OCCASIONALISM

Occasionalism: translation

OccasionalismDaisie RadnerThe seventeenth-century doctrine known as occasionalism arose in response to aperceived problem. Cartesian philosophy generated the problem and provided thecontext for the answer. In the Cartesian ontology, mind and matter aresubstances totally different in nature. Souls or minds have modes of thought butnot modes of extension; bodies have modes of extension but not of thought.Modes are properties that affect or modify substances. A substance with aparticular mode can be conceived as not having this mode, but the mode cannotbe conceived apart from the particular substance of which it is the mode. Themodes of each substance belong to that substance alone and cannot belong to anyother substance.¹Each mind has its own thoughts, that is, its own perceptionsand volitions, and they are numerically distinct from the thoughts of every othermind. Likewise, each body has its own figure, and each moving body has its ownmotion. Even when two bodies are said to have the same shape, the mode whichis the figure of one body is numerically distinct from the mode which is thefigure of the other.In the 1640s, the following question was put to Descartes by Pierre Gassendiand again by Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia: how can the human mind act on thehuman body, and the body on the mind, if they are two substances totallydifferent in nature? Descartes responds to Gassendi by dismissing the question:The whole problem contained in such questions arises simply from asupposition that is false and cannot in any way be proved, namely that, ifthe soul and the body are two substances whose nature is different, thisprevents them from being able to act on each other.²To Elizabeth, he acknowledges that the question is a fair one. He appeals to thenotion of the union of soul and body, ‘on which depends our notion of the soul’spower to move the body, and the body’s power to act on the soul and causesensations and passions’.³He considers the notion of the union of soul and bodyto be a primitive notion and does not attempt to analyse it.What belongs to the union of the soul and the body can be known onlyobscurely by pure intellect or by intellect aided by imagination, but it canbe known very clearly by the senses.That is why people who neverphilosophize and use only their senses have no doubt that the soul movesthe body and that the body acts on the soul.⁴The problem of mind-body interaction stems not from the Cartesian dualismperse,but from the dualism together with a certain view of efficient causation.Statements of this view are found in Descartes’sThird MeditationandSecondReplies. ‘There is nothing in the effect which was not previously present in thecause, either in a similar or in a higher form.’⁵The reason why what is in theeffect must preexist in the cause is that the cause communicates reality to theeffect. ‘For where, I ask, could the effect get its reality from, if not from thecause? And how could the cause give it to the effect unless it possessed it?’⁶Howcan the body cause sensations and passions in the soul, when it contains no suchmodes either in a similar or in a higher form? How can the soul move the body?Even if the soul is considered to contain motion in a higher form in so far as ithas the idea of motion, how does the soul give reality to the body’s motion?The causation of motion is no less problematic in the action of one body uponanother. Consider the instance in which a moving body B comes into contactwith a smaller body C, which is at rest. According to Descartes’s fifth rule ofimpact, body B ‘transfers’ part of its motion to C, as much of it as would permitthe two bodies to move at the same speed.⁷In a letter to Henry More, Descartesadmits that ‘motion, being a mode of a body, cannot pass from one body toanother’.⁸If no literal transference of motion occurs, then how does the movingbody produce motion in the body moved?Descartes never explicated the concept of communication of reality. To thephilosophers we are about to consider, there seemed to be only two ways inwhich a cause could give to an effect something that it possessed in itself: eitherthe cause transfers something from itself to the effect, or else it createssomething in the effect comparable with what it has in itself. A created substancecannot transfer anything from itself to another substance, since everything in it isa mode of it, and the modes of one substance cannot be modes of another. Theonly way in which one substance can cause a change in another is by creating anew mode in the other substance. If a mode comes into existence and no createdsubstance has the power to create it, then it must have been produced by God.Occasionalism may be characterized in general as the view that causal efficacybelongs to God instead of to creatures. A being with causal efficacy is onehaving the power to produce a substance or a mode of substance. Occasionalismmay be either partial or complete in the extent to which causal efficacy is deniedto creatures. In partial occasionalism, at least some created substances have thepower to modify themselves or other things. Some modes are produced bycreatures; the rest are produced directly by God on the occasion of certaincreatures being in certain states. A complete occasionalist denies that createdsubstances have any causal efficacy whatever. In complete occasionalism, nocreature has the power to bring any mode into existence, either in itself or inanother thing. All modes are produced directly by God on the occasion of certaincreatures being in certain states.Who was the first Cartesian philosopher to advocate occasionalism? Descarteshimself sometimes uses the word ‘occasion’ to describe the body’s action on thesoul. For example, he writes in theTreatise on Manthat, when the nerve fibresare pulled with a force great enough to separate them from the parts to whichthey are attached, they ‘cause a movement in the brain which gives occasion forthe soul…to have the sensation ofpain’.⁹Descartes ought not on this account tobe taken for an occasionalist, however. He does not assert that God produces thesensation on the occasion of the body’s motion, but only that the motion givesoccasion for the soul to have the sensation. There is no textual evidence that hetied the notion of giving occasion to a denial of causal efficacy. As Gouhierobserves, for Descartes ‘occasion’ is a word of ordinary language rather than asubstitute for the word ‘cause’.¹⁰There are hints of occasionalism in the work of the German Cartesianphilosopher Johannes Clauberg (1622–65). InDe corporis et animae in homineconjunctione,published in 1664, Clauberg argues that since the effect cannot benobler than the cause the movements of the body are onlyprocatarcticcauses,which give occasion to the mind as principal cause to elicit ideas that arepotentially in it. He also claims that the soul does not produce movement in thebody but only directs it as a coachman directs a carriage. Nevertheless, the keyelement of occasionalism, the assignment of causal efficacy to God in specificinstances, is missing in his writings.¹¹Occasionalism has three originators: Louis de La Forge (1632–66); Géraud deCordemoy (1626–84); and Arnold Geulincx (1624–69). La Forge was the firstCartesian to use the term ‘occasional cause’.¹²HisTraitté de l’esprit de l’hommeappeared at the end of 1665, although it carries the publication date of 1666.According to a contemporary, Jacques Gousset, La Forge disclosed hisoccasionalist opinion about 1658.¹³Cordemoy’sDiscernement du corps et del’âmewas published in 1666. At the beginning of the Fifth Discourse, on theunion of the mind and the body and how they act on each other, he remarks thathe told some friends about his ideas seven or eight years earlier. Battail takes thisas evidence that Cordemoy’s occasionalism was already mature in 1658 or1659.¹⁴Thus La Forge and Cordemoy developed and published theiroccasionalist views at the same time. It is possible that there was communicationbetween these two philosophers.¹⁵But there is no evidence of any actual meeting.¹⁶Neither author refers to the other. According to the editor of Clauberg’sOpera,Clauberg corresponded with La Forge.¹⁷La Forge refers to Clauberg in theTraitté,but not in reference to occasionalism.Geulincx’s occasionalism is in theEthica,the first part of which waspublished in 1665, and in theMetaphysica vera,published posthumously in 1691.There is no evidence of influence in either direction between Geulincx on theone hand and La Forge and Cordemoy on the other. According to Vleeschauwer,occasionalism was present in Geulincx’s work in 1652, and his system was fixedby 1664. Although it is possible that Clauberg could have influenced him in theconsolidation of his system, Geulincx could not have known about the ideas ofLa Forge and Cordemoy before he published his own.¹⁸Influence in the otherdirection, from Geulincx to La Forge and Cordemoy, is equally untenable: thereis no evidence that either of them was familiar with his work.¹⁹While there is some question about the influence of the early occasionalists onone another, it is undeniable that at least some of them were sources for theoccasionalist system of Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715). Malebranche citesCordemoy’sDiscernementin his ownSearch after Truth.²⁰He had a copy of LaForge’sTraittéin his library.²¹Although his occasionalism has affinities to thatof Geulincx, there is no evidence that Malebranche read Geulincx’sEthicaorMetaphysica vera. He never refers to Geulincx, and these books were not in hislibrary, although he did have a copy of Geulincx’sSaturnalia seu questionesquodlibeticae.When Malebranche devised his theory of causation, he was very much in tunewith the times. His achievement is best understood when viewed against ahistorical background. Thus, before I turn to Malebranche’s occasionalism, Ishall sketch the occasionalist positions of La Forge, Cordemoy and Geulincx.LA FORGELouis de La Forge was born in La Flèche and lived in Saumur, where hepractised medicine. He collaborated with Clerselier on the 1664 edition ofDescartes’sTreatise on Man,adding his ownRemarques. He has been called thephysiologist of Cartesianism.²²The full title of his treatise reveals his mainconcern:Traitté de l’esprit de l’homme, de ses facultez et fonctions, et de sonunion avec le corps, suivant les principes de René Descartes. La Forge sawhimself as a disciple of Descartes, but he was dissatisfied with Descartes’scursory treatment of the mind-body problem. He sought to complete Descartes’ssystem by providing an account of the nature of the mind-body union. A union,he says, is a relation by which two things are considered as constituting one in acertain manner. The union of mind and body is a relation of mutual dependencebetween the actions and passions of one substance and the actions and passions ofthe other. Motions in the body make the mind perceive, and the mind’s volitionsmake the body move.²³How do the passions of the mind depend on the actions of the body and viceversa? La Forge says that it is ‘as equivocal cause that the mind by its thoughtconstrains the body to move, and that the body in moving gives occasion to themind to produce some thought’.²⁴The term ‘equivocal cause’ is not a synonymfor ‘occasional cause’. Equivocal causes are contrasted with univocal causes: acause is univocal when its effect resembles it, equivocal when its effect does notresemble it. Unlike the term ‘occasional cause’, the term ‘equivocal cause’ isapplicable to God as well as to creatures. ‘For God is no less the creator of allthings, and artisans creators of their works, though all these things are only theequivocal causes of these effects.’²⁵Occasional causes are contrasted with real (i.e. efficacious) causes. La Forgeuses the term ‘occasional cause’ in discussing the causation of ideas. There are,he says, two causes of ideas, ‘the one principal and real, the other remote andmerely occasional’.²⁶He goes on to say that bodiescan be at most only the remote and occasional cause of them, which bymeans of the union of mind and body constrains the faculty we have ofthinking, and determines it to the production of those ideas of which it isthe principal and real cause.²⁷An occasional cause, then, is something that determines the real cause to producethe effect. From the passage just quoted, it is evident that La Forge is not acomplete occasionalist, for he grants that the mind has causal efficacy withrespect to its own ideas. A few pages later, he identifies the mind’s causal powerwith its will: ‘Thus we must not doubt that there exists in the mind an active powerthat produces and forms ideas which it perceives voluntarily, and we must becertain that this power is its will.’²⁸The problem of causation extends beyond the interaction of mind and body. Italso includes the action of one body upon another.If I said that it is no more difficult to conceive how the mind of man,without being extended, can move the body, and how the body, withoutbeing a spiritual thing, can act on the mind, than to conceive how a bodyhas the power to move itself and to communicate its motion to anotherbody, I do not think I would find credence in the minds of many people; yetthere is nothing more true.²⁹It is evident that bodies communicate motion to one another, but not so evidenthow this is accomplished.Do our senses teach us how motion can pass from one body into another?Why does only part of it pass, and why cannot a body communicate itsmotion in the same way as a master communicates his knowledge, withoutlosing anything of what he gives?³⁰For his causal analysis of the communication of motion, La Forge followsDescartes in distinguishing motion, or the transport of a body from one vicinityto another, from the force that transports the body. Motion is ‘a mode, which isnot distinct from the body to which it belongs, and which can no more pass fromone subject into another than the other modes of matter, nor befit a spiritualsubstance’.³¹Moving force is not in moving bodies. ‘If a body cannot moveitself, then in my opinion it is evident that it cannot move another. And thusevery body in motion must be impelled by a thing entirely distinct from it, whichis not body.’³²Moving force is not in bodies, because the idea of extension is notinvolved in its concept. ‘Thus we have reason to believe that the force whichmoves is no less really distinct from matter than thought is, and that it pertains aswell as it to an incorporeal substance.’³³Human minds lack the force to move matter, not because minds areincorporeal, but because matter is already moved by its creator. In creatingbodies, God produces them at rest or in motion. No creature, whether spiritual orcorporeal, can make a body change its place ‘if the creator does not do it himself,for it is he who produces this part of matter in place A’.³⁴Not only must Godcontinue to create a body if it is to persevere in being; he must also ‘put ithimself in place B if he wills that it should be there; for if he put it anywhere else,no force would be capable of dislodging it’.³⁵God is thus ‘the first, universal, and total cause’ of all motions in the world.³⁶Bodies and minds function as ‘particular causes of these same motions…bydetermining and obliging the first cause to apply his moving force upon bodiesupon which he would not have exercised it without them’.³⁷God’s moving forceis determined by bodies in accordance with the laws of motion, and by mindsaccording to the extent to which bodily movement is subject to the will; ‘theforce that bodies and minds have of moving consists in that alone.’³⁸Some commentators claim that La Forge was reluctant to embraceoccasionalism.³⁹Their main textual evidence is the following statement:‘Nevertheless, you ought not to say that God does everything, and that the bodyand the mind do not really act upon each other.’⁴⁰This statement need not betaken to mean that the mind and the body are causally efficacious with regard toeach other, however. La Forge goes on to explain why it is incorrect to say thesethings: ‘For if the body had not had such a motion, the mind would never havehad such a thought, and if the mind had not had such a thought, perhaps also thebody would never have had such a motion.’⁴¹This reason is quite compatiblewith an occasionalist account of the mind-body relation. In occasionalism, God’sproductive activity is determined by certain creatures being in certain states. Themind would not have a certain thought if the body did not have a certain motion,because God would not have produced that thought were it not for the body’smotion. Likewise, the body would not move in a certain way if the mind lacked acertain thought, because God does not give the body that motion unless the mindhas that thought. The mind and the body ‘really act upon each other’ in the sensethat each plays a decisive role in what happens to the other.CORDEMOYGéraud de Cordemoy was born in Paris in 1626. Originally a lawyer, he servedaslecteurto the Grand Dauphin. His philosophical works includeLeDiscernement du corps et de l’âme(1666);Lettre écrite à un sçavant religieuxde la Compagnie de Jésus,dated 5 November 1667 and published in 1668;Discours physique de la parole(1668); and two smallTraités de métaphysique,published in 1691, seven years after his death.Cordemoy had close ties with the Cartesian school. HisDiscours de l’actiondes corps,which appears as the second discourse in theDiscernement,was firstpublished in the 1664 edition of Descartes’sLe Monde.Cordemoy explicitlydefends Descartes in theLettre écrite à un sçavant religieux,the aim of which is‘to show that all that Monsieur Descartes has written concerning the system of theworld, and concerning the soul of beasts, seems to be drawn from the first chapterof Genesis’.⁴²Although he is generally in agreement with Cartesian principles, Cordemoydiverges from Descartes’s teaching on atoms and the void. According toCordemoy, matter is an aggregate of indivisible extended substances. He baseshis atomism on the metaphysical principle that substances, as unities, areindivisible. ‘I say that each body is an extended substance, and consequentlyindivisible; and that matter is an assemblage of bodies, and consequentlydivisible into as many parts as there are bodies,⁴³By his terms, the human bodyis not really a body but matter. Nevertheless, he follows common usage inreferring to it. We call it abody,he explains, because the arrangement of its partsleads us to regard it as a single thing.⁴⁴Like La Forge, Cordemoy sees the problem of mind-body interaction as partof a larger problem of causation, which also includes the action of one body uponanother. The following statement in theDiscernementechoes La Forge’s in theTraitté:‘Unquestionably, it is no more difficult to conceive the action of mindsupon bodies, or that of bodies upon minds, than to conceive the action of bodiesupon bodies,⁴⁵A moving body collides with a body at rest. The first body stopsmoving; the second one starts. That, says Cordemoy, is all we see. The beliefthat the first body gives motion to the second is a prejudice, which comes fromjudging things solely by what we see. A moving body cannot communicate itsmotion to another body, ‘for the state of one body does not pass into another’.⁴⁶‘It is evident that the motion of each is only a manner of being of it, which, notbeing separable from it, cannot in any way whatsoever pass into the other.’⁴⁷To cause motion is an action. An action can be continued only by the agentthat began it. Thus the cause of motion in bodies is the agent that began to movethem. This first mover of bodies is not a body; for if it were, it would havemotion of itself. But no body has motion of itself, because a body would still be abody if it lost all its motion, and a thing does not have of itself what it can losewithout ceasing to be what it is. Since there are just two sorts of substances, mindand body, and the first mover of bodies is not a body, it must be a mind. Thismind continues to move bodies.⁴⁸Thus, when body B, in motion, collides withbody C, which is at rest, C is moved after the collision by the same cause thatmoved B before, namely, by the mind that first set bodies in motion. Thecollision is ‘an occasion for the mind that moved the first to move the second’.⁴⁹The true cause of motion is insensible, and we are often content to stop at whatwe see. In such cases, we say that the motion of bodies is explained by the factthat other bodies collided with them, ‘thus alleging the occasion for the cause’.⁵⁰The human body is moved by the same mind that moves all other bodies. Weobserve that when we will to move our body in a certain way, it movesaccordingly. But we also know that motions occur in our body in the absence ofvolitions, and that motions sometimes fail to occur even though we will them.Hence our will is neither necessary nor sufficient for bodily movement. Ourweakness shows us that we do not cause motion simply by willing it. Thisimpotence of our will is due to our being dependent on something else for ourexistence.But if we consider that this permanent defect of our mind comes only fromits not being through itself, and that if it were through itself, it would lacknothing, so that all that it willed would exist; we would readily apprehendthat there is a first Mind, who, being through himself, needs only his will inorder to do everything; and that, nothing being lacking to him, as soon ashe wills that what is capable of being moved should be in motion, thatmust necessarily happen.⁵¹God exercises his power according to laws he has laid down: laws of collisionbetween bodies; and, between minds and bodies, laws by which certain motionsin the body are followed by certain perceptions in the mind, and volitions of themind are followed by bodily movements.⁵²Although bodies do not really causemotion, one body can be said to act upon another, ‘when on its occasion, thisother body begins to be arranged or moved otherwise than it was previously’.⁵³Abody can be said to act upon a mind if this body, or a mode of it, is perceived bythe mind, ‘so that on its occasion, this mind has thoughts that it did not havepreviously’.⁵⁴A mind can be said to act on a body if, as soon as the mind willsthat the body should be moved in a certain direction, the body is so moved. Onecan say that our mind acts on our body, even thoughit is not really our mind that causes the movement…. And, as one isobliged to acknowledge that the collision of two bodies is an occasion forthe power that moves the first to move the second, one should have nodifficulty in conceiving that our will is an occasion for the power thatalready moves a body to direct its movement in a certain directioncorresponding to this thought.⁵⁵In theDiscernement,Cordemoy deprives bodies of all causal efficacy, andhuman minds of the power to move bodies. In theDiscours physique de laparole,he adds that minds do not cause any of their own perceptions: ‘It is asimpossible for our souls to have new perceptions without God, as it is impossiblefor bodies to have new motions without him,’⁵⁶Thus Cordemoy is a morecomplete occasionalist than La Forge, who allowed the mind the power toproduce its own ideas.Does the mind have any causal efficacy with respect to its volitions?Cordemoy takes up this question in the secondTraité de métaphysique,‘ThatGod does everything real in our actions, without depriving us of our liberty’.Bodies, he says, are capable of being acted upon, but not of acting. Minds arecapable of both passions and actions. Their perceptions are their passions; theirvolitions are their actions. God causes the actions of minds, just as he causestheir passions.And, as it cannot be said that the passions of minds are his passions, but onlythat they are the passions of minds, it cannot be said that the actions ofminds are his actions, but only that they are the actions of minds.⁵⁷When the mind wills, God causes the volition, but it is still the mind that wills.God has made all things for himself. Bodies do not know this end, but mindsdo and thus need action to pursue it. God gives minds an unceasing desire forthis end, and an inclination to choose a means to it. When presented with severalalternatives, minds can resolve not to choose, or they can deliberate and thendecide on one. This resolution or this decision ‘is an action, which in truth wouldnot be in them without God, but which is their action, and not God’s’.⁵⁸Becauseit is theirs, they can be held responsible for it. God produces all that is real in thewilling situation, but ‘if the minds have chosen badly, it is a fault of which theyalone are guilty. God has made…what suffices to act well, and the minds havenot used the power that he put into them.’⁵⁹GEULINCXArnold Geulincx was born in Antwerp. He was a professor of philosophy at theUniversity of Louvain from 1646 until 1658, when he was dismissed forunspecified reasons.⁶⁰He moved from Belgium to the Netherlands and convertedto Calvinism. With some difficulty, he obtained a position at the university inLeyden, first as reader, then asprofessor extraordinarius. He died of the plaguein 1669, at the age of 45. The first complete edition of theEthicaappeared in1675. Geulincx’s occasionalist views are found in this work, as well as in theMetaphysica vera,published in 1691.Geulincx’s philosophy is a synthesis of Cartesianism and Jansenism. Cartesianelements include thecogito,the dualism and the inertness of matter. FromJansenism comes the theme of human impotence. Occasionalism provides ananalysis of human impotence in terms compatible with Cartesian metaphysics.Geulincx’s treatment of occasionalism is less systematic than that of either LaForge or Cordemoy. In particular, he pays little attention to the problem ofinteraction between bodies. As a moral philosopher, he is concerned more withthe ethical implications of occasionalism than with the elaboration of it as acausal theory.Geulincx argues against the causal efficacy of created things, using a principlewhich he says is evident in itself:Quod nescis quomodo fiat, id non facis—if youdo not know how it is done, you do not do it. He applies this principle to bodiesas well as to minds. Material objects cannot cause sentiments in minds, becausethey areres brutae,brute things, with no thought of any kind. Lackingknowledge, they cannot know how sentiments are produced. Minds do not causesentiments in themselves, since they, too, are ignorant of how it is done.Sentiments are produced in the mind by a thinking being, one that has theknowledge needed to make them. This being acts through the mediation of thehuman body, giving the mind a diversity of sentiments as the body is diverselyaffected.⁶¹The mind cannot cause movement in the body, not even so-called voluntarymovement, for the mind does not know how it is accomplished. Most people areentirely ignorant of the nerves and pathways through which motions arecommunicated from the brain to the limbs. Those who learn anatomy andphysiology were able to move their limbs before they gained such knowledge,and they move them no better afterwards. This shows that it is not by one’s ownknowledge that one’s limbs are moved. The author of my bodily movement, then,is a being other than myself.⁶²I want my body to move in a certain manner, as intalking or walking; ‘thereupon certain parts of my body are moved, not in fact byme, but by the mover’.⁶³‘Certainly, it is never done, strictly speaking, because Iwill, but because the mover wills.’⁶⁴In the Annotations to theEthica,Geulincx compares the mind and the body totwo clocks:My will does not move the mover to move my limbs; but the one who hasimparted motion to matter and has laid down the laws to it, the same onehas formed my will and thus has closely united these very dissimilar things(the motion of matter and the determination of my will), so that, when mywill wishes, motion of the desired kind is present, and, on the contrary,when the motion is present, the will has willed it, without any causality orinflux from one to the other. Just as with two clocks that agree with eachother and with the daily course of the sun: when one sounds and indicatesthe hours to us, the other sounds in the same way and indicates the samenumber of hours to us; not because there is any causality from one to theother, but because of the mere dependence, in which both are constructedby the same art and by similar activity.⁶⁵The analogy of two clocks has an obvious affinity to the analogy later used byLeibniz.⁶⁶Leibniz uses the analogy to differentiate three systems: interactionism,occasionalism and his own system of pre-established harmony. Geulincx, bycontrast, has only two alternatives in mind: interactionism and occasionalism. InLeibniz’s version of occasionalism, the craftsman continually adjusts the clocksto keep them in agreement. In Geulincx’s version, the clockmaker ensuresagreement by the way in which he constructs the clocks. In this respect, theoccasionalism of Geulincx is like the pre-established harmony of Leibniz.Geulincx’s occasionalism is unlike Leibniz’s system in that God acts directlyon the mind and the body, producing changes in one corresponding to thechanges he produces in the other. This aspect is not brought out in the analogy ofthe two clocks. It is illustrated by another analogy, which Geulincx presents justbefore his clock analogy. A baby in a cradle wants to be rocked. If the cradlerocks, it does so not because the baby wills it, but because his mother or nurserocks it. Just as the cradle rocks in accordance with the baby’s wish, though it isrocked by someone else, so, too, our limbs move in accordance with our will, butthe movement is caused by a will other than our own.Having made the point that God is the one who produces voluntary motion,Geulincx introduces the analogy of the clocks to illustrate a further aspect ofoccasionalism, namely, the regularity of God’s action. The two clocks stay inagreement, even though there is no causal connection between them, becausetheir maker acts according to general laws. Geulincx says in theEthicathat Godproduces his effects ‘according to laws most freely established by him anddepending solely on his decision’.⁶⁷He adds that if my tongue moves at thecommand of my will, but the earth does not tremble at my command, the soledifference is that God decided that the first movement should occur when I willit, but not the second. In the annotation to this passage, he evokes the clockmetaphor: God has willed and arranged that when the clock of my will sounds,the clock of my tongue sounds also, whereas he has not arranged a similaragreement between the clock of my will and the clock of the earth.⁶⁸The human condition consists in being an embodied mind, that is, a mindunited to a body in such a way that it seems to act on and to be acted on by it.⁶⁹Nevertheless, we have no more causal efficacy with respect to our own bodilymovements than we have with respect to the rising and setting of the stars or theebb and flow of the sea. ‘Thus, I am a mere spectator of this machinery. I makenothing in it, I amend nothing in it; I neither construct nor destroy anything. Allthat is the work of a certain other.’⁷⁰‘I can, in this world, do nothing outsidemyself…. I merely look on this world.’⁷¹I am not, however, a mere spectator ofmy own volitions. To will or not to will is my deed. I have the power to conformmy will to Reason or to refuse to do so. The greatest freedom is achieved bywilling what Reason prescribes and not willing what it prohibits.⁷²MALEBRANCHEThe occasionalist movement culminates in the work of Nicolas Malebranche, apriest of the congregation of the Oratory. Although he accepted the Cartesianontology of substance and mode, mind and matter, Malebranche did not hesitateto depart from Descartes’s teaching when reason or experience demanded it. Hisdisagreement with Descartes is most explicit on the questions of the nature ofideas and the laws of motion.Like La Forge, Malebranche was dissatisfied with Descartes’s refusal toexplicate the union of mind and body. One cannot dismiss the question simply bysaying that experience plainly shows that the body and the mind act on eachother. Experience teaches that the mind feels pain when the body is injured, butnot that the body has any power to act upon the mind.⁷³It is not enough to saythat the body and the mind interact by virtue of their union. ‘The word “union”explains nothing. It is itself in need of explanation.’⁷⁴Moreover, it cannot be partof the explanation that the mind and the body become capable of the same sortsof modifications.Each substance remains what it is, and as the soul is incapable of extensionand movement, so the body is incapable of sensation and inclinations. Theonly alliance of mind and body known to us consists in a natural andmutual correspondence of the soul’s thoughts with the brain traces, and ofthe soul’s emotions with the movements of the animal spirits.⁷⁵Malebranche’s arguments for occasionalism are found in a number of his writings,especiallyThe Search after Truth,first published in 1674–5 (the Elucidationswere added in the third edition of 1677–8);Méditations chrétiennes etmétaphysiques(1683); andDialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion(1688). Heconsiders all cases of alleged causal action by created things: bodies acting onbodies; bodies acting on minds; minds acting on bodies; minds acting onthemselves to produce sentiments, ideas and volitions. He rejects each of them inturn.Malebranche gives two types of argument against the causal efficacy ofbodies. The first proceeds from the premise that material substance is passive bynature. The only kinds of properties that pertain to extension are figure andmotion. As extended things, bodies have the passive faculty of receiving suchmodes, but they lack the active faculty of producing them. ‘A mountain, a house,a rock, a grain of sand, in short, the tiniest or largest body conceivable does nothave the power to move itself.’⁷⁶Moreover, no body has the power to produceideas or sentiments in a mind. ‘Do you think that a figure can produce an idea,and a local movement an agreeable or disagreeable sentiment?’⁷⁷The second type of argument has the form ofreductio ad absurdum. Supposethat bodies had a power to act or to bring about change. The exercise of thispower would involve some state of affairs that is incompatible with the Cartesianontology. Malebranche uses this form of argument against the human body ascause of sensations in the mind, and also against one body as cause of anotherbody’s motion. Suppose that the human body acquired a power to act on themind by virtue of its union with the mind. This power would have to be either asubstance or a mode. If it is a substance, then the mind is acted on by thissubstance and not by the body. If the power is a mode, then there is a mode ofextension which is neither figure nor motion. But this is impossible.Consequently, the body can have no power of acting on the mind.⁷⁸Similarly,suppose that bodies in motion have moving force in themselves and that theycommunicate this force to bodies they encounter. This would involve thetransference of a mode from one substance to another, which is impossible. ‘If themoving force belonged to the bodies in motion, it would be amodeof theirsubstance; and it is a contradiction thatmodesgo from substance to substance.’⁷⁹‘If it is a mode, it is a contradiction that it passes from one body into another,since the mode is only the substance in such and such a manner.’⁸⁰Malebranche gives a further reason why bodies could not communicatemoving force even if they had it: ‘For the bodies that collide communicate theirmotion with a regularity, a promptitude, a proportion worthy of an infinitewisdom.’⁸¹In some passages, he suggests that bodies would need knowledge inorder to exercise their alleged power in a manner appropriate to thecircumstances:For it is evident that a wisdom, and an infinite wisdom, is necessary inorder to regulate the communication of motions with the precision, theproportion, and the uniformity that we see. Since a body cannot know theinfinite bodies that it meets at every turn, it is obvious that even if onesupposes some knowledge in it, it could not itself have brought about, in theinstant of collision, the distribution of the moving force that transports it.⁸²But suppose that this body really had the force to move itself. In whatdirection will it go? At what degree of speed will it move itself?…I evengrant that this body has enough freedom and knowledge to determine itsmovement and the degree of its speed: I grant that it is master of itself. Buttake care,…for, supposing that this body finds itself surrounded by aninfinity of others, what will become of it when it encounters one of whichit knows neither the solidity nor the size?⁸³Any similarity here between Malebranche and Geulincx is only superficial. ForGeulincx, the mere fact that bodies lack knowledge is sufficient to deprive themof causal efficacy. Malebranche’s point is not that bodies need knowledge inorder to produce motionper se,but that they need it in order to produce motionwith the regularity that it actually exhibits. No explanation of this regularity canbe found in the nature of bodies, even if one supposes them to have movingforce.Moving force, the power to move bodies, lies not in bodies but in their creator.Like La Forge, Malebranche defends this position by appeal to the Cartesiandoctrine of continuous creation and the principle that to create a body is to createit at rest or in motion.Creation does not pass: the conservation of creatures is on the part of Godsimply a continued creation, simply the same volition which subsists andoperates unceasingly. Now, God cannot conceive, nor consequently will,that a body be nowhere or that it not have certain relations of distance withother bodies. Hence, God cannot will that this chair exist and, by hisvolition, create or conserve it without His placing it here or there orelsewhere. Hence, it is a contradiction that one body be able to moveanother.⁸⁴When God creates individual substances, he wills that they exist in certainmanners, that is, he wills that they have certain modes. Rest consists in anunchanging relation of distance to other bodies; motion, in a changing relation ofdistance. A body must have one or the other of these modes. So long as God createsa body in motion, nothing can bring that body to rest; so long as he creates it atrest, nothing can set it in motion.No power can transport it where God does not transport it, nor fix or stop itwhere God does not stop it, unless it is because God accommodates theefficacy of His action to the inefficacious action of his creatures.⁸⁵Finite minds do not have the power to move bodies. Like Cordemoy,Malebranche denies causal efficacy to created minds on the ground that there isno necessary connection between their volitions and the occurrence of what iswilled. A true (i.e. efficacious) cause is ‘one such that the mind perceives anecessary connection between it and its effect’.⁸⁶There is such a relationbetween God’s will and its effects, for it follows from the idea of God as anomnipotent being that whatever he wills necessarily takes place. It is acontradiction that God wills my arm to be moved and it remains motionless.There is no necessary connection, however, between my will and the movementof my arm; no contradiction is involved in the statement that I will to move myarm but it does not move. Thus I am not the true cause of the movement.⁸⁷Minds are equally impotent with regard to their own sentiments, and for thesame reason: there is no necessary connection between the mind’s volition tohave a certain sentiment and its having that sentiment. This is shown by the factthat we often feel otherwise than we wish to feel. ‘But it is not my soul eitherthat produces in itself the sensation of pain that afflicts it, for it feels the pain inspite of itself.’⁸⁸Malebranche also denies causal efficacy to minds on the ground that they lackthe knowledge required to produce their alleged effects. He argues in this wayagainst the mind as cause of ideas and of bodily movements. In both contexts,the argument is based on the Cartesian principle that the mind can will only whatit knows, or, as Descartes puts it, ‘we cannot will anything without understandingwhat we will’.⁸⁹The structure of the argument is as follows. If the mindproduces X, then it does so by willing that X exist. In order to will that X exist,the mind must know what X is. But the mind does not know what X is. Hencethe mind cannot produce X. With regard to ideas, Malebranche writes: ‘I denythat my will produces my ideas in me, for I do not see even how it could producethem, because my will, which is unable to act or will without knowledge,presupposes my ideas and does not produce them.’⁹⁰This argument figures in thecase for the vision in God. When we wish to think of some object, the idea of thatobject becomes present to the mind. The mind cannot have produced the idea,for in order to form the idea of an object, one must already have an idea of it, anidea which does not depend on the will.⁹¹When the knowledge argument is applied against the mind as cause of bodilymovement, the premise needs more elaboration. I will to move my arm and myarm moves. I know what I will in the sense that I have the idea of my armmoving. But this idea does not contain sufficient information to enable me towill the movement into existence. My arm moves by a complex physiologicalprocess. Animal spirits pass through certain nerve ducts toward muscles in thearm, distending and contracting them, thereby moving the arm in a particularway. In order to produce the motion by an act of will, it is not enough for me towill that the end result occur. I must will the physiological process in all itsdetail. And in order to will the process, I must know what it is. Yet people whodo not know that they have animal spirits, nerves and muscles move their limbsperfectly well, often better than those most learned in anatomy. This observationappears inThe Search after Truthand in theMéditations chrétiennes etmétaphysiques. In the latter, the Word goes on to ask: ‘Can one do, can one evenwill, what one does not know how to do?’⁹²In theSearch,Malebranche goes onto conclude:Therefore, men will to move their arms, and only God is able and knowshow to move them. If a man cannot turn a tower upside down, at least heknows what must be done to do so; but there is no man who knows what mustbe done to move one of his fingers by means of animal spirits.⁹³Here Malebranche is close to Geulincx. Geulincx’s axiom was: ‘If you do notknow how it is done, you do not do it.’ Malebranche, too, speaks of knowing howsomething is done, and he equates this with knowing how to do it. InMalebranche, however, the principle clearly hinges on the Cartesian principlethat knowing is a necessary condition of willing, and as such it appliesexclusively to beings having a faculty of will. To be sure, Malebranche appliesthe principle to bodies, as we saw earlier; but he does so only on the suppositionthat bodies are endowed with something akin to will.Does the mind have causal efficacy with respect to its volitions? LikeCordemoy, Malebranche insists that God produces all that is real in the willingsituation. Will is the natural impression that carries us toward the good ingeneral.⁹⁴Malebranche compares the mind’s inclinations to the motions ofbodies. Like corporeal motion, an inclination of the mind requires a force toproduce it; and like the moving force of bodies, the ‘willing force’ of souls is theaction of God’s will.⁹⁵God creates us with an inclination toward whateverappears good to us, or with an invincible desire to be happy. He also gives us allour agreeable and disagreeable perceptions. When we perceive a real or apparentgood, we have a natural inclination toward it, and God produces this particularinclination in us. As the creator of minds, God is the true cause of all theirmodes, both perceptions and inclinations. The mind’s only power is that ofgiving or suspending consent to its inclinations. In doing so, it produces no newmode in itself. ‘I have always maintained that the soul was active; but that itsacts produce nothing material, or bring about by themselves, by their ownefficacy, no new modalities, no material change, either in the body or in itself.’⁹⁶In suspending consent, we judge that a particular good will not make us trulyhappy. Herein lies our freedom.The principle of our freedom is that as we are made for God and are joinedto Him, we can always think of the true good or of goods other than thoseof which we are actually thinking —we can always withhold our consentand seriously examine whether the good we are enjoying is or is not thetrue good.⁹⁷GENERAL LAWSOccasionalism has both a positive and a negative side. The negative side is thedenial of causal efficacy to created things. The positive side is the attribution ofcausal efficacy to God. It is tempting to dismiss the positive side asphilosophically uninteresting. As true cause, God produces effects by willingthem into existence, a process that is at bottom incomprehensible, as Malebranchehimself admits:The saints, who see the divine essence, apparently know this relation, theefficacious omnipotence of the creator’s volitions. For our part, although webelieve it by faith, although we are persuaded of it by reason, the necessaryconnection of the act with its effect is beyond our comprehension; and inthis sense we have no clear idea of his power.⁹⁸The positive side of occasionalism has more to it, however. God produceseffects, but he does so according to general laws, on the occasion of certaincreatures being in certain states. All of the occasionalists refer to general laws ofdivine causation, but Malebranche’s exposition of the lawlike manner of God’saction is by far the most thorough.God is a general cause as well as a true cause. He is a true cause, in that hiswill is efficacious by itself: there is a necessary connection between a divinevolition and its object. God is a general cause, in that he produces effects bygeneral volitions rather than by particular volitions. Malebranche distinguishesbetween general and particular volitions as follows:I say that God acts by general volitions, when he acts according to thegeneral laws that he has established…. I say, on the contrary, that God actsby particular volitions, when the efficacy of his will is not determined bysome general law to produce some effect.⁹⁹A general volition is a volition that effects of type E occur whenever conditionsof type C are present. Examples of general volitions are the volition that mindsfeel pain whenever the bodies to which they are joined are disturbed in certainways, and the volition that whenever bodies collide, motion is distributed incertain proportions according to their mass, speed and direction. A particularvolition, by contrast, is simply a volition that a particular effect occur, forinstance that a certain mind feel pain, or that a body move in a certain way,irrespective of the circumstances.A true cause can act either by general volitions or by particular volitions. ThatGod is a true cause follows from his omnipotence. That he is a general causefollows from his wisdom and immutability. It shows more wisdom to achieve avariety of effects by following a set of laws selected in advance than to achievethe same variety by introducing a separate volition for each effect. Moreover, theformer way of acting bears the character of immutability, since it is uniform andconstant, whereas the latter requires changes of conduct at every turn.¹⁰⁰Asidefrom the initial creation of the world, God acts by particular volitions only whensuch conduct expresses his goodness or justice better than action by generalvolitions expresses his wisdom and immutability. This happens ‘only on certainoccasions that are entirely unknown to us’.¹⁰¹God’s general laws are in principle discoverable, at least in rough outline.They fall into two main categories: laws of nature and laws of grace. The laws ofnature are known through reason and experience. They include (1) laws of thecommunication of motion, according to which motions are produced in animateand inanimate bodies; (2) laws of the union of soul and body, for the productionof voluntary movements in human bodies and of sentiments in human minds; and(3) laws of the union of soul with God or universal Reason, by which weperceive ideas in God. The laws of grace are learned from Scripture. They include(4) laws giving angels power over bodies, for the distribution of temporal goodsand ills; and (5) laws giving Jesus Christ power over minds and bodies, for thedistribution of temporal and eternal goods.¹⁰²Each of the five sets of laws has a specific type of occasional cause associatedwith it. An occasional cause is a state of affairs that determines what particulareffect will be brought about in a given case. The desires of Jesus and the angelsare occasional causes in the realm of grace: God moves bodies as the angelswish, and he gives sentiments of grace to people as Jesus wishes. In the realm ofnature, occasional causes are discoverable by examining the circumstances underwhich the effects take place and noting the regularities.God never moves bodies unless they are struck; and when they are struck,he always moves them. The soul never feels the pain of a prick unless thebody is pricked, or unless there occurs in the brain the same disturbance asif the body were pricked; and God always makes the soul feel the pain of aprick when the body is pricked, or when there occurs in the brain the samedisturbance as if the body were pricked. God never moves my arm, exceptwhen I have the volition to move it; and God never fails to move it, when Ihave the volition that it move.¹⁰³The impact of bodies is the occasional cause that determines the efficacy of thelaws of motion. Motions in the human body and volitions in the mind are theoccasional causes determining the efficacy of the laws of the union of soul andbody. As for the laws of the union of soul with God, the occasional cause is thesoul’s desire or attention. ‘The soul’s desire is a natural prayer that is alwaysfulfilled, for it is a natural law that ideas are all the more present to the mind asthe will more fervently desires them.’¹⁰⁴There is some overlap in the scope of application of the three sets of naturallaws. The mind has both pure and sensible perceptions of ideas in God. It haspure perceptions on the occasion of its attention, according to the laws of theunion of soul with God. It has sensible perceptions on the occasion of braintraces of sensible objects, according to the laws of soul-body union.¹⁰⁵In somesituations one set of laws takes precedence; in other situations, another set. Forexample, when we are distracted from our study of geometry by a loud noise, ourminds are modified according to the laws of soul-body union. Were thedistraction not present, the desired perceptions would be given to us according tothe laws of the union of soul with universal Reason.Similarly, our bodies have both voluntary and involuntary motions. Theformer are produced according to the laws of soul-body union; the latter,according to the laws of the communication of motion. God moves my arm whenand only when I wish it to move, provided that there is not some countervailingcircumstance that determines him to act otherwise according to the laws ofmotion. For instance, the sight of an impending fall may set off a chain ofphysiological events leading to the involuntary raising of an arm. Suchmechanical actions often cannot be prevented by an act of will, but sometimesthey can. Indeed, for Malebranche, one of the strongest indications of theabsence of soul in animals is their inability to halt the mechanical operations oftheir bodies. Dogs cry out when they are injured. This shows, Malebranche says,not that they have souls but that they lack them;for a cry is a necessary effect of their machine’s construction. When a manin full health fails to cry out when he is injured, it is a sign that his soul isresisting the operation of its machine. If he had no soul and if his bodywere in the right state, certainly he would always cry when injured. Whenour arm is to be bled, we all feel it withdraw mechanically when it ispricked—unless the soul is there to resist.¹⁰⁶Malebranche admits, then, that sometimes my arm moves without my willing itto move. Yet elsewhere he says that God moves my arm whenever I will it, andonly when I will it. There is no contradiction between these two claims. One is astatement of observation; the other is a simplified description of a generalvolition of God. We do not actually observe that our arms move when and onlywhen we will them to move. We do, however, observe that there is an associationbetween our volitions and the movement of our limbs; and on the basis of thisassociation, we infer that this is one of the laws according to which motion isproduced in human beings. The fact that my arm sometimes moves in theabsence of any volition on my part shows that this law is not the only one bywhich such motion is produced. Sometimes another type of occasional causedetermines the efficacy of another of God’s general volitions to produce thesame sort of effect.In addition to the laws of nature, God must also have higher-order generalvolitions for determining which set of laws is operative when two sets overlap inscope. Malebranche does not explicitly assert that God has such higher-ordervolitions, but it is implicit in his discussion of the interrelations among thedifferent sets of natural laws. ‘Thus,’ he writes in the Second Elucidation of theSearch,provided that our capacity for thought or our understanding is not taken upby the confused sensations we receive upon occasion of some bodilyevent, whenever we desire to think about some object the idea of thatobject is present to us; and as experience teaches us, this idea is clearer andmore immediate as our desire is stronger or our attention more vivid and asthe confused sensations we receive through the body are weaker and lessperceptible.¹⁰⁷When attention and bodily sensations compete as occasions for the production ofperceptions in the mind, the winner is the one with greater relative strength. Ifattention is strong and sensation is weak, then the perceptions are producedaccording to the laws of the union of soul with universal Reason. If attention isweak and sensation is strong, then God gives the mind perceptions according tothe laws of the union of soul and body.One of the laws of soul-body union is ‘that all the soul’s inclinations, eventhose it has for goods that are unrelated to the body, are accompanied bydisturbances in the animal spirits that make these inclinations sensible’.¹⁰⁸Thesoul can alter the operation of the body ‘only when it has the power of vividlyimagining another object whose open traces in the brain make the animal spiritstake another course’.¹⁰⁹Thus, when there is competition between physiologicalconditions and the soul’s inclinations as possible occasional causes of certainclasses of bodily motions, the strength of the soul’s sentiment of the desired gooddetermines whether the effect happens according to the laws of motion oraccording to those of soul-body union.Does occasionalism have any merit as a philosophy of science? So long as onefocuses exclusively on the assignment of causal power to God, it seems thatoccasionalism cuts off any serious attempt at causal explanation. For anyparticular effect E, the answer to the question ‘What produced E?’ is always thesame, namely God. But there is more to causal explanation than citing theproductive cause—even for an occasionalist. A causal explanation of a particulareffect must show why this effect occurred rather than some other. Such anexplanation has not been provided if the explanans works equally well foranything else that might have happened instead. Suppose one wants to know whylinen dries when it is placed near the fire.I shall not be a philosopher [Malebranche says] if I answer that God willsit; for one knows well enough that all that happens, happens because Godwills it. One does not ask for the general cause, but for the particular causeof a particular effect. I ought therefore to say that the small parts of the fireor of the agitated wood, hitting against the linen, communicate their motionto the parts of water on it, and detach them from the linen; and then I shallhave given the particular cause of a particular effect.¹¹⁰Instead of closing the door to scientific investigation of the causes of naturalevents, occasionalism clarifies the topic of inquiry; one is looking not for causalpowers, but for conditions that determine the efficacy of natural laws.Since all natural effects are produced by general volitions of God, and sincethe general volitions that constitute the laws of nature are discoverable by reasonand experience, every part of the natural world is in principle amenable toscientific inquiry. Malebranche offers little hope for a science of mind; for heinsists that we know our own minds only through our inner feeling of what takesplace in us, and other minds only by analogy with our own.¹¹¹He does, however,lay the foundation for an empirical science of human behaviour. According toCartesian doctrine, animal behaviour is ultimately explainable by the laws ofmotion alone, whereas human behaviour is not. For Malebranche, humanbehaviour is explainable by a judicious combination of the laws of motion withthose of soul-body union.There are affinities between the mechanisms of animal and human behaviour.In both animals and humans, there is a natural connection between brain tracesand the motion of the animal spirits. Different patterns of behaviour areassociated with different brain traces. There are two kinds of brain traces: naturaland acquired. Natural traces are common to all members of a species and cannever be completely destroyed. Acquired traces are gradually lost unless they arereinforced by continual application of the conditions that originally gave rise tothem. When acquired traces incline an individual toward behaviour contrary tothat which is characteristic of its species, the individual tends to revert to itsnatural behaviour. The natural traceshave, so to speak, secret alliances with other parts of the body, for all theorgans of our machine help maintain themselves in their natural state. Allparts of our bodies mutually contribute to all the things necessary for thisconservation, or for the restoration of natural traces. And so they cannot becompletely erased, and they begin to revive just when one believes theyhave been destroyed.¹¹²In addition to the natural connection between brain traces and motions of animalspirits, there are also, in human beings, natural connections between these bodilyoccurrences and mental states. Malebranche gives the following example. Whenwe see a wounded person, animal spirits flow into the part of our bodycorresponding to the injured part in the other person. This bodily sympathy is theoccasional cause of a feeling of compassion, which excites us to help the otherperson. The same sort of process gives rise to feelings of compassion towardsanimals.¹¹³Although Malebranche wholeheartedly accepts the Cartesian beastmachinedoctrine, he considers the human tendency to socialize with animals aspart of the institution of nature, and he seeks to explain it in terms of the samelaws as other human behaviours. Brain traces in the master, when he sees his dogwagging its tail, lead him to feel that his dog knows and loves him. On theoccasion of these traces, animal spirits take their course into his arm to pat hisdog and to share food with it.Man would not be precisely as he is, the doleful looks and pleasingmovements of the dog would not naturally produce any sentiment in thesoul of man, or any motion in the course of his animal spirits, if God hadnot willed to establish a liaison between man and dog.¹¹⁴According to Malebranche, all human behaviour is motivated by pleasure.One can love only that which pleases…. It is thus certain that all men,righteous or unrighteous, love pleasure taken in general, or will to behappy; and that it is the sole motive that determines them to do generallyall that they do.¹¹⁵All passions, including those springing from the perception of some evil, areaccompanied by ‘a certain sensation of joy, or rather of inner delight, that fixesthe soul in its passion’.¹¹⁶Malebranche defines the passions of the soul as‘impressions from the Author of nature that incline us toward loving our bodyand all that might be of use in its preservation’.¹¹⁷They are interconnected, bythe institution of nature, with bodily states. ‘The passions are movements of thesoul that accompany those of the spirits and the blood, and that produce in thebody, by the construction of the machine, all the dispositions necessary to sustainthe cause that gave birth to them.’¹¹⁸One cannot rise above one’s passionssimply by resolving not to be affected by the things that occasion them, as theStoics advise. It is ridiculous to tell people not to be upset at the death of a familymember or delighted at success in business, ‘for we are tied to our country, ourgoods, our parents, and so on, by a natural union that does not now depend on ourwill’.¹¹⁹Given the way the mind-body union is set up, the only effective way tocounter the passions is to substitute other pleasures for theirs. ‘The false delightof our passions, which makes us slaves to sensible goods, must be overcome byjoy of mind and the delight of grace.’¹²⁰No love is disinterested, not even thelove of God. We love God because he makes us solidly happy. Grace enables usnot merely to know but to feel that God is our good. ‘For the grace of JesusChrist, by which one resists disorderly pleasures, is itself a holy pleasure; it is thehope and foretaste of supreme pleasure.’¹²¹LEIBNIZ’S OBJECTIONSeventeenth-century works against occasionalism includeDoutes sur le systêmephysique des causes occasionnelles(1686) by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle;and Antoine Arnauld’sDissertation sur les miracles de l’ancienne loi,and hisRéflexions philosophiques et théologiques sur le nouveau système de la nature etde la grace,both published in 1685. The main objections in these works are thatthe manner of acting ascribed to God is unworthy of him; that causal efficacy isno less intelligible in created things than in God; and that creatures need causalpower in order to determine the efficacy of God’s general volitions. The mostwell-known, though not necessarily the most devastating, objection tooccasionalism is that it involves a perpetual miracle. This is Leibniz’s objection.I shall pass over the objections of Fontenelle and Arnauld here and consider onlyLeibniz’s.¹²²Leibniz agrees with the occasionalists that interactionism involves thetransference of modes from one substance to another and consequently must berejected as inconceivable. ‘Speaking with metaphysical rigor,no createdsubstance exerts a metaphysical action or influence upon another. For…itcannot be explained how anything can pass over from one thing into thesubstance of another.’¹²³Occasionalism, too, he finds unsatisfactory.But problems are not solved merely by making use of a general cause andcalling in what is called thedeus ex machina. To do this without offeringany other explanation drawn from the order of secondary causes is,properly speaking, to have recourse to miracle.¹²⁴When reminded that the God of the occasionalists produces his effects accordingto general laws, Leibniz responds that, even so, ‘they would not cease beingmiracles, if we take this term, not in the popular sense of a rare and wonderfulthing, but in the philosophical sense of that which exceeds the powers of createdbeings’.¹²⁵I admit that the authors of occasional causes may be able to give anotherdefinition of the term, but it seems that according to usage a miracle differsintrinsically and through the substance of the act from a common action,and not by an external accident of frequent repetition, and that strictlyspeaking God performs a miracle whenever he does something thatexceeds the forces which he has given to creatures and maintains inthem.¹²⁶Leibniz presents occasionalism as though its proponents believed that miracleswere rare events, and as though their only defence against the charge of invokingmiracles is that the effects occur frequently. This is an oversimplification of theoccasionalist position. In theRéponse aux Réflexions philosophiques etthéologiques de Mr. Arnauld sur le Traité de la nature et de la grace(1686),Malebranche observes that the term ‘miracle’ is equivocal. In its most commonusage, it means ‘amarvelwhich surprises us, and which we admire because ofits novelty’. In its precise philosophical sense, it means ‘all effects which arenotnatural,or which are not results of natural laws’.¹²⁷Natural laws are God’sgeneral volitions. ‘Thus, whether an effect is common or rare, if God does notproduce it according to his general laws, which are the natural laws, it is a truemiracle.’¹²⁸In other words, a miracle in the second sense is something producedby a particular rather than a general volition of God. Occasionalism does notinvoke miracles in either of these senses to explain ordinary events. God could,Malebranche says, produce the most common effects by particular volitions, inwhich case they would be miracles in the second sense. But God does not do so.Instead, he produces them according to general laws. Even marvels are producedin this manner, according to laws giving angels power over bodies; they aremiracles in the first sense but not in the second.¹²⁹In Malebranche’s second or philosophical sense, the miraculous is opposed tothe natural. The same is true of Leibniz’s philosophical sense. The twophilosophers disagree, however, on what counts as being natural. According toMalebranche, natural effects are those that are produced in accordance withnatural laws. Leibniz finds this characterization inadequate: ‘It is not enough tosay that God has made a general law, for besides the decree there is alsonecessary a natural means of carrying it out.’¹³⁰Malebranche could reply thatthere is indeed a natural means of carrying it out: the efficacy of the natural lawsis determined by occasional causes. The latter can and should be cited as thenatural and particular causes of the effects in question. This answer will notsatisfy Leibniz. When he says that there must be a natural means of executing thedecree, he means that ‘all that happens must also be explained through the naturewhich God gives to things’.¹³¹For Leibniz, the natural is that which pertains tothe nature of created things, and the nature of created things is identified with theirpower to act.¹³²For Malebranche, by contrast, natural laws are simply lawsaccording to which events are regularly produced. They can be specified withoutascribing natures to individual things and without attributing metaphysicalpowers to them. In this respect, Malebranche’s view of natural laws is closer tothe modern conception than Leibniz’s is.Does Leibniz misrepresent the occasionalist hypothesis? In some passages, hecharacterizes God’s action in occasionalism as interference or meddling in thenatural course of events. In the Postscript of a Letter to Basnage de Beauval (3/13 January 1696), where he introduces the analogy of two clocks to differentiateinteractionism, occasionalism and pre-established harmony, he says that thesystem of occasional causes is like ‘making two clocks, even poor ones, agree’by turning them over to a skilled artisan ‘who adjusts them and constantly setsthem in agreement’.¹³³Similarly, in his response to Bayle’s criticisms of the NewSystem (1698), he says that the occasionalists explain the correspondencebetween soul and body ‘as if a man were charged with constantly synchronizingtwo bad clocks which are in themselves incapable of agreeing’.¹³⁴It seems thatthe workman’s action is needed, not to make the clocks runper se,but to keepthem running in agreement. Without constant adjustments, the clocks would stillrun, albeit badly. Analogously, were it not for God’s continual meddling, themind and the body would each follow a different course. In the correspondencewith Arnauld, Leibniz presents the system of occasional causes ‘as though Godon the occasion of occurrences in the body aroused thoughts in the soul, whichmight change the course that the soul would have taken of itself without that’.¹³⁵For it introduces a sort of continual miracle, as though God were constantlychanging the laws of bodies, on the occasion of the thoughts of minds, orchanging the regular course of the thoughts of the soul by arousing in itother thoughts, on the occasion of the movements of bodies.¹³⁶In so far as he suggests that creatures would act on their own if God did notintervene, Leibniz misrepresents occasionalism. True, Malebranche does say thatthe human body would behave in certain ways—for instance, it would cry outwhenever it was injured—if the soul did not resist. If the body behaves in oneway when the soul resists and in another way when such resistance is absent, thisis not because the body moves itself by one set of laws whereas God moves it byanother set. God moves the body in both cases: in the one case, according to thelaws of motion alone; in the other, by the laws of the union of soul and body.Leibniz claims that in occasionalism God changes the laws of bodies on theoccasion of the thoughts of minds. A more accurate statement of the occasionalistposition is this: God acts on the body solely according to the laws of motion,except when the mind has certain kinds of thoughts, in which case he acts by thelaws of soulbody union. To Leibniz, the suspension of one set of laws in favourof another set is a miracle. Thus, in addition to the perpetual miracle of God’sdirect action on creatures, there is a further perpetual miracle, having to do withthe manner of God’s action. The decision to act according to one set of lawsrather than another set is not grounded in the nature of individual things;therefore, by Leibniz’s definition, it is miraculous. By Malebranche’s definition,however, it is not miraculous but natural, since there are laws for which set oflaws applies in a given situation, and these higher-order laws are in principlediscoverable, just as are the laws of motion and those of soul-body union.NOTESThe following abbreviations are used in the notes:AT C.Adam and P.Tannery (eds)Oeuvres de Descartes[10.1]CSM J.Cottingham, R.Stoothoff and D.Murdoch (trans.)ThePhilosophical Writings of Descartes[10.2]GP C.I.Gerhardt (ed.)Die philosophischen Schriften von GottfriedWilhelm Leibniz[10.55]LO T.M.Lennon and P.J.Olscamp (trans.)The Search after Truthand Elucidations of the Search after Truth[10.36]OC A.Robinet (ed.)Oeuvres complètes de Malebranche[10.35]1 Descartes,Principles of Philosophy, Pt I, 56, 61. AT 8A: 26, 29–30; CSM 1: 211,213–14. Descartes to ***, 1645 or 1646. AT 4:348–9;Philosophical Letters[10.3],186–7.2 Appendix to Fifth Objections and Replies, AT 9A: 213; CSM 2:275.3 Descartes to Elizabeth, 21 May 1643, AT 3:665;Philosophical Letters[10.3], 138.4 Descartes to Elizabeth, 28 June 1643, AT 3:691–2;Philosophical Letters[10.3],141.5 Second Replies, AT 7:135; CSM 2:97.6 Third Meditation, AT 7:40; CSM 2:28.7Principles,Pt 2, 50, AT 8A: 69.8 Descartes to More, August 1649, AT 5:404;Philosophical Letters[10.3], 258.9 AT 11:144; CSM 1:103. See alsoThe World,AT 11:5–6; CSM 1:82;Optics,AT 6:114; CSM 1:166;Notae in Programma,AT 8B: 360.10 Gouhier, [10.42], 83–7.11 Hermann Müller argues for this position in Müller [10.11].12 Gouhier [10.42], 89.13 Quoted in Prost [10.7], 103n.14 Battail [10.23], 8.15 Prost [10.7], 103.16 Battail [10.23], 145.17 Quoted in Clair [10.15], 64. In the nineteenth century, it was conjectured that LaForge and Clauberg met during the latter’s visit to Saumur (Damiron [10.6], 127;Bouillier,Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne[10.5], 1:294). This conjecturewas plausible only because of the uncertainty about La Forge’s date of birth. BothDamiron (p. 24) and Bouillier (p. 511) put it at the beginning of the seventeenthcentury. Clauberg visited Saumur in 1646, when La Forge was 14 years old andliving in La Flèche (Clair [10.13], 40).18 Vleeschauwer [10.34], 396–401.19 Battail [10.23], 143; cf. Prost [10.7], 154.20 Malebranche,The Search after Truth,Book 1, ch. 10, OC 1:123; LO, 49.21 Item number 139 in Lelong’s catalogue (OC 20:237).22 Damiron [10.6], 3, 23, 60; Bouillier [10.5], 1:511.23 La Forge,Traitté de l’esprit de l’homme[10.12], ch. 13;Oeuvres philosophiques[10.13], 212–13.24 ibid., p. 213.25 ibid.26Traitté[10.12], ch. 10;Oeuvres philosophiques[10.13], 175.27 ibid., p. 176.28 ibid., p. 179.29Traitté[10.12], ch. 16;Oeuvres philosophiques[10.13], 235.30 ibid.31 ibid., p. 238.32 ibid.33 ibid.34 ibid., p. 240.35 ibid.36 ibid., p. 241.37 ibid., p. 242.38 ibid.39 Damiron [10.6], 56–7; Gouhier [10.42], 101; Watson [10.18], 174.40Traitté[10.12], ch. 16;Oeuvres philosophiques[10.13], 245.41 ibid.42 Cordemoy,Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 257.43 Cordemoy, First Discourse,Le Discernement du corps et de l’âme. Oeuvresphilosophiques[10.20], 99.44 ibid., p. 101.45 Fifth Discourse,Discernement, Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 149.46 Fourth Discourse,Discernement, Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 138.47 Fifth Discourse,Discernement, Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 150.48 Fourth Discourse,Discernement, Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 135–7.49 ibid., p. 139.50 ibid.; cf. p. 142.51 ibid., p. 143.52 ibid., p. 144.53 Fifth Discourse,Discernement, Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 148.54 ibid., p. 149.55 ibid., p. 151.56 Cordemoy,Discours physique de la parole, Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 255.57 Cordemoy,Traité de métaphysique II, Oeuvres philosophiques[10.20], 283–4.58 ibid., p. 284.59 ibid., p. 285.60 For discussion of possible reasons for the dismissal, see Land [10.30], 227–8;Lattre [10.31], 10–11; Vleeschauwer [10.34], 401.61 Geulincx,Metaphysica vera,Pars 1, sc. 5 and 6,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 2:150–2.62 Geulincx,Ethica,Tract, 1, cap. 2, s. 2,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 3:32.63Metaphysica vera,Pars 1, sc. 9,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 2:154.64Metaphysica vera,Pars 1, sc. 11,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 2:155.65Annotata ad Ethicam,19,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 3:211–12; cf.Annotata adMetaphysicam, Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 2:307.66 The analogy appears in Leibniz’s ‘Second Explanation of the New System’(Postscript of a Letter to Basnage de Beauval, 3/13 January 1696). The first completeedition of Geulincx’sEthica,with all the Annotations, was published twenty-oneyears earlier. Leibniz did not necessarily get the analogy from Geulincx, however.For discussion of this issue, see Haeghen [10.28], 161–3.67Ethica,Tract, 1, cap. 2, s. 2,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 3:36.68Annotata ad Ethicam,48,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 3:220.69Metaphysica vera,Pars 1, sc. 11,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 2:155;Annotata adMetaphysicam, Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 2:307.70Ethica,Tract, 1, cap. 2, s. 2,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 3:33.71 ibid., p. 36.72Ethica,Tract, 1, cap. 2, s. 1,Sämtliche Schriften[10.24], 3:23.73 Malebranche,Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion,Dialogue 7, sec. 2, OC12:151; [10.38], 149.74Dialogues7, sec. 4; OC 12:153; [10.38], 151. See alsoThe Search after Truth,Elucidation 15, OC 3:226; LO, 669–70.75Search,Book 2, Pt 1, ch. 5, OC 1:215; LO, 102.76Search,Book 6, Pt 2, ch. 3, OC 2:312–13; LO, 448.77Méditations chrétiennes et métaphysiques,Med. 1, sec. 8, OC 10:13. See alsoDialogues7, sec. 2, OC 12:150; [10.38], 147.78Dialogues7, sec. 2, OC 12:150–1; [10.38], 147.79Réponse à une Dissertation de Mr. Arnauld,ch. 7, OC 7:515.80Réflexions sur les Doutes sur le système des causes occasionnelles,OC 17–1: 584.81Réponse à une Dissertation,ch. 7, OC 7:515;Méditations5, sec. 8, OC 10: 50.82Search,Elucidation 15, 1678 edition. This passage is omitted from the 1712edition. OC 3:209n.83Méditations5, sec. 4, OC 10:47–8; cf.Dialogues7, sec. 5, OC 12:155; [10.38],151.84Dialogues7, sec. 10, OC 12:160; [10.38], 157.85 ibid. See alsoMéditations5, sec. 8, OC 10:50.86Search,Book 6, Pt 2, ch. 3, OC 2:316; LO, 450.87 ibid., OC 2:313–16; LO, 448–50. See alsoMéditations 6,sec. 12, OC 10:64.88Dialogues7, sec. 3, OC 12:151–2; [10.38], 149; cf.Search,Elucidation 17, OC 3:326; LO, 733.89 Descartes to Regius, May 1641, AT 3:372;Philosophical Letters[10.3], 102.90Search,Elucidation 15, OC 3:226; LO, 669.91Search,Book 3, Pt 2, ch. 3, OC 1:424–5; LO, 223. See alsoMéditations1, sec. 7,OC 10:13.92Méditations6, sec. 11, OC 10:62.93Search,Book 6, Pt 2, ch. 3, OC 2:315; LO, 450; cf. Elucidation 15, OC 3: 228; LO,670–1.94Search,Book 1, ch. 1, OC 1:46; LO, 5.Méditations6, sec. 16, OC 10:65.95Réflexions sur la prémotion physique12, OC 16:46–7.96Prémotion physique10, OC 16:41.97Search,Elucidation 1, OC 3:20; LO, 548–9. For critical discussion ofMalebranche’s notion of freedom, see Radner [10.46], 119–33.98Prémotion physique23, OC 16:132. See alsoEntretien d’un philosophe chrétien etd’un philosophe chinois,OC 15:33.99Traité de la nature et de la grace,Elucidation 1, OC 5:147–8;Réponse au Livredes Vraies et des fausses idées,ch. 4, OC 6:36–7.100Réponse aux VFI,ch. 4, OC 6:37–8;Entretien d’un philosophe chrétien et d’unphilosophe chinois,OC 15:28.101Search,Elucidation 15, OC 3:219–20; LO, 666.102Traité de la nature et de la grace,Last Elucidation, OC 5:204–5;Réponse auxRéflexions philosophiques et théologiques de Mr. Arnauld sur le Traité de la natureet de la grace,Letter 2, ch. 2, OC 8:705–6;Dialogues13, sec. 9, OC 12:319–20;[10.38], 321.103Réponse aux VFI,ch. 4, OC 6:38.104Search,Elucidation 2, OC 3:39; LO, 559. See alsoTraité de la nature et de lagrace,Second Discourse, sec. 37, OC 5:102;Méditations13, sec. 11, OC 10:144.105Réponse à la troisième lettre de M.Arnauld,OC 9:959.106Search,Book 5, ch. 3, OC 2:150; LO, 352.107Search,Elucidation 2, OC 3:39–40; LO, 559.108Search,Book 5, ch. 2, OC 2:139; LO, 345.109Search,Book 5, ch. 3, OC 2:150; LO, 351.110Conversations chrétiennes3, OC 4:77. See alsoSearch,Elucidation 15, OC 3:213–14; LO, 662.111Search,Book 3, Pt 2, ch. 7, OC 1:451–5; LO, 237–40.112Search,Book 2, Pt 1, ch. 7, OC 1:250; LO, 121.113 ibid., OC 1:236–7; LO, 114.114Prémotion physique25, OC 16:146. See alsoSearch,Book 5, ch. 3, OC 2: 151–2;LO, 352–3.115Traité de l’amour de Dieu,OC 14:9–10.116Search,Book 5, ch. 3, OC 2:145; LO, 349.117Search,Book 5, ch. 1, OC 2:128; LO, 338.118Traité de morale,Pt 1, ch. 13, sec. 3, OC 11:147.119Search,Book 5, ch. 2, OC 2:133–4; LO, 342.120Search,Book 5, ch. 3, OC 2:146; LO, 349.121Traité de l’amour de Dieu,OC 14:10.122 For discussion of the other objections, see Radner [10.46], 36–46.123 Leibniz, ‘First Truths’,Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz[10.56], 521;Philosophical Papers and Letters[10.57], 269.124 ‘A New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances, as well as theUnion between the Soul and the Body’,Journal des savants,27 June 1695, GP 4:483;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 457. See also ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’, sec.33, GP 4:458;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 324.125 ‘Clarification of the Difficulties which Mr. Bayle has found in the New System ofthe Union of Soul and Body’,Histoire des ouvrages des savants,July 1698, GP 4:520;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 494.126 Leibniz to Arnauld, 30 April 1687, GP 2:93;The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence[10.58], 116.127Réponse aux Réflexions,Letter 2, ch. 1, OC 8:695–6. ‘Natural laws’ here issynonymous with ‘general laws’, and includes both the so-called laws of nature andthose of grace.128 ibid., OC 8:696.129 ibid., OC 8:697;Méditations8, sec. 25–8, OC 10:91–3.130 ‘Clarification of the Difficulties’, GP 4:520;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 494.131 ibid. See also Leibniz’s critique of François Lamy’sConnaissance de soy-même,GP 4:587.132 ‘On Nature Itself, or on the Inherent Force and Actions of Created Things’, sec. 5,GP 4:506–7;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 500. Leibniz’s Fifth Paper to Clarke,sec. 112, GP 7:417;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 715.133 Postscript of a Letter to Basnage de Beauval, 3/13 January 1696, GP 4:498;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 459–60.134 ‘Clarification of the Difficulties’, GP 4:520;Philosophical Papers[10.57], 494.135 ‘Remarks upon M.Arnauld’s letter’, May 1686, GP 2:47;The Leibniz-ArnauldCorrespondence[10.58], 51–2.136 Leibniz to Arnauld, 4/14 July 1686, GP 2:57–8;The Leibniz-ArnauldCorrespondence[10.58], 65.BIBLIOGRAPHYOccasionalism: background and general surveys10.1 Adam, C. and Tannery, P. (eds)Oeuvres de Descartes,Paris,Léopold Cerf, 12 vols,1897–1913; reprinted, Paris, Vrin, 1964–76.10.2The Philosophical Writings of Descartes,trans. J.Cottingham, R.Stoothoff andD.Murdoch, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2 vols, 1985.10.3Descartes: Philosophical Letters,trans. 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occasionalism—Occasionalism translation Occasionalism The metaphysical theory which maintains that finite things have no efficient causality of their own but that whatever happens in ...Catholic encyclopedia
occasionalism—occasionalism translationThe view that reserves causal efficacy to the action of God. Events in the world merely form occasions on which God acts so as to bring about the...Philosophy dictionary
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occasionalism—kenlzm n спец. окказионализм...Новый большой англо-русский словарь под общим руководством акад. Ю.Д. Апресяна