Abstract

Leibniz's views on divine concurrence have presented interpreters with great difficulty. On the one hand, Leibniz thought that creatures have genuine causal powers, causing their own states. But he also believed that God is immediately involved in every aspect of the world by endorsing the 'conservation is but continuous creation' thesis . Accordingly, when faced with the question of how divine and creaturely causality relate, Leibniz held that God and creatures concur. It is not obvious, however, how this 'concurrence' is supposed to work or even whether these two commitments can be consistently maintained. ;The key challenge comes from Malebranche who argues, rather persuasively, that occasionalism follows from CCC. Leibniz, thus, needs to avoid this inference if he is to maintain real forces in creatures. In chapter two, I show how he avoids the inference by holding a restricted version of CCC. I go on to propose that Leibniz's account of concurrence is basically a cooperation model, in which God produces the modifications of creatures in accordance with the reasons presented within each creature's nature. Though God is the sole efficient cause, the creature contributes and acts in the form of rational determination, i.e., it determines which particular modification God is to produce. ;This proposal raises the worry that Leibnizian reasons are uncomfortably similar to Malebranchean occasions. In chapter three, I examine Leibniz's own attempts to distance himself from occasionalism but argue that whatever the merits of these arguments are they fall short of addressing this problem. ;Chapter four concentrates on this issue of distinguishing reasons and occasions. I argue that their core difference lies in that Leibnizian reasons demand, unlike Malebranchean occasions. This demand consists in the creature's states having an intrinsic value and this inherent goodness accounts for why they function as reasons behind God's decision to act. Furthermore, reasons as such motivate but do not necessitate and this motivating power of the goodness of reasons is a genuine power for Leibniz. For Malebranche, however, that which does not necessitate is not a cause and I conclude that this is the core difference between Leibniz and Malebranche