Occasional Notes

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Notes to Occasionalism

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1. Note that some argue that al-Ghazālī was actually not anoccasionalist. See Dutton note 1.

2. This description is actually a summary that Ibn Rushd (Averroes)presents in his TT 316. The corresponding passage inal-Ghazali’s Incoherence appears to be TF 170.

3. Gabriel Biel (c. 1425–1495), one of the last of the greatScholastics, has also at times been identified as an occasionalist.For instance, see Freddoso 1998, 81–83. Freddoso cites a veryinteresting summary of Biel’s view on causation from Molina’sConcordia 159–60 (“De Concursu Dei generali,” Q.14., A. 13, disp. 25). Here is the passage in question:

He is of the opinion that secondary causes bring about nothing at all,but that God by Himself alone produces all the effects in them and intheir presence, so that fire does not produce heat and the sun doesnot give light, but instead it is God who produces these effects inthem and in their presence. Hence … he claims that secondarycauses are not properly causes in the sense of having aninfluence on the effect; for it is only the First Cause which heaffirms to be a cause in this sense, whereas secondary causes, heclaims, should be called causes sine qua non, insofar as Godhas decided not to produce the effect except when they are present.… He also asserts with Peter D’Ailly that when Godproduces an effect in conjunction with fire, He contributes no lessthan He would contribute were He to produce the same effect byHimself—in fact, He brings about more, since not only does Heproduce the heat with a concurrence just as great as if the fire werenot present, but He also brings it about that the fire too is in itsown way a cause of the heat (The translation is Freddoso’s).

Though the beginning of the paragraph strongly suggests that Biel wasindeed an occasionalist, it is curious that in the latter half of theparagraph he is identified with Peter D’Ailly as asserting that“fire too is in its own way a cause of the heat.” ThatBiel held with D’Ailly that “God brings it about that firetoo is in its own way a cause of the heat” suggests that Bielheld that certain natural effects are causally overdetermined by Godand the creature. If so, this raises questions about how consistentlyBiel was committed to occasionalism.

4. For instance, see Garber 1993 and Hatfield 1979.

5. For instance, see Della Rocca 1999 and Schmaltz 2008a.

6. See the pioneering work of Steven Nadler in this regard as specifiedin the bibliography.

7. Much work on this topic has been done by Steven Nadler. See Nadler1993b, 1996, 1998, and 1999.

9. See the entry on Berkeley.

10. Also see Pitcher 1981. For a more general discussion on Berkeley’sviews on the activity of spirits, see Adams 1973.

12. Occasionalists and “pre-established harmonists” do notdeny the causal activity that the infinite substance, God, exerts onfinite substances. Thus, they affirm inter-substantial causationinsofar as the causal agent is God.

13. Historically speaking, it has not been an easy proposition to come upwith a convincing account of how this joint causal activity betweenGod and the creature is supposed to work. On the concurrentistaccount, God obviously is doing more than merely conserving the beingof the creature along with its power. For God is in some sensecausally active in bringing about the effect in a direct manner.However, this direct causal activity of God must differ from the wayin which God is the sole direct cause of the effect, which is how theoccasionalist regards the divine causal activity in question. In whatsense God is doing more but not as much as the occasionalist’s accounthas been the topic of much discussion and disagreement. In fact,Malebranche shrewdly points out in Elucidation 15 that thedisagreement is so great that “[w]hen people who have no specialinterest preventing them from agreeing cannot agree, it is a sure signthat they have no clear idea of what they are saying.”(Search 658)

14. If we employ the scheme introduced earlier—that is,“local”and “global” arguments foroccasionalism—then the “passive nature” (PN) and“no knowledge” (NK) arguments fall into the firstcategory, and the “no necessary connection” (NNC) and the“conservation is but continuous creation” (CCC) argumentsfall into the latter category.

15. Parts of this section have been incorporated from Lee 2007.

16. Therefore, someone who does not share the Cartesian conception of thenature of bodies as being exhausted by extension would not be in aposition to endorse the PN argument.

17. Descartes, Principles of Philosophy II §4, AT VIII42.

18. In the same section, Malebranche describes the asymmetry between restand motion in the following manner: “The will of the Author ofnature, which creates the power and force that each body has forcontinuing in the state it is in, concerns only motion and not rest,since bodies have no power whatsoever in themselves”(OCM II 432/Search 517). Note that this seems to bein tension with what Descartes says in the Principles II,§§24–37 (AT VIII, 53–62).

19. We follow Jolley (“Introduction” to theDialogues) and Nadler 1999 in referring to this argument asthe “no knowledge” argument.

20. We follow Nadler 1996 in referring to the argument in this way. Muchof the content of this portion of the entry is based on discussion inLee 2008.

21. For instance, the cotton fibers could, in a miraculous manner, bemomentarily turned into steel as it comes into contact with thefire.

22. Are the necessary connections being discussed here logicallynecessary connections? Malebranche does not deny that the essences ofcreatures logically entail certain constraints for divine causalactivity. For instance, in the Dialogues, Malebranche notesthat the nature of bodies—their impenetrability—obligesGod, with “a kind of necessity,” to move bodies when theycollide. But he also states that “it is clear thatimpenetrability has no efficacy of its own and that it can merelyprovide God, who treats things according to their nature, with anoccasion to diversify His action” (Dialogues VII,§XII, p.118–9). So, while certain events might logicallynecessitate some sort of divine action and, hence, be an occasion forGod to act, they are not themselves causally efficacious, according toMalebranche. So I take the necessitation in this passage from theSearch to be causal in nature, and not simply logical. Theinteresting and complex issue of how Malebranche understands therelation between causal necessitation and logical necessitationrequires further discussion and cannot be done full justice here. Ofparticular importance is how to understand the connection that obtainsbetween divine volitions and their effects. It is at least a logicallynecessary connection, since it is a logically necessary truth forMalebranche that if God wills p, p obtains (insofar as p itself is notinconsistent). But there has to be more going on, since, as we havejust seen above, the nature of bodies also obliges with this type ofnecessity—that is, logical necessity—but such obligingfalls short of genuine causation, a shortcoming that does not apply todivine volitions. For an interesting discussion about the relation ofthe NK argument to the NNC argument, in addition to issues concerningthe nature of necessity involved, see Ott, 2013.

23. I thank Robert Adams for bringing this point to my attention. Formore on this weakness of the NNC argument and its relation to the CCCargument in Malebranche, see Lee 2008.

24. Mere conservationists such as Durandus are the exception.

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25. For an excellent discussion of this and related issues, see Freddoso1988 and Freddoso 1991.

27. For this line of argument, see Lee 2018b, 74–82.

28. La Forge, Traité de l’esprit de l’hommein Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. Pierre Clair (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1974; hereafter, Traité),241. The translation is Nadler’s and is quoted from Nadler 1998,218–9. This passage also suggests that La Forge might have hadthe continuous recreation view in mind as well.

29. The concurrentist might think that even in the case of the initialcreation of the world ex nihilo, while the being oresse of the creature are brought about ex nihilo byGod, the modes the creature possesses at creation are the result ofthe concurrent activity of the creature and God. Leibniz,interestingly enough, actually seems to be suggesting something closeto such a view in his Theodicy section 388.

30. See Garber 1993, 14–5 and Winkler 2011, 298–302. Notealso that this view differs from the aforementioned position ofal-Ash’ari, who seems to be arguing that only the modes of agiven creature are continuously recreated, while the esse ofthe creature is somehow maintained or sustained. This hybrid viewwould have an advantage in addressing worries about transtemporalidentity, since the sustained being of the creature could be invokedto provide the basis for the numerical identity of the creaturethrough change.

31. Winkler goes on to note that this reading of continuous creation,that is, continuous creation as continuous recreation is whatgives the continuous creation thesis its hold over him, if at all:

I am therefore left thinking that what gives continuous creation itshold over me is the threat it presents to the preexistence ofsubstantial causes. Even if God’s causal role (contrary to both theimmanent variant and the first transeunt variant) leaves a place for acollaborating finite being, I have trouble seeing how a finitesubstance that comes into being at the very same moment as the effectcan be a productive cause of it. The substance may help to render theeffect intelligible, but if it does so only because God adjusts theworld to accommodate it, the real productive work seems to be theprivilege of God alone. (Winkler 2011, 300)

Occasional Notes

32. See Lee, S., “Leibniz on What God and Creatures Cause,”Natur und Subjekt: IX. Internationaler Leibniz-Kongress,Vortraege 2. Teil, Hannover (2011), 596–8.

34. On the difficult and complex topic of Malebranche on free will, seeElmar Kremer 2000, 190–219 and Schmaltz 1996, 192–234.

35. One word of caution about how “occasional causation” isbeing used in the literature. Steven Nadler uses the term in adifferent, distinct sense:

what I am calling ‘occasional causation’ does not require anysubstantial likeness between cause and effect, and does not involveany kind of influx or communication. In the technical sense of theterm, then, no real influence occurs between cause and effect. Butoccasional causation does, however, constitute a real causalrelationship and not just accidental, sequential conjunction. Thus, ina somewhat broader (hence, weaker) sense, there is an ‘influence’ ofcause upon effect, but not of a transeunt efficient nature.

In simple terms, a relationship of occasional causation exists whenone thing or state of affairs brings about an effect by inducing (butnot through efficient causation...) another thing to exercise its ownefficient causal power. The relationship of occasional causationunites one thing or state of affairs with an effect wrought (throughefficient causation, immanent or transeunt) by another thing. Thus,the term denotes the entire process whereby one thing, A, occasions orelicits another thing, B, to cause e.(Nadler 1994, 39)

Thus, for Nadler, “occasional causation” consists in agenuine causal relation, wherein the occasional cause“induces” something else to exercise its own causal powerto produce a given effect. In contrast, by “occasionalcausation,” I take the relation between the occasional cause andeffect to not be a genuine causal relation. That is, “occasionalcausation,” as I will be using it, refers to the quasi-causalrelationship that holds between an occasional cause and its effect,standardly characterized by robust regularity but not genuinecausation.

36. What happens when a body collides with another body? Is it not thecase that such an event must necessarily be followed by either thefirst body rebounding or the second body giving up its initiallocation? This fascinating question is the core issue between anexchange between Malebranche and Fontenelle. See Schmaltz 2008b for anexcellent discussion of related issue. Also relevant is the discussionin footnote 22 of this entry.