearer picture (...) of the way in which Maclaurin understood gravitational attraction and the workings of nature. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Alvin Plantinga defends occasionalism against an important moral objection: if God is the sole direct cause of all the suffering that results from immoral human choices, this causal role is difficult to reconcile with God’s perfect goodness. Plantinga argues that this problem is no worse for occasionalism than for any of the competing views of divine causality; in particular, there is no morally relevant difference between God directly causing suffering and God indirectly causing it. (...) First, we examine Plantinga’s moral parity argument in detail and offer a critical evaluation of it. Then we provide a positive argument, based on the doctrine of doing and allowing, to show why there is a morally relevant difference between God’s direct and indirect causation of suffering. (shrink)

Malebranche held that God acts only by general volitions and so is not constantly interfering in the world. The content of God's volitions appears to include the general laws of nature and the particular initial configuration of the created world, so that occasional or natural causes have an important explanatory role. It is clear that at the least Malebranche meant by a 'general volition' the willing of events which followed general laws. Steven Nadler argued that this is all we should (...) understand by a 'general volition', and so we should think that general volitions are simply particular volitions which follow a general law. I argue that this view is not the correct interpretation of Malebranche's general volitions, for it does not do justice to the theological doctrine of the Treatise, masks the genuine difference between Arnauld and Malebranche, and conflicts with what Malebranche says about practical volitions. I then argue that despite Malebranche's view of general volitions, there is still an important difference between his view and Leibniz's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

말브랑슈 철학에는 하나의 거대한 미로가 존재한다. 신만이 진정한 원인인 기회원인적(occasionalistic) 세계 안에서 인간이 자신의 행동의 원인이 되는 자유의 공간을 확보할 수 있는가의 문제가 바로 그것이다. 이 논문에서는 두 가지 가능한 해결책을 살펴보고자 한다. 먼저 첫 번째 해결책인 ‘인간의 자유는 동의이다.’라는 주장을 살펴볼 것이다. 이 주장에 따르면, 우리의 의지는 선 일반(신)을 사랑하도록 신에 의해서 결정되었지만, 그럼에도 불구하고 말브랑슈는 인간들이 ‘동의(consentement)’를 통해서 자유를 행사한다고 주장한다. 말브랑슈에게 동의는 ‘휴식’ 혹은 ‘정지’인데, 휴식은 실제로 아무것도 산출하지 않는 행위이지만, 그럼에도 불구하고 어떤 변화, 즉 ‘움직임의 정지’가 (...) 있다. 즉 인간은 구체적인 선에 ‘휴식’하는 ‘동의’를 통해서는 ‘실제적인’ 변화를 일으키지 않기 때문에 기회원인론을 훼손시키지 않는 동시에 그럼에도 불구하고 어떤 ‘변화’가 발생한다. 하지만 인간 정신에 주어진 구체적 선에 동의하는 것은 사실 일반적 선인 신이 아니라 인간 정신에 주어진 구체적인 선, 혹은 그 선(쾌락)을 준다고 생각되는 대상에 대해 아무것도 하지 않을 때 가지는 입장이기 때문에 ‘동의’는 인간의 ‘기본값(디폴트) 입장’이고 따라서 거기에 자유가 있다고 생각하기 어렵다. 이 논문에서 살펴볼 두 번째 가능한 해결책은 ‘인간의 자유는 동의의 중단이다.’라는 주장이다. ‘동의의 중단’은 동의처럼 구체적 선에 ‘휴식’하는 대신 우리에게 쾌락을 주는 그 지각을 검토하는 것이다. 따라서 ‘동의의 중단’은 선이나 진리인 것처럼 보이는 대상에 대한 우리의 사랑을 그냥 받아들이는 ‘동의’와는 달리 그 동의를 중단하고 새로운 대상을 찾는 행위이다. 따라서 ‘동의의 중단’은 ‘실제로’ 어떤 일이 일어나게 하는 것처럼 보인다. 또한 동의의 중단은 현재의 관념/지각에서 다른 관념으로 주의(attention)를 돌리는 것을 통해 이루어진다. 즉 현재의 지각의 대상이 사랑할 만한 대상이 아니라고 판단될 때, 새로운 관념에 주의를 기울임으로써 현재 나를 유혹하는 개념에 동의하는 것을 중단한다. 결론적으로 이 논문에서는 두 번째 해결책이 말브랑슈 철학에 존재하는 미로의 출구로 인도하는 실마리가 된다는 점이 해명될 것이다. (shrink)

Was Robert Boyle an occasionalist? And if so, what kind of occasionalist was he? These questions have long troubled commentators, as Boyle’s texts often seem to offer both endorsements of occasionalism and affirmations of bodies’ causal powers. I argue that Boyle’s position is best understood as reductive occasionalism, according to which bodily powers are relations between bodies and God’s action in the world, and there is no causal efficacy in bodies that is not strictly identical to God’s nomological (...) causal efficacy. (shrink)

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) is said to be the first scholar to make history and society the direct objects of a systematic science. This paper will examine the role of occasionalism in his thought. This question is interesting because a perennial objection to occasionalism has been that it denies any real natural order, and therefore precludes the possibility of any systematic natural science. If Ibn Khaldun was an occasionalist, then it would mean that one of the earliest pioneers in (...) attempting to apply a systematic scientific method to the study of history and society did so on the basis of an occasionalist understanding of nature and natural order. Then the question of whether and how his scientific methodology is compatible with occasionalism is of interest for both historical and theoretical reasons, in particular for theists who are exploring occasionalism as a potential framework for a coherent understanding of the natural world (including, in this case, its human and social dimensions) as both the manifestation of divine providence and creativity, and as an object of systematic empirical science. (shrink)

In “Koperski’s New (Improved?) Decretalism,” Robert Larmer argues that my version of nomological realism about the laws of nature logically entails occasionalism. Here I clarify and defend my view against this charge. The main disagreement is whether a proper account of the laws of nature must involve dynamic production—what is commonly called oomph.

In Malebranche's account of occasional causality, God exercises his general will with respect to every event that merits a causal explanation. Nadler distinguishes two pictures of God's involvement; (1) there are as many distinct acts of God's will as there are causal events to be explained; (2) God's will is exercised once only, when the natural order of causes is created. I argue that Malebranche's concept of God is inconsistent with a real distinction between God and acts of his will, (...) and with using temporal parameters to identify God's acts. Thus, Leibniz's pre-established harmony is analogous to Malebranche's occasionalist concurrence. (shrink)

There is a long-standing view that Malebranche and his fellow occasionalists accepted occasionalism to solve the problem of interaction between immaterial souls and extended bodies. Recently, however, scholars have shown this story to be a myth. Malebranche, Geulincx, La Forge, and Cordemoy adopted occasionalism for a variety of reasons, but none did so because of a need to provide a solution to a perceived mind-body problem. Yet there is one Cartesian for whom the “traditional” reading is largely on (...) the mark. François Lamy argues in the second volume of his De la Connoissance de Soi-Meme much as the standard story has it. In this article I discuss and analyze Lamy’s argument, showing how he deals with some of the many concerns that made occasionalism attractive, and how he brings out some of the thorny questions that an occasionalist must face. (shrink)