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Nicolas Malebranche

Nicolas Malebranche was a French priest of the Oratory in Paris and the most important Cartesian philosopher of the generation after Descartes. In The…

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On the Coordinates: 1.3.1 The Mind–Body Problem

1638 – 1715 · Paris, France

Traditions: Modern European

Schools: Rationalism

Nicolas Malebranche was a French priest of the Oratory in Paris and the most important Cartesian philosopher of the generation after Descartes. In The Search after Truth he developed occasionalism: God is the only true cause, and created events, such as a decision to move one's arm, are merely the occasions on which God acts. He also held that we see all things in God, and debated Arnauld and Leibniz.

Key ideas

  • Occasionalism: no created thing has real causal power; God alone is a true cause.
  • Mind and body do not act on each other; their correlation is maintained by God's general volitions.
  • There is no necessary connection between created causes and effects, only between God's will and its effects.
  • Vision in God: we perceive material things through ideas that exist in God's mind.

Major works

  • The Search after Truth (De la recherche de la vérité, 1674–75)
  • Treatise on Nature and Grace (Traité de la nature et de la grâce, 1680)
  • Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion (Entretiens sur la métaphysique et sur la religion, 1688)

In the conversation

In the Coordinates

The questions of philosophy where Nicolas Malebranche takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.