Nicolas Malebranche
Created things cannot really cause anything; God alone acts on every occasion, and we know the world by seeing ideas in God.
Placement
Occasionalism: we see all things in God.
Key ideas
- Occasionalism
- Vision in God
Influence
Influenced by 2
Augustine
influenced by ✓
Malebranche invoked Augustine’s doctrine of illumination for his thesis that we see all things in God (The Search after Truth, 1674–75). N. Malebranche, De la recherche de la vérité (1674–75); SEP “Nicolas Malebranche”
Augustine › 354–430
René Descartes
influenced by ✓
Reading Descartes’ Treatise on Man in 1664 turned Malebranche to philosophy; The Search after Truth (1674–75) keeps Cartesian dualism and extension as the essence of matter. N. Malebranche, De la recherche de la vérité (1674–75); SEP “Nicolas Malebranche”
René Descartes › 1596–1650
Influenced 4
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
influenced ✓
Leibniz, who met Malebranche in Paris in 1675, agreed that created substances do not act on one another, but replaced occasional causes by pre-established harmony (New System, 1695). G. W. Leibniz, Système nouveau de la nature (Journal des savants, 1695); M. R. Antognazza, Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography (2009); SEP “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz › 1646–1716
Mary Astell
influenced
In Letters concerning the Love of God (1695), exchanged with John Norris, Astell took up Malebranche’s view that God, as sole cause of our pleasures, alone deserves love. M. Astell and J. Norris, Letters concerning the Love of God (1695); SEP “Mary Astell”
Evidence: AI draft
Mary Astell › 1666–1731
George Berkeley
influenced ✓
Like Malebranche, Berkeley made God the cause of our ideas of sense, but in the Three Dialogues (1713) he distinguished his view from seeing all things in God. G. Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713); Philosophical Commentaries (1707–08); SEP “George Berkeley”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
George Berkeley › 1685–1753
David Hume
influenced
Hume took Malebranche’s argument that no necessary connection between finite causes and effects is perceived, but rejected his conclusion that God is the only true cause (Treatise, 1739). D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), “Of the idea of necessary connexion”; An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748); SEP “David Hume”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
David Hume › 1711–1776
Criticism
Mutual critique 1
Antoine Arnauld ⇄ mutual
criticised
Malebranche answered Arnauld’s attack in his Réponse (1684) and later letters, defending ideas as objects in God distinct from mental modifications, against Arnauld’s view of ideas as perceptions. N. Malebranche, Réponse au livre Des vraies et des fausses idées (1684); Trois lettres (1685); SEP “Nicolas Malebranche”
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
Arnauld argued against Malebranche’s vision in God that ideas are the mind’s own perceptions, not representative entities in God (On True and False Ideas, 1683). A. Arnauld, Des vraies et des fausses idées (1683); SEP “Antoine Arnauld”
Evidence: AI draft
Antoine Arnauld › 1612–1694
Criticized by 2
Damaris Masham
criticised by
Masham rejected the view of Malebranche, taken up by Norris, that God alone causes our pleasures and so alone deserves love (Discourse concerning the Love of God, 1696). D. Masham, A Discourse concerning the Love of God (1696); SEP “Damaris Cudworth Masham”
Evidence: AI draft
Damaris Masham › 1659–1708
Immanuel Kant
criticised by
Kant counted Malebranche’s continuing intuition of God among the deus ex machina answers to how concepts fit objects – ‘the greatest absurdity’ (letter to Marcus Herz, 1772). I. Kant, letter to Marcus Herz, 21 February 1772 (AA X 129–135)
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Criticizes 1
Zhu Xi
criticised
Malebranche’s Dialogue between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher (1708) attacks the Neo-Confucian li, as systematised by Zhu Xi and known to him from missionary reports, as an impersonal principle that confuses God with matter – in his eyes close to Spinoza. N. Malebranche, Entretien d’un philosophe chrétien et d’un philosophe chinois sur l’existence et la nature de Dieu (1708); D. E. Mungello, “Malebranche and Chinese Philosophy”, Journal of the History of Ideas 41 (1980)
Evidence: AI draft
Zhu Xi › 1130–1200
Works
The sources of error in the mind – we see all things in God.
Position
Malebranche united Cartesian philosophy with Augustine’s theology. If mind and body are completely different substances, he asked, how can one act on the other? His answer was occasionalism: no created thing has real causal power; God alone acts, and creaturely events are merely the “occasions” on which he acts according to general laws. Likewise we do not perceive things through ideas in our own minds but see all things in God, in whom the ideas reside. God acts through simple general laws rather than particular wills, which also explains the existence of evil. His views influenced Berkeley, and his analysis of causation prepared the ground for Hume.
Life & context
Born in Paris in 1638, Nicolas Malebranche joined the Oratory, a congregation of priests, in 1660. Reading Descartes’s Treatise on Man in 1664 made him turn to philosophy. He spent the rest of his life in Paris writing and in lively controversies, above all with Antoine Arnauld, and corresponded with Leibniz. He died in 1715.
Further main works
- Treatise on Nature and Grace (1680)
- Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion (1688)
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