Nicolas Malebranche

First published Fri May 24, 2002; substantive revision Fri Jan 21, 2022

The French Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche was hailed by hiscontemporary, Pierre Bayle, as “the premier philosopher of ourage.” Over the course of his philosophical career, Malebranchepublished major works on metaphysics, theology, and ethics, as well asstudies of optics, the laws of motion and the nature of color. He isknown principally for offering a highly original synthesis of theviews of his intellectual heroes, St. Augustine and RenéDescartes. Two distinctive results of this synthesis areMalebranche’s doctrine that we see bodies through ideas in Godand his occasionalist conclusion that God is the only real cause.

1. Life and Works

Malebranche was born in Paris on August 6, 1638, one month prior toLouis XIV, and died, also in Paris, on October 13, 1715, six weeksafter the great French monarch. Malebranche was one of many childrenborn to his mother, Catherine de Lauzon, the sister of a Viceroy ofCanada, and his father, also Nicolas Malebranche, a secretary to LouisXIII. As in the case of Descartes and Pascal, Malebranche was born infrail health. His particular affliction was a severe malformation ofthe spine, and due to this condition as well as his weak lungs heneeded to be tutored at home until the age of sixteen. Subsequently hewas a student at the Collège de la Marche, and after graduatinghe went to study theology at the Sorbonne. His education left him witha distaste for a scholasticism that focused on the work of Aristotle.Thus, in 1660 he decided to leave the universities and to enter theOratory, a religious congregation founded in 1611 by the Augustiniantheologian Pierre Bérulle (1575–1629). At the Oratory inParis, Malebranche studied ecclesiastical history, linguistics, andthe Bible, and with his fellow students also immersed himself in thework of Augustine. He was ordained a priest on September 14, 1664.

There is the story that in the same year in which he was ordained,Malebranche happened in a Paris bookstall upon a posthumous edition ofDescartes’sTraité de l’homme(Treatise on Man) which provides a sketch of a mechanisticaccount of the physiology of the human body. Malebranche’s earlybiographer, Father Yves André, reported that he was so“ecstatic” on reading this account that he experienced“such violent palpitations of the heart that he was obliged toleave his book at frequent intervals, and to interrupt his reading ofit in order to breathe more easily” (André 1886,11–12). While André does not indicate why Malebranche wasso moved, one can speculate that he had discovered in this text a wayto investigate the natural world without relying on a stagnantAristotelian scholasticism. In any case, after his encounter withL’homme Malebranche devoted himself to a decade-longstudy of the Cartesian method and its results in mathematics andnatural philosophy.

The fruit of this study is a two-volume work bearing the title,Dela recherche de la vérité. Où l’on traittede la nature de l’esprit de l’homme, et de l’usagequ’il en doit faire pour eviter l’erreur dans lessciences (Search after Truth. In which is treated the natureof the human mind and the use that must be made of it to avoid errorin the sciences ) (1674–75). It is primarily this textwhich provides the basis for Malebranche’s reputation in themodern period. As its full title indicates, theRecherchefocuses on the principal sources of human error and on the method foravoiding those errors and for finding the truth. The first five booksenumerate the various errors deriving from the senses, imagination,pure understanding, inclinations and passions, respectively, and asixth book is devoted to the Cartesian method of avoiding such errorsthrough attention to clear and distinct ideas. The centerpiece of thethird book, on pure understanding, is a defense of the claim that theideas through which we perceive bodies exist in God. Tucked away inthe final book, on method, is a critique of “the most dangerouserror of the ancients,” namely, the Aristotelian position thatthere are secondary causes in nature distinct from God.

The first volume of theRecherche, containing the first threebooks, drew an immediate response in 1675 from the abbé SimonFoucher (1644–1696), canon of Sainte Chapelle of Dijon. Foucherwas an “academic skeptic” who attacked the assumption thatideas in us can represent objects distinct from us (see Foucher 1675).The Cartesian Benedictine Robert Desgabets (1610–1678) repliedto Foucher by insisting that the Cartesian rule that clear anddistinct ideas are true presupposes that our thoughts correspond toreal external objects. In brief prefaces added to the second volume oftheRecherche, Malebranche chastised both thinkers forfailing to read the work they were discussing, noting in particularthat he had explicitly argued in theRecherche that the ideaswe perceive exist in God rather than in us.

Malebranche solicited written responses to theRecherchemodeled on the sets of objections published with Descartes’sMeditations. Perhaps put off by Malebranche’s harshtreatment of Foucher and Desgabets, his critics offered instead onlyinformal objections channeled through mutual friends. In 1678,Malebranche appended to theRecherche a set of sixteenEclaircissements, or clarifications, that respond to theseobjections. Among the more important objections addressed are thosethat concern Malebranche’s assertion that we have a freedom to“consent” to certain motives for action(“Eclaircissement I”), his claim that reason provides noconclusive demonstration of the existence of the material world(“Eclaircissement VI”), his doctrine of the vision ofideas in God (“Eclaircissement X”), his conclusion that weknow our own soul through a confused consciousness rather than througha clear idea of its nature (“Eclaircissement XI”), and hisoccasionalist thesis that God is the only true cause(“Eclaircissement XV”). The final 1712 edition includesthe addition of a seventeenth Eclaircissement that defends theimportance “not only for knowledge of nature but also forknowledge of religion and morals” of the view, only hinted at inthe initial edition of theRecherche, that God acts for themost part through “general volitions” (volontezgénérales) and acts though “particularvolitions” (volontez particulières) only in theexceptional case of miracles.

Malebranche developed this last point in his 1680Traité dela nature et de la grâce (Treatise on Nature andGrace). He published this work over the objections of theJansenist theologian and Cartesian philosopher Antoine Arnauld(1612–1694), who was disturbed by what he saw asMalebranche’s denial of the assertion in the Scriptures and thetradition of God’s attention to particular details in matters ofgrace. Arnauld responded to the publication ofNature etgrâce by engaging in open combat, and the ensuing battlebecame one of the major intellectual events of the day. His openingsalvo was the 1683Des vraies et des fausses idées(On True and False Ideas), which attacks notNature etgrâce but rather theRecherche (see Arnauld 1683).Arnauld’s strategy here was to undermine Malebranche’sinfluence in theological matters by revealing the inadequacy of hisphilosophical views. In particular, he attacked Malebranche’sassumption that ideas are “representative beings” distinctfrom our perceptions, offering instead the position, which heplausibly ascribed to Descartes, that ideas are simply a feature ofthe perceptual modifications of our soul. This argument reflects asympathy for Descartes’ views that dates back to Arnauld’sset of comments on theMeditations.

The same year that Arnauld presented his initial critique, Malebranchepublished theMéditations chretiennes etmétaphysiques (Christian and MetaphysicalMeditations), in which “the Word” (i.e., the SecondPerson of the Trinity) offers a summary of his system that highlightsthe central role that God plays in both metaphysics and morality. Thiswork was in some ways a follow up to hisConversationschrétiennes (Christian Conversations), publishedin 1677. In that earlier text, Malebranche presented a defense of theChristian religion that emphasizes the Augustinian theme of ourdependence on God for knowledge and happiness. In 1684, Malebranchefurther developed his views on moral theory in theTraitéde morale (Treatise on Ethics), in which he argued thatmoral virtue requires a love of the “immutable order” thatGod reveals to those who seek to know it.

In 1684, Malebranche also responded to Arnauld’sIdées, and after a further exchange on the topic ofthe nature of ideas the debate turned to the theological issuesconcerning divine providence, grace and miracles. The battle becameincreasingly bitter, and as a result of a campaign on the part ofArnauld and his supporters, Malebranche’sNature etgrâce was put on the CatholicIndex librorumprohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books) in 1690 (theRecherche was added in 1709). The Malebranche-Arnauld polemiccontinued even after Arnauld’s death in 1694, with thepublication in 1704 of Malebranche’s responses to earlierletters from Arnauld.

In 1688, Malebranche published hisEntretiens sur lamétaphysique et la religion (Dialogues on Metaphysicsand Religion), a concise summary of his main metaphysicaldoctrines of the vision in God and occasionalism that also addressesthe problem of evil. In 1696, he appended to this text theEntretiens sur la mort (Dialogues on Death), whichhe composed after a life-threatening illness.

In 1692, Malebranche published a short study, theLois de lacommunication des mouvements (Laws of the Communication ofMotions), in which he endorsed Descartes’s law of theconservation of the quantity of motion but offered rules governingcollision that, unlike Descartes’s own rules, involve no appealto a force in bodies to remain at rest. In correspondence withMalebranche, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) emphasizeddifficulties with Descartes’s conservation law, and thatcorrespondence led Malebranche to insert into a 1700 edition of theLois the admission that experience reveals that such a lawdoes not hold.

In 1693, Malebranche responded to the criticisms of theRecherche in the 1690Systême de philosophie(System of Philosophy) of the French Cartesian Pierre-SylvainRégis (1632–1707). Régis had defended an accountof ideas similar to the one that Arnauld had defended againstMalebranche during the 1680s, and Arnauld used theRégis-Malebranche exchange as an occasion to return to theissue of ideas during the last year of his life. Despite theirdispute, Malebranche and Régis were both appointed as honorarymembers of the Paris Académie des sciences when it wasreorganized in 1699. Malebranche presented an inaugural lecture to theAcadémie that defends against Descartes an account of color interms of the frequency of vibrations of light. In later publishedversions of the lecture, Malebranche revised his discussion to takeinto account the theory of the nature of color in the work of SirIsaac Newton.

In 1697, Malebranche published theTraité de l’amourde Dieu (Treatise on the Love of God) withTroislettres à Lamy (Three Letters to Lamy), in whichhe rejected the claim in the Benedictine François Lamy(1636–1711) that theTraité de morale supportsthe “quietist” position that moral action derives from adisinterested “pure love of God.” This rejection ofLamy’s quietism provided the basis for Malebranche’sreconciliation with the famous French cleric, Jacques-BénigneBossuet (1627–1704). Bossuet had earlier enlisted the aid ofFrançois de Fénelon (1651–1715) in writing againstMalebranche’s occasionalism and his appeals to God’s“general will,” but later became a bitter enemy ofFénelon’s quietism.

With the support of the apostolic vicar in China, Malebranchepublished in 1708 anEntretien d’un philosophechrétien et d’un philosophe chinois, surl’existence et la nature de Dieu (Dialogue between aChristian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher on the Existence andNature of God). A sixth and last edition of theRecherche appeared in 1712, and in 1715 Malebranche publishedhis final work,Réflexions sur la prémotionphysique (Reflections on Physical Premotion), in whichhe responded to the claim of the abbé Laurent-FrançoisBoursier (1679–1749) that occasionalism leads naturally to theThomistic position that God determines our action by means of a“physical premotion.” In his response, Malebranchedefended the claim, present from the first edition of theRecherche, that our free action involves a“consent” that God does not determine.

TheŒuvres complètes de Malebranche [OC], whichconsists of 20 volumes, is the standard critical edition ofMalebranche’s writings. In France, Malebranche has always been amajor figure in the history of early modern philosophy, and there isan extensive earlier literature on him from this country; see, forinstance, Gouhier (1926), Gueroult (1939), Gouhier (1948), Gueroult(1955–59), Robinet (1955), Rodis-Lewis (1963), and Robinet(1965). This is supplemented by the important discussion inAlquié (1974), and there is a continuation of substantiveFrench scholarship on Malebranche in works such as Moreau (1999),Bardout (1999), Bardout (2000), and Pellegrin (2006). Despite therelative neglect of him in the corresponding Anglophone literatureduring the earlier part of the twentieth century, Malebranche hasbecome increasingly popular among English-language scholars morerecently. This change is indicated by the presence of recent Englishtranslations of his writings; see Malebranche [DM], [DC], [TE], [DMR],and [ST]. More recent book-length studies of Malebranche in Englishinclude McCracken (1983), Jolley (1990), Nadler (1992), Schmaltz(1996), Nadler (2000), Pyle (2003), and Peppers-Bates (2009), whichadd to earlier trail-blazing studies such as Walton (1972) and Radner(1978). Easton, Lennon and Sebba (1991) is a comprehensivebibliography of work on Malebranche in various languages. This worksupersedes the bibliography in volume 20 of Malebranche [OC], whichhad superseded Sebba (1959).

2. Ideas and the Vision in God

In a section of the third book of theRecherche devoted to“the nature of ideas,” Malebranche argues for his famousdoctrine of the vision in God. More precisely, the thesis in thissection is that we see external objects by means of ideas in God. Theargument for this thesis begins with the claim at the beginning ofthis section that “everyone agrees that we do not perceiveobjects external to us by themselves” since it can hardly be thecase that “the soul should leave the body to stroll about theheavens to see the objects present there” (Malebranche [OC],1:413). Arnauld later took exception to this starting point,countering that “ideas, taken in the sense of representativebeings, distinct from perceptions, are not needed by our soul in orderto see bodies” (Arnauld 1683, 18). His main objection is thatMalebranche stacked the deck in favor of his doctrine that we seeideas of bodies in God by assuming from the start that these ideas aredistinct from our own perceptions.

In developing his own position, Arnauld appeals to Descartes’distinction in “Meditation III” between the formal realityof an idea as a perceptual modification of mind and its objectivereality as something that represents an object. Arnauld insists that arepresentative idea is simply the objective reality of a perception,and thus not something distinct from that perception. However, it isimportant to note that Malebranche’s definition of an idea doesnot rule out such a position from the start. As he himself insists toArnauld, the claim that we must perceive external objects throughideas leaves open the question of whether an idea is “amodality of the soul, according to the opinion of M. Arnauld; anexpress species, according to certain philosophers, or anentity created with the soul, according to others; or finallyintelligible extension rendered sensible by color or light,according to my opinion” (Malebranche [OC], 6:95).

Malebranche’s description of his own opinion goes beyond whatcan be found in the original edition of theRecherche.However, his description of the other alternatives is drawn directlyfrom this text. In particular, Malebranche had argued there that thereare only four alternatives to the conclusion that we see bodiesthrough ideas in God: (1) Bodies transmit resembling species to thesoul; (2) Our soul has the power to produce ideas when triggered bynon-resembling bodily impression; (3) Ideas are created with the soulor produced in it successively by God; and (4) Our soul sees both theessence and the existence of bodies by considering its ownperfections. Malebranche told Arnauld that since this list constitutes“an exact division … of all the ways in which we can seeobjects” and since each of the alternative accounts yields“manifest contradictions,” his argument from eliminationserves to demonstrate the doctrine of the vision in God (Malebranche[OC], 6:198–99).

It is difficult to determine from theRecherche the precisesource of the enumeration. However, Connell (1967) has establishedthat Malebranche’s argument was drawn from the account ofangelic knowledge in the work of the Spanish scholastic, FranciscoSuárez (1548–1617). Particularly crucial forMalebranche’s enumeration is Suárez’s claim thatangels must know material objects through species that God adds totheir mind given that God alone can know them through His ownsubstance. In light of this claim, we can take Malebranche’sfirst three hypotheses to cover the various ways in which we couldperceive bodies through immaterial species “superadded” toour soul, and his fourth hypothesis to cover the possibility that weperceive bodies in the perfections of our own soul. In arguing againstthe last hypothesis, Malebranche notes that since a finite being cansee in itself neither the infinite nor an infinite number of beings(as Suárez had argued in the case of angels), and since we infact perceive both the infinite and infinity in external objects, itmust be that we see these objects by means of perfections contained inthe only being that can possess an infinity of ideas, namely, GodHimself.

Malebranche takes the conclusion here to confirm the view in “aninfinity of passages” in Augustine that “we see God”in knowing eternal truths. This appeal to the Augustinian theory ofdivine illumination provides the basis for an argument for the visionin God that bypasses the unusual enumeration in theRecherche. This more direct argument is introduced in“Eclaircissement X,” where Malebranche urges that theideas we perceive must exist in an “immutable and necessaryReason” since they are themselves immutable and necessary(Malebranche [OC], 3:129f). Malebranche emphasizes that theAugustinian view that eternal truths derive from uncreated features ofthe divine intellect conflicts directly with the voluntaristconclusion in Descartes that these truths derive rather fromGod’s free and indifferent will. Particularly in his exchangeswith Arnauld, Malebranche attempts to present his doctrine of thevision in God as a natural consequence of Descartes’ account ofideas. However, his Augustinian argument serves to show that Descarteshimself could not have accepted this doctrine. Moreover, such anargument reveals the most fundamental reason for Malebranche’srejection of Arnauld’s Cartesian identification of ideas withour own perceptions. Since Malebranche identifies these ideas withnecessary and immutable essences, and since he holds that these ideasderive their necessity and immutability from the divine intellect, heconcludes that Arnauld’s position can only result in a radicalsubjectivism that renders impossible any sort of a priori knowledge ofthe material world.

“Eclaircissement X” also introduces the notion of“intelligible extension” mentioned in Malebranche’sclaim to Arnauld quoted above concerning his own opinion. According tothis Eclaircissement, God has a single ideal extension that serves torepresent particular bodies to Him. Arnauld objects that this positioninvolves a retraction of the claim in theRecherche that weperceive bodies by means of distinct ideas in God. In response,Malebranche insists that his view all along was that God representsparticular bodies by means of His own simple “absolutebeing.” For Arnauld, however, the view that God containsextension in this way is objectionable since it is connected to theheretical view in the work of the Dutch thinker Benedict Spinoza thatGod is extended substance. The charge of Spinozism reappears inMalebranche’s 1713–14 correspondence with one of hisformer students, J.J. Dortous de Mairan (1678–1771), who laterbecame the Secretary of the Académie des sciences. As in thecase of Arnauld, so in this correspondence Malebranche vigorouslydenies this charge. In both cases, he responds by emphasizing that theinfinite and indivisible ideal extension that exists in God differsfrom the finite and divisible extension in the material world. (Formore on Malebranche’s notion of intelligible extension, see Reid2003; cf. the different interpretation of this notion in Nolan2012.)

A final feature of Malebranche’s doctrine of the vision in Godis connected to the notion in his writings of the “efficaciousidea” (idée efficace). As first noted in Robinet(1965), this notion became entrenched in Malebranche’s systemaround 1695, after his encounter with his Cartesian criticRégis. In hisSystême de philosophie,Régis had challenged the claim in the preface to theRecherche that our mind is united to God in a manner that“raises the mind above all things” and is the source of“its life, its light, and its entire felicity”(Malebranche [OC], 1:9). While he grants the commonplace claim thatGod must create and conserve our soul, Régis denies that we areenlightened by means of a union with ideas of bodies in God. Rather,he insists that God conserves in us ideas that derive directly fromthe bodies they represent. In the 1693Réponse àRégis (Response to Régis), Malebrancheemphasizes his Augustinian position that we can be instructed as tothe nature of bodies only through a union with God. However, he puts anew spin on this position when he notes that the union with Godinvolves an “affecting” or “touching” of ourmind by God’s idea of extension.

Already in the 1688Entretiens sur la métaphysique,Malebranche had suggested that the union with God can be explicated interms of a causal relation between God’s ideas and our mind.After 1695, he develops this suggestion by introducing the notion of“pure” or non-sensory intellectual perceptions that areproduced by God’s efficacious idea of extension. Yet he alsostresses in this later period that such an idea is the causal sourceof our sensations. One advantage of this extension of the doctrine ofefficacious ideas to sensations is that it yields a fairly clearexplanation of Malebranche’s claim to Arnauld that an idea is“intelligible extension rendered sensible by color orlight.” Prior to 1695, Malebranche explained how intelligibleextension is so rendered by appealing somewhat obscurely to the factthat the soul “attaches” colors to a non-sensory idea.However, the theory of efficacious ideas allowed him to say that thisidea is rendered sensible by causing in us the appropriate sensationsof color and light. The claim that we see ideas in God is thustransformed into the claim that our soul has intellectual and sensoryperceptions that yield an understanding of the truth concerning bodiesin virtue of their causal relation to God’s idea of extension.Drawing on Robinet’s results, one scholar has concluded thatwhile Malebranche started with the visionin God, he endedwith a visionby God (Alquié 1974, 209).

3. Cartesian Dualism

Malebranche tells Arnauld that it was Augustine’s authority“which has given me the desire to put forththe newphilosophy of ideas” (Malebranche [OC], 6:80). By contrast,he emphasizes in the preface of theRecherche that Augustinehad failed to see that sensible qualities “are not clearlycontained in the idea we have of matter,” adding that “thedifference between mind and body has been known with sufficientclarity for only a few years” (Malebranche [OC], 1:20). Theallusion here is to Descartes’s recent discovery of an idea ofmatter that reveals that its nature consists in extension alone. Thisidea dictates that sensible qualities such as colors, tastes and odorsthat are not reducible to modes of extension cannot exist external tomind. But since these qualities exist in the mind, and in particularin the mind’s perception of the qualities, the mind itself mustbe distinguished from body. In this way the Cartesian idea of matterreveals “the difference between mind and body.”

In the initial book of theRecherche, on the senses,Malebranche proposes that the erroneous belief in the Aristotelians aswell as in Augustine that sensible qualities exist in bodies has itssource in a misuse of “natural judgments” that help in theconservation of the human body. Here he is following Descartes’account in “Meditation VI” of the “teachings ofnature,” and in particular the claim there that the purpose ofsensations is not to teach us about the nature of bodies but simply toinform us of what is beneficial or harmful to the human composite.Just as Descartes had urged that erroneous beliefs about the nature ofbody can be avoided by attending to the clear and distinct perceptionsof the intellect, so Malebranche counseles that we avoid error byattending to what the clear idea of matter reveals to us about thenature of body. As we have seen, Malebranche has Augustinian reasonsfor saying that the idea that so instructs us exists in God. By hisown admission, however, the conclusion that the idea that instructs usis an idea ofextension derives from the recent discoveriesof Descartes.

Malebranche emphasizes that the clear idea of extension must bedistinguished from our confused sensations. One point he wants to makeis that the idea exists in God while the sensations are onlymodifications of our mind. However, his emphasis on the fact that thisidea is “pure” or non-sensory indicates that ourexperience of the material world has an intellectual component. Wehave seen that his late doctrine of the efficacious idea involved theposition that we have pure intellectual perceptions produced byGod’s intellectual idea of extension. But his mature positionthat this idea is also the cause of our sensations allows for theclaim that our most basic sensory contact with the material world hasan intellectual component.

We know that Malebranche’s doctrine of the vision in Godconflicts with Descartes’ doctrine of the creation of theeternal truths. However, there are further departures from orthodoxCartesianism that are linked to two qualifications of this doctrine.The first qualification is that God’s idea of extension canreveal only the nature of bodies and not their existence. Thisqualification is not explicit in the initial edition of theRecherche, which says only that the existence of propertiesof bodies external to us is “very difficult to prove”(Malebranche [OC], 1:122). Foucher had objected that Malebranche hasno good reason to affirm the external existence of these properties.In “Eclaircissement VI,” Malebranche urges that the ideaof extension does reveal the possible existence of the material world,and that Descartes has shown that we have a probable argument for itsactual existence deriving from our natural propensity to believe thatthere are bodies. However, he concedes in this text—withoutcrediting Foucher—that neither he nor Descartes can provide anargument from reason that demonstrates “with evidence” or“with geometric rigor” that this belief is true. Hisconclusion is that such an argument must appeal to faith in theveracity of the report in the Scriptures that God has created theheavens and the earth.

According to the second qualification of the vision in God—whichis found in the original edition of theRecherche—weperceive the nature of our soul not through a clear idea in God, butonly through a confused “consciousness or inner sensation”(conscience ou sentiment intérieur). Malebrancheaccepts the Cartesian commonplace that consciousness revealsimmediately the existence of the soul. He allows that we know thenature of our soul to consist in thought, moreover, and he embracesthe Cartesian conclusion that the soul as a thinking thing is distinctfrom body as an extended thing. Yet he insists that we know that thesoul is distinct from the body not by means of any direct insight intothe nature of thought, but rather by seeing that thought is notcontained in the idea of matter. More generally, Malebranche claimsthat our lack of access to a clear idea of the soul is evident fromthe fact that we do not have knowledge of thought that matches ourknowledge of the mathematical features of bodies. This last pointturns on its head Descartes’ own conclusion in “MeditationII” that the nature of the human mind is “betterknown” than the nature of body; for Malebranche, it is thenature of body that is better known than the nature of mind.

In “Eclaircissement XI,” Malebranche attempts to counter“the authority of Descartes” by arguing that theCartesians themselves must admit that they have only a confusedawareness of the nature of the sensory modifications of the soul. Henotes that while the intellectual idea allows the various modes ofextension to be related in a precise manner, there is no clear scaleon which we can order our sensations of different shades of the samecolor, not to mention our sensations of sensible qualities ofdifferent kinds. Malebranche takes the confusion in the sensations toreveal a confusion in our perception of the nature of the soul. Headds that Cartesians can discern that sensible qualities aremodifications of an immaterial soul only by seeing that they are“not clearly contained in the idea we have of matter.” Fora discussion sympathetic to Malebranche’s critique ofDescartes’s account of our knowledge of mind, see Schmaltz(1996); for more recent discussions that defend Descartes against thiscritique, see Nolan and Whipple (2005) and LoLorodo (2005).

4. Occasionalism

Malebranche is known for his occasionalism, that is, his doctrine thatGod is the only causal agent, and that creatures merely provide the“occasion” for divine action. On the old textbook account,occasionalism was anad hoc response to the purported problemin Descartes of how substances as distinct in nature as mind and bodyare can causally interact (see, for instance, Copleston 1958, 176, andKeeling 1968, 224). According to this account, Malebranche was drivenby this problem with Cartesian dualism to propose that it is God whobrings it about that our sensations and volitions are correlated withmotions in our body.

However, occasionalism was already an old doctrine at the time thatThomas Aquinas (1225–1274) wrote against it. (There is a helpfulsurvey, in German, of the earlier history of occasionalism in Perlerand Rudolph 2000.) Thomas indicated that the primary concern of theoccasionalists was to strengthen the assertion of God’somnipotence. Though he allowed that God must “concur” withcreatures in producing effects, Thomas also claimed that there isreason to conclude that creatures are true secondary causes. Forinstance, he urged that it is more in accord with divine greatness tosay that God communicates His power to creatures. Moreover, he claimedthat it is simply evident to the senses that creatures have the powerto bring about effects. Thomas also argued that if there were nonatures in creatures that explain effects, there could be no truescientific explanation of effects through their natural causes.

Malebranche was concerned to respond to all of these arguments againstoccasionalism, particularly as they were developed in the work ofscholastics such as Suárez. Against the first point thatGod’s greatness requires the communication of His power, hecountered that it is in fact idolatrous to attribute divine power tocreatures. Malebranche’s argument that God alone can produceeffects relies on the assumption that “a true cause … isone such that the mind perceives a necessary connection [liaisonnécessaire] between it and its effects” (Malebranche[OC], 2:316). He claims that there is such a connection neither amongbodily states, nor between bodily and mental states, nor among mentalstates. In all of these cases, one can deny the connections withoutcontradiction. There can be a necessary causal connection in only onecase, namely, the connection between the volitions of an omnipotentagent and its upshots. Thus, only such an agent, namely, God, can be atrue cause. (For different interpretations of this argument, cf. Lee2008 and Ott 2008).

In theEntretiens sur la métaphysique, Malebrancheoffers a different argument based on Descartes’s suggestion in“Meditation III” that God conserves the world bycontinuously creating it. The argument begins with the claim that Godmust create bodies in some particular place and in determinaterelations of distance to other bodies. If God conserves a body bycreating it in the same place from moment to moment, that body remainsat rest, and if he conserves it by creating it in different placesfrom moment to moment, it is in motion. We cannot even create motionin our own bodies. Rather, it is God who must produce it on theoccasion of volitional states. Moreover, it is not motions in ourbrain that cause our sensory states, but God who produces them on theoccasion of the presence of such motions. Finally, I have indicatedthe view in theEntretiens that God produces our intellectualstates through the union of our mind with His “intelligibleextension.” While the argument from the necessity of the causalconnection yields the result that only an omnipotent being can be acause, the argument here is that only that being whichcreates/conserves the world can cause various bodily and mentalstates. However, both arguments converge on the conclusion, whichMalebranche claims to find in Augustine, that all creatures dependentirely on God. (For further discussion of Malebranche’svarious arguments for occasionalism, see Lee 2007 and Lee 2008.)

The second scholastic argument against occasionalism appeals to thepurported fact that it is evident to the senses that creatures havecausal power. For Malebranche, however, this argument is no morepersuasive than the argument that bodies must have colors and tastessince our senses tell us that they do. As indicated above, Malebrancheoffers Cartesian grounds for thinking that the purpose of oursensations is not to reveal the true nature of the material world, butrather to indicate what is helpful or harmful to our body. Malebrancheheld that our attribution of causal powers to bodies manifests inparticular an attachment to the body that is an effect of originalsin. Due to this attachment, we take objects in the material world tobe a cause of our happiness rather than God.

In “Eclaircissement XV,” Malebranche responds to thescholastic point that occasionalism renders scientific explanationimpossible by appealing to the fact that God is not an arbitraryagent, but acts in accord with His wisdom. This wisdom dictates thatHe act “almost always” by means of a “general andefficacious will.” Such a will produces effects that areperfectly law-like. For instance, God acts by a general will inproducing changes in bodies in accord with the law of thecommunication of motion. Malebranche did allow that God can producemiracles by “particular volitions” that are not law-like.However, he emphasizes that there are relatively few such volitions inGod. Thus, we can offer scientific explanations that appeal to thelaws of motion that reflect the nature of God’s generalwill.

The appeal to God’s general will is relevant to a non-scholasticobjection to Malebranche’s occasionalism from his contemporaryGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). In hisSystèmenouveau (1695), Leibniz agrees with Malebranche that “inmetaphysical rigor” created substances cannot be said tointeract, but he rejects Malebranche’s appeal to God to explainthis apparent interaction on the grounds that such an appeal invokes aDeus ex machina and thus involves a “recourse to amiracle” (Leibniz 1997, 17). In the entry on Rorarius in thefirst edition of hisDictionnaire historique et critique(1697), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) protests on Malebranche’sbehalf that since God produces the interactions between mind and body“only according to general laws, in doing so he never actsextraordinarily” (Leibniz 1997, 74). In a 1698 letter to Bayle,Leibniz responds that the mere fact that Malebranche takes God to actin nature according to general laws does not suffice to show that hisoccasionalism does not involve an appeal to a perpetual miracle.Leibniz explains that insofar as a miracle derives from“something which exceeds the power of created things,”anything that God produces directly without any causal contributionfrom created natures counts as miraculous (Leibniz 1997, 82).

A further objection to Malebranche’s occasionalism from one ofhis contemporaries is found in the work of Bernard le Bovier deFontenelle (1657–1757), the eventual perpetual secretary of theParis Académie des Sciences. In his 1686Doutes sur lesystème physique des causes occasionelles, Fontenelleargues that Malebranche’s mechanistic physics is incompatiblewith his occasionalism. This is so because according to mechanism,bodily collision necessitates change in motion. But then bodilycollision satisfies Malebranche’s main requirement for being atrue cause insofar as it has a necessary connection to its effect;thus the conflict with occasionalism. In his 1688Entretien sur lamétaphysique, Malebranche offers the response that thelaws governing the bodily effects of collision derive from God’swill rather than from the nature of bodies (Malebranche [OC], 12:164).For different assessments of this response to Fontenelle, cf. Downing(2005) and Schmaltz (2008).

Malebranche was not the first Cartesian to endorse occasionalism.There were followers of Descartes such as Louis de la Forge(1632–1666) and Claude Clerselier (1614–1684) who stressedthat God must be the cause of the communication of motion in bodilycollisions given the passivity of Cartesian matter. Clerselier inparticular attempted to preserve some room for the action of finiteminds on bodies, but the Cartesian Geraud de Cordemoy(1626–1684) went further in claiming that only God can causechanges in the material world. However, none of these thinkers went asfar as Malebranche in arguing explicitly that God must produce allreal changes in nature. Moreover, Malebranche is distinctive inproviding an explanation of God’s action that distinguishes Hisgeneral will from His particular volitions. For a recent discussion ofissues connected to Malebranche’s notion of particularvolitions, see Walsh and Stencil (2016).

5. Theodicy

The presence of various evils in the world is problematic for anyonewho claims that this world was created by a God who has infinitepower, knowledge and goodness. However, the problem is particularlyacute for an occasionalist such as Malebranche who holds that God isthe only true cause of effects in nature. Malebranche offers atheodicy that addresses the problem of evil by emphasizing that in the“order of nature” God acts for the most part through Hisgeneral will. InNature et grâce, he starts byadmitting that God could have acted by particular volitions to preventnatural evils such as malformed offspring (a fitting example given hisown malformed spine), and thus could have produced a more perfectworld than He actually did create. In correspondence with Leibniz,Malebranche emphasizes this point in distinguishing his theodicy fromLeibniz’s (see Schmaltz 2010). However, Malebranche also claimsthat God could have created a more perfect world only by departingfrom simple laws, thereby sacrificing the simplicity and uniformity ofaction that is a supreme mark of His wisdom. God produces the naturalevils that follow from simple laws not because He wills thoseparticular effects, but because He wills a world that best reflectsHis wisdom by possessing the most effects governed by the fewestlaws.

In hisRéflexions on Malebranche’sNature etgrâce, Arnauld objects to what he took to be the suggestionin his target text that God has concern only for general features ofthe world and does not will the details of His effects. For Arnauld,divine providence requires that God intend all of the particularitiesof the world He creates. In the recent Anglophone literature, there isa debate over whether Arnauld’s critique is based on a properinterpretation of Malebranche. This debate was promoted by the claimin Nadler (1993) that when Malebranche says that God acts by means ofgeneral laws or volitions, he means only that God has volitions inaccord with general laws, and that his doctrine of God’scontinual creation in theEntretiens sur lamétaphysique in fact requires distinct volitions fordistinct effects (cf. the development of this interpretation in Pessin2001 and Stencil 2011). Other commentators have countered that Arnauldwas correct in thinking that Malebranche’s claim inNatureet grâce that God acts by relatively few general volitionsinvolves a rejection of the position that He has volitions for eachparticular effect. Some evidence for this view is provided by the factthat Malebranche emphasizes that the laws themselves are“efficacious,” and that God employs relatively fewvolitions in producing effects in the order of nature (see Black 1997,Jolley 2002, and Schmaltz 2003).

Malebranche insists that God’s general will is operative notonly in the order of nature, but also in the “order ofgrace.” However, he notes that the production of effects in thelatter order also involves human action that is free in the strongsense of not being determined by anything external to the agent. Hisappeal to this sort of freedom is in fact central to his solution tothe problem of moral evil, that is, the compatibility of sin withGod’s goodness. According to Malebranche, God is not responsiblefor sinful action since such action derives not from Him but fromsinful agents. Arnauld objects that this solution is “morepelagian than anything in Pelagius,” and that one must side withAugustine, who declared Pelagianism a heresy. Malebranche respondsthat he did not follow Pelagius in denying the importance of grace,and that Augustine himself had emphasized our freedom in action.

Malebranche also holds that it is obvious by “innersensation” that we are genuinely free. However, there is somequestion whether this introspective report is compatible withMalebranche’s occasionalist claim that God is the only realcause. This question has generated considerable discussion in therecent Anglophone literature (cf. Schmaltz 2005, Greenberg 2008 and2015, and Peppers-Bates 2009). Malebranche does allow that God aloneis the cause of our inclination to love “the good ingeneral.” However, he also insists that we are free to“consent” to the stopping of that inclination at aparticular object other than God. Such consent results in an“absolute and intrinsic” love of that object that issinful given that this love is worthy only of God. The consent is freebecause one is always able to suspend consent and to search forobjects more worthy of our love.

There is the claim that Malebranche’s account of consentremained essentially the same over the course of his philosophicalcareer (see Kremer 2000, 206). However, there is some reason to thinkthat this account in fact was subject to significant development. Inthe initial discussion of freedom in theRecherche, there isthe suggestion that consent consists in our“determination” of our natural inclination toward the goodin general (Malebranche [OC], 1:46). However, this suggestionconflicts with the claim in the very same text that it is God whodirects our natural inclination toward particular objects prior to anyfree act on our part. Indeed, in his later discussion of freedom in“Eclaircissement I,” Malebranche held that our freedomconsists not in an active turning of our natural inclination, butrather in the inactivity of our resting with a particular good(Malebranche [OC], 3:548). This view is further developed in theTraité de morale, which in the case of free actiondistinguishes between theforce involved in the search fortruth and theliberté that directs this search. Freeacts of consent fall under the latter, whereas the former involves thedispositions of our free inclinations that God produces in us on theoccasion of these acts (Malebranche [OC], 11:70). In contrast to hisearlier suggestion that our free acts involve either a turning of ournatural inclination or an inactivity coupled with such an inclination,Malebranche’s view here is that such acts are inactivitiescoupled with a distinct sort of free inclination. There are differentanswers to the question of whether this account serves to reconcileMalebranche’s occasionalism with his claim that we have genuinefreedom of action; cf. Schmaltz (2005), which defends the coherence ofMalebranche’s final position on this issue (in line with theearlier view in Laporte 1951), and Greenberg (2015), which argues thatthis position is not fully consistent.

6. Moral Theory

The theocentrism that is evident in Malebranche’s doctrines ofthe vision in God and occasionalism would lead us to expect that Godplays a central role in his moral theory. This expectation is borneout by his discussion in theTraité de morale. Indeed,Malebranche’s two doctrines are present in that work. The visionin God is reflected in the insistence there that moral duties aredictated by “relations of perfection” revealed inGod’s wisdom. As in the case of necessary truths concerningbody, so in the case of moral truths Malebranche unequivocally rejectsCartesian voluntarism. The doctrine of occasionalism is reflected inMalebranche’s insistence that God is our greatest good since Healone can cause our happiness. This point indicates that Malebranchetakes moral action to require a consideration not only of abstractrelations of perfection, but also the happiness of the self.

Malebranche starts from the Augustinian position that moralityconcerns the proper ordering of our love. Given the importance ofhuman freedom for his theodicy, it is not surprising that Malebrancheinsists that the love required for moral action involve the freeexercise of the will. His version of the “good will” isone that freely strives to be guided in action by objective relationsof perfection that hold among the various objects of love. God is themost perfect being, and hence the most worthy of our love, while humanbeings are more perfect than mere material beings, and thus moreworthy of our love. When the intensity of our love matches the orderamong perfections, we have a right love that provides the basis forvirtue, that is, a habitual inclination to love objects according totheir perfections.

Malebranche holds that due to original sin, we are inclined not toright love directed by our perception of relations of perfection inGod’s wisdom, but rather to a disordered love directed by bodilypleasures deriving from the soul-body union. This is the counterpartto the disordered inclination of our will to make judgments about thenature of the material world that are based on sensations derivingfrom the union. For Malebranche, a corrective to both of thesedisorders of the will is to attend to clear ideas that exist inGod.

Malebranche sometimes suggested that disordered love of bodilypleasure derives from self-love. Encouraged by this suggestion, one ofhis followers, François Lamy, claimed that his position leadsto the quietist view in Fénélon that moral conductrequires a “pure love of God” that involves no concern forthe self or its pleasure. This position, which Lamy himself endorsed,was later condemned by the Catholic Church, due in large part to acampaign against Fénélon directed by his critic,Bossuet. But Malebranche insists that such a position directlyconflicts with his own view that pleasure itself is a good that isrequired as a motive for action. When critics such as Arnauld andRégis charge that this view results in hedonism, Malebrancheresponds that it is only ordered pleasures that bring the greatestgood. This response is reflected in his claim to Lamy that adisordered love of self is to be contrasted not with pure love of God,but rather with an ordered love that seeks happiness in thecontemplation of the greatest good, God. In emphasizing the need forthis sort of love of God, Malebranche was returning to his view in thepreface to theRecherche that it is through a union with Godthat the mind “receives its life, its light, and its entirefelicity.” For more on Malebranche’s engagement withquietism, see Montcheuil (1947). But cf. the critical evaluation ofMontcheuil’s decidedly pro-Malebranche view of this exchangewith Lamy in Dreyfus (1958), 318–22. There is a recentdiscussion of the relation of Malebranche to quietism in Walsh andLennon (2012).

Bardout (2000), 111–62, includes the argument thatMalebranche’s exchange with Lamy on pure love in fact marks atransition in his thought from a “metaphysical morality”that stresses the purely intelligible nature of our moral end, to a“sensible morality” that stresses a conception of that endin terms of the cause of our pleasure. However, this shift may not beas dramatic as in the case of Malebranche’s conception offreedom. For the view that God is our sole good insofar as He is thesole cause of our pleasure is present already in the first edition oftheRecherche (Malebranche [OC], 172–73). Even so,there is reason to think that this view becomes increasingly importantto Malebranche’s moral theory.

Bibliography

Malebranche’s Works

[OC],Œuvres complètes de Malebranche (20volumes), A. Robinet (ed.), Paris: J. Vrin, 1958–84.
[DM],Dialogues on Metaphysics, W. Doney (trans.), NewYork: Abaris Books, 1980.
[DC],Dialogue between a Christian Philosopher and a ChinesePhilosopher on the Existence and Nature of God, D. A. Iorio(trans.), Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1980.
[TE],Treatise on Ethics, C. Walton (trans.), Dordrecht:Kluwer, 1993.
[DMR],Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion, N.Jolley and D. Scott (trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1997.
[ST],The Search after Truth, T. M. Lennon and P. J.Olscamp (trans.), New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997b;Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980.

Related Early Modern Works

André, Y. M.,La vie du R. P. Malebranche, Paris:Ingold, 1886; Geneva: Slatkin Reprints, 1970.
Arnauld, A.,Des vrayes et des fausses idées,1683;On True and False Ideas, E. J. Kremer (trans.),Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990.
Fontenelle, B. de le B. de,Œuvres complètes(9 volumes), A. Niderst (ed.), Paris: Fayard, 1989–2001.
Foucher, S.,Critique de la recherche de laverité, Paris: Coustelier, 1675; reprinted, R. A. Watson(ed.), New York: Johnson Reprint, 1969.
Leibniz, G.W.,Système nouveau, 1695;Leibniz’s ‘New System’ and AssociatedContemporaryTexts, R.S. Woolhouse and R. Francks(trans. and eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.

Bibliographical Sources

Easton, P., Lennon, T. M., and Sebba, G., 1992,BibliographiaMalebranchiana: A Critical Guide to the Malebranche Literature into1989, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Press.
Sebba, G., 1959,Nicolas Malebranche, 1638–1715: APreliminary Bibliography, Athens: University of GeorgiaPress.

Recommended Secondary Literature

Alquié, F., 1974,Le cartésianisme deMalebranche, Paris: J. Vrin.
Bardout, J.-C., 1999,Malebranche et lamétaphysique, Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance.
–––, 2000,La vertu de la philosophie: Essaisur la morale de Malebranche, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag.
Barry, G., 2015, “Cartesian Modes and the Simplicity ofMind,”Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96:54–76.
Black, A. G., 1997, “Malebranche’s Theodicy,”Journal of the History of Philosophy, 35: 27–44.
Brown, S., 1991,Nicolas Malebranche: His PhilosophicalCritics and Successors, Assen: Van Gorcum.
Chamberlain, C., 2018, “Our Bodies, Our Selves: Malebrancheon Feelings of Embodiment,”Ergo, 5: 507–39.
–––, 2020, “Let Us Imagine that God hasMade a Miniature Earth and Sky: Malebranche on the Body-Relativity ofVisual Size,”Journal of the American PhilosophicalAssociation, 6: 206–24.
–––, 2021, “The Most Dangerous Error:Malebranche on the Experience of Causation,”Philosophers’ Imprint, 21(10).Chamberlain 2021 available online.
Chappell, V. (ed.), 1992,Nicholas Malebranche, New York:Garland.
Connell, D., 1967,The Vision in God: Malebranche’sScholastic Sources, Louvain: Nauwelaerts.
Copleston, F., 1958,A History of Philosophy, vol. 4, NewYork: Random House.
Detlefsen, K., 2014, “Biology and Theology inMalebranche’s Theory of Organic Generation,” inTheLife Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy, O. Nachtomy and J. E.H. Smith (eds.), 137–56, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Downing, L., 2005, “Occasionalism and Strict Mechanism:Malebranche, Berkeley, Fontenelle,” inEarly ModernPhilosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics, C. Mercer and E.O’Neill (eds.), 206–30, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
–––, 2014, “Erficient Causation inMalebranche and Berkeley,” inEfficient Causation: AHistory, T. M. Schmaltz (ed.), 198–230, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
Dreyfus, G., 1958,La volonté selon Malebranche,Paris: J. Vrin.
Fisher, A. R. J., 2011, “Causal and Logical Necessity inMalebranche’s Occasionalism,”Canadian Journal ofPhilosophy, 41(4): 523–48.
Gouhier, H., 1926,La Vocation de Malebranche, Paris: J.Vrin.
–––, 1948,La philosophie deMalebranche, Paris:J. Vrin.
Greenberg, S., 2008, “Things that Undermine Each Other:Occasionalism, Freedom, and Attention in Malebranche,”Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, 4:113–40.
–––, 2010, “Malebranche on the Passions:Biology, Morality and the Fall,”British Journal for theHistory of Philosophy, 18: 191–207.
–––, 2015, “Occasionalism, Human Freedom,and Consent in Malebranche: ‘Things that Undermine EachOther’?”Oxford Studies in Early ModernPhilosophy, 7: 151–86.
Gueroult, M., 1939,Etendue et psychologie chezMalebranche, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. 2nd ed., Paris: J. Vrin,1987.
–––, 1955–59,Malebranche, (3vols.). Paris: Aubier.
Jolley, N., 1990,The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas inLeibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes, Oxford: ClarendonPress.
–––, 2002, “Occasionalism and EfficaciousLaws in Malebranche,”Midwest Studies in Philosophy,26: 245–57.
Keeling, S.V.,Descartes, 2nd edn., Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
Kremer, E. J., 2000, “Malebranche on Human Freedom,”in Nadler (2000), 190–219.
Laporte, J., 1951, “La liberté selonMalebranche,” inÉtudes d’Histoire de laphilosophie française au XVIIe siècle,193–248. Paris: J. Vrin.
Lee, S., 2007, “Passive Natures and No Representations:Malebranche’s Two ‘Local’ Arguments forOccasionalism,”Harvard Review of Philosophy, 15:72–91.
–––, 2008, “Necessary Connections andContinuous Creation: Malebranche’s Two Arguments forOccasionalism,”Journal of the History of Philosophy,46: 539–65.
LoLordo, A., 2005, “Descartes and Malebranche on Thought,Sensation and the Nature of Mind,”Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 43: 387–402.
McCracken, C., 1983,Malebranche and British Philosophy,Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Montcheuil, Y. de., 1946,Malebranche et lequiétisme, Paris: Aubier.
Moreau, D., 1999,Deux cartésiens: La polemique entreAntoine Arnauld et Nicolas Malebranche, Paris: J. Vrin.
Nadler, S., 1992,Malebranche and Ideas, New York: OxfordUniversity Press.
–––, 1993, “Occasionalism and General Willin Malebranche,”Journal of the History of Philosophy,31: 31–47; reprinted, with a postscript, in Nadler (2011),48–73.
–––, 2011,Occasionalism: Causation Amongthe Cartesians, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nadler, S. (ed.), 2000,The Cambridge Companion toMalebranche, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nolan, L., 2012, “Malebranche on Sensory Cognition and‘Seeing As’,”Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 50: 21–52.
Nolan, L., and J. Whipple, 2005, “Self Knowledge inDescartes and Malebranche,”Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 43: 55–81.
Ott, W., 2008, “Causation, Intentionality, and the Case forOccasionalism,”Archiv für Geschichte derPhilosophie, 90: 165–87.
–––, 2017,Descartes, Malebranche, and theCrisis of Perception, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pellegrin, M.-F., 2006,Le Système de la loi de NicolasMalebranche, Paris: J. Vrin.
Peppers-Bates, S., 2009,Nicolas Malebranche: Freedom in anOccasionalist World, New York: Continuum.
Perler, D. and U. Rudolph., 2000,Occasionalismus: Theoriender Kausalität in arabisch-islamischen und im europäischenDenken, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Pessin, A., 2001, “Malebranche’s Distinction BetweenGeneral and Particular Volitions,”Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 39: 77–99.
Priarolo, M., 2017, “Universals and Individuals inMalebranche’s Philosophy,” inThe Problem ofUniversals in Early Modern Philosophy, S. Di Bella and T. M.Schmaltz (eds.), 142–165, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prost, J., 1907,Essai sur l’atomisme etl’occasionalisme dans la philosophie Cartésienne,Paris: J. Vrin.
Pyle, A., 2003,Malebranche, London: Routledge.
Radner, D., 1978,Malebranche: A Study of a CartesianSystem, Assen: Van Gorcum.
Reid, J., 2003, “Malebranche on IntelligibleExtension,”British Journal for the History ofPhilosophy, 11: 581–608.
–––, 2015, “Henry More and NicolasMalebranche’s Critiques of Spinoza,”European Journalof Philosophy, 23: 764–92.
Robinet, A., 1955,Malebranche et Leibniz: Relationspersonelles, Paris: J. Vrin.
–––, 1965,Système et existence dansl’œuvre de Malebranche, Paris: J. Vrin.
Rodis-Lewis, G., 1963,Nicolas Malebranche, Paris:Presses Universitaires de France.
Rozemond, M., 2016, “Descartes, Malebranche and Leibniz:Conceptions of Substance in Arguments for the Immateriality of theSoul,”British Journal for the History of Philosophy,24: 836–57.
Schmaltz, T. M., 1996,Malebranche’s Theory of the Soul:A Cartesian Interpretation, New York: Oxford UniversityPress.
–––, 2003, “Cartesian Causation: Body-BodyInteraction, Motion, and Eternal Truths,”Studies in Historyand Philosophy of Science, 34: 373–62.
–––, 2005, “Malebranche on Natural andFree Loves,” inThe Concept of Love in Seventeenth andEighteenth Century Philosophy, G. Boros, H. De Dijn, and M. Moors(eds.), 41–52. Brussels: KVAB.
–––, 2008, “Occasionalism and Mechanism:Fontenelle’s Objections to Malebranche,”BritishJournal for the History of Philosophy, 16: 293–313.
–––, 2010, “Malebranche and Leibniz on theBest of All Possible Worlds,”Southern Journal ofPhilosophy, 48: 28–48.
–––, 2015, “The Metaphysics of Rest inDescartes and Malebranche,”Res Philosophica, 92:21–40.
Stencil, E., 2011, “Malebranche and the General Will ofGod,”British Journal for the History of Philosophy,19: 1107–29.
Walsh, J., 2011, “Malebranche, Freedom, and the DividedMind,” inGods and Giants in Early Modern Philosophy,P. Easton and K. Smith (eds.), 194–216, Toronto: University ofToronto Press.
Walsh, J., and T. Lennon., 2012, “Malebranche, theQuietists, and Freedom,”British Journal for the History ofPhilosophy, 20: 69–108.
Walsh, J., and E. Stencil, 2016,“Malebranche on theMetaphysics of Particular Volitions,”Journal of the Historyof Philosophy, 54: 227–55.
Walton, C., 1972,De la Recherche du Bien: A Study ofMalebranche’s Science of Ethics, The Hague: MartinusNijhoff.

Academic Tools

How to cite this entry.
Preview the PDF version of this entry at theFriends of the SEP Society.
Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO).
Enhanced bibliography for this entryatPhilPapers, with links to its database.

Other Internet Resources

Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative.
The Encyclopedia Now Needs Your Support
Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia Free

Browse

About

Support SEP

Mirror Sites

View this site from another server:

USA (Main Site)Philosophy, Stanford University

Info about mirror sites

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Movatterモバイル変換