Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Malebranche and the General Will of God.Eric Stencil - 2011 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (6):1107-1129.
    Central to Nicolas Malebranche’s theodicy is the distinction between general volitions and particular volitions. One of the fundamental claims of his theodicy is that although God created a world with suffering and evil, God does not will these things by particular volitions, but only by general volitions. Commentators disagree about how to interpret Malebranche’s distinction. According to the ‘general content’ interpretation, the difference between general volitions and particular volitions is a difference in content. General volitions have general laws as their (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • The Metaphysics of Rest in Descartes and Malebranche.Tad M. Schmaltz - 2015 - Res Philosophica 92 (1):21-40.
    I consider a somewhat obscure but important feature of Descartes’s physics that concerns the notion of the “force of rest.” Contrary to a prominent occasionalist interpretation of Descartes’s physics, I argue that Descartes himself attributes real forces to resting bodies. I also take his account of rest to conflict with the view that God conserves the world by “re-creating” it anew at each moment. I turn next to the role of rest in Malebranche. Malebranche takes Descartes to endorse his own (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Occasionalism and mechanism: Fontenelle's objections to Malebranche.Tad M. Schmaltz - 2008 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16 (2):293 – 313.
    It is well known that the French Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) was both an occasionalist in metaphysics and a mechanist in physics. He consistently argued that God is the only true caus...
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Cartesian causation: body–body interaction, motion, and eternal truths.Tad M. Schmaltz - 2003 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 34 (4):737-762.
    There is considerable debate among scholars over whether Descartes allowed for genuine body–body interaction. I begin by considering Michael Della Rocca’s recent claim that Descartes accepted such interaction, and that his doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths indicates how this interaction could be acceptable to him. Though I agree that Descartes was inclined to accept real bodily causes of motion, I differ from Della Rocca in emphasizing that his ontology ultimately does not allow for them. This is not (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Supernaturalism, occasionalism, and preformation in Malebranche.Karen Detlefsen - 2003 - Perspectives on Science 11 (4):443-483.
    Malebranche is both an occasionalist and an advocate of the preformationist theory of generation. One might expect this given that he is a mechanist: passive matter cannot be the source of its own motion and so requires God to move it (occasionalism); and such matter, moving according to a few simple laws of motion, could never fashion something as complex as a living being, and so organisms must be fashioned by God at Creation (preformationism). This expectation finds a challenge in (...)
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations