Philosophy dictionary

OCCASIONALISM

occasionalism: translation

The 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 events normally accompanying them, and thought of as their effects. Although the position is associated especially with Malebranche, it is much older; many among theMutakallimun(seekalam) of 9th-century Islamic philosophy reserved efficient causation to God, and Al-Ghazali transmitted the doctrine to the medieval world, where it is opposed, for example, by Aquinas . The doctrine also bears affinities with earlier criticisms of empirical causation found in theSamkhyaschool of Indian philosophy, and criticisms later famously associated with Hume . In the philosophy of mind, the difficulty of seeing how mind and body can interact suggests that we ought instead to think of them as two systems running in parallel. When I stub my toe, this does not cause pain, but there is a harmony between the mental and the physical (perhaps due to God) that ensures that there will be a simultaneous pain; when I form an intention and then act, the same benevolence ensures that my action is appropriate to my intention. The theory has never been wildly popular, and in its application to the mind–body problem many philosophers would say that it was the result of a misconceived Cartesian dualism.

  1. 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
  2. occasionalism—Occasionalism translationDaisie RadnerThe seventeenthcentury doctrine known as occasionalism arose in response to aperceived problem. Cartesian philosophy generated the p...History of philosophy
  3. occasionalism—[kenlzm]окказионализм...Англо-русский большой универсальный переводческий словарь
  4. occasionalism—n окказионализм...Англо-русский словарь Лингвистика-98
  5. occasionalism—occasionalism [kenlzm] nu филос.u окказионализм...Англо-русский словарь Мюллера
  6. occasionalism—сущ. филос. окказионализм...Англо-русский словарь общей лексики
  7. occasionalism—nокказионализм течение в философии XVII в. отрицавшее связь тела и души и объяснявшее их взаимодействие божественным вмешательством.strong окказионализм течение в филос...Англо-русский словарь по социологии
  8. occasionalism—n. окказионализм...Англо-русский словарь редакция bed
  9. occasionalism—сущ.emокказионализм течение в философии XVII в. отрицавшее связь тела и души и объяснявшее их взаимодействие божественным вмешательством....Англо-русский социологический словарь
  10. occasionalism—n флос. оказоналзм....Англо-український словник Балла М.І.
  11. occasionalism—[kenlzm] n спец....Новый большой англо-русский словарь
  12. occasionalism—occasionalism [kenlzm] n спец.i окказионализм...Новый большой англо-русский словарь II
  13. occasionalism—kenlzm n спец. окказионализм...Новый большой англо-русский словарь под общим руководством акад. Ю.Д. Апресяна