Nicolas Malebranche

One of the more persistent interpretations of Leibniz's system of pre-established harmony is as a temporal dislocation of occasionalism: whatever God is always doing on the occasionalist account he need only have done once – at creation – on Leibniz's. In accordance with this interpretation, the difference between the systems of La Forge, Cordemoy, and Malebranche, on the one hand, and Leibniz's, on the other, is one of how involved God is in the world. Here, I show the difference between these systems has nothing to do with God's degree of involvement in the universe. Rather, the basic difference between the systems must be found in their differing accounts of the nature of substance.

This book is a retrospective view of modern philosophical anthropology through the works of two of its greatest exponents. the author demonstrates how mythology, the philosophy of history and language and Vico's concept of man had as a constant referral point Malebranche's psychology with its Cartesian formulation. The idolatrous and mythopoietic imagination that is described in La Scienza Nuova (New Science) has much in common with the "pagan" mind (that is to say the mind subjugated to passions, sensitivity and fantasy that is described in La Recherche (The Search after Truth). Some of the themes discussed here are myth, the metaphoric nature of thought, idolatry, the formation of mentality, the relationships which bind passions and representations and the association of ideas through iconic images. Also discussed are other themes such as the structure of society and imagination, imitation, persuasion and social relationships, communication within society between illustrious imaginations. Moreover in Malebranche has been found a complex and complete theory of imaginative universals (universali fantastici).

TO READ THE PREVIEW SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE PREVIEW SCROLL DOWN

The living symphony of life sounds from deep within the microphysical, representing the veritable completion of the fabled Great Chain of Being. This sketch from 2015 can be coordinated with a much more concrete, recent description of the fundamental physical system of living motion and psychical reality at issue (especially the chirality that deeply informs musical thematics) now to be found in the author's 'Carlyle and the Idea' (2018) at Academia.Edu, toward which interested readers of this rough sketch are directed as a kind of paved road ahead.

Description courte (Électre, 2019) : Une étude d'un des principaux axes de réflexion du philosophe des sciences et de la nature Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). À la lumière des découvertes de l'embryogenèse et en s'appuyant par ailleurs sur la théorie de l'information, il proposa une interprétation des concepts unificateurs de la cybernétique mécaniste.

Short Descriptor (Electre 2019): A study of one of the main axes of reflection of the French philosopher of science and of nature Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). Relying on the discoveries about embryogenesis, and also with the use of information theory, Ruyer proposed an interpretation of the main unifying concepts of mechanistic cybernetics.

Description longue : Cet ouvrage propose une étude fouillée d’un des principaux axes de réflexion du philosophe des sciences et de la nature français Raymond Ruyer (1902–1987) : la cybernétique. Après avoir proposé une philosophie structuraliste, Ruyer la modifia à la lumière des découvertes de l’embryogenèse, puis il proposa une interprétation des concepts unificateurs de la cybernétique mécaniste. Réfléchissant sur cette dernière et sur la théorie de l’information, en particulier sur l’origine de l’information, il défendit que cette cybernétique n’était qu’une lecture inversée de la vraie cybernétique, qui nous donnerait de lire dans l’expérience même les traces du pouvoir morphogénétique, appréhendé comme un champ axiologique. Dans un texte résumant son propre parcours, Ruyer affirma que la critique de la théorie de l’information « peut donner […] l’espoir d’aboutir à quelque chose comme une nouvelle théologie. »

Les idées directrices de Ruyer sont tout particulièrement contextualisées ici à partir de la question du développement des formes en biologie, et de celles de la génétique, de la genèse stochastique de l’ordre, et de l’identification mentale ou physique de l’information. L’ouvrage se termine en départageant ce qui est axiologique et théologique dans ce projet de métaphysique qui, bien que resté inachevé, n’en représente pas moins le plus impressionnant conçu en France au siècle dernier.

– Long description: This book offers an in-depth study of one of the main axes in the reflection of French philosopher of science and nature Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). In a text summarising his own development, Ruyer stated about the philosophical critique of information theory that it "is what can give the most long-lasting hope of getting to something like a new theology." After propounding a structuralist philosophy, and distinguishing between form and structure, to then modify it in the light of discoveries in embryogenesis, Ruyer offered a re-evaluation of the unifying concepts of mechanistic cybernetics. Thinking about it and about information theory, he defended the idea that this cybernetics was in reality an inverted reading of the real one, which would allow us to read in experience itself traces of the morphogenetic power, apprehended as the axiological field. On some transversal points, the development of forms in biology and genetics, the stochastic genesis of order, the identification of information with either psychological and mental, or physical reality, behaviour, and the access to meaning, this work exposes the main ideas of Ruyer while situating them in the context of the breadth of others' contributions. It ends by determining what is theological and axiological in this project for a metaphysics which, although unfinished, is nevertheless the most impressive effort done in France in the last century.

First of all, this article examines the conception of Malebranche according to which man is the “animal Rationis particeps” and his arguments to demonstrate the necessity of a universal Reason: it looks at the objectivity of mathematical truths and basic principles of ethics (consider, in particular, the 10th Elucidation on The Search after Truth, 1678). Secondly, the article analyses Locke’s text An Examination of P. Malebranche’s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God (1695, published posthumously, 1706), in particular the paragraphs in which the English philosopher calls into question the Malebranchean theory of universal Reason by affirming the necessity to distinguish our understanding from God’s understanding and stating that man does not apprehend anything through God’s understanding, neither can he share His knowledge. But it also examines the fourth book of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), in which Locke affirms that reason is a natural revelation by means of which God communicates to man that portion of truth which is appropriate to his faculties. Finally, this article concentrates on Giambattista Vico’s On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians Unearthed from the Origins of the Latin Language (1710), in which the Italian philosopher thematizes the conception according to which man is a being that participates in reason but is not the master thereof; moreover it also considers the Vichian criticism of, and debt towards, Malebranche and the role of universal Reason in the Universal Right (1720-1722) and New Science (third edition, 1744). In this way, three different perspectives – which are not in total contrast with each other – on the old question of the existence of a universal Reason constituting the rational skeleton or texture of the world are highlighted.

Although many commentators on Rousseau’s philosophy have noted its affinities with Platonism and acknowledged the debt that Rousseau himself expressed to Plato on numerous occasions, David Williams is the first to offer a thoroughgoing, systematic examination of this linkage. His contributions to the scholarship on Rousseau in this book are threefold: he enters the debate over whether Rousseau is a Hobbesian (in rejecting transcendent norms) or a Platonist (in accepting them) with a decisive argument supporting the latter position; he tackles from a new angle the ever-challenging question of unity in Rousseau’s thought; and he explores the dynamic metaphor of the chain throughout Rousseau’s writings as a key to understanding them as inspired by Platonism.

The book is organized into three main parts. The first sketches the background of Platonism and materialist positivism in modern European metaphysics and political philosophy that provided the context for Rousseau’s intellectual development. The second examines Rousseau’s choice of Platonism over positivism and its consequences for his philosophy generally. The third addresses the legacy of Rousseau’s thought and its appropriation by Kant, Marx, and Foucault, suggesting that in an age where materialism and relativism are rife, Rousseau may have much to teach us about how we view our own society and can engage in constructive critique of it.

Malebranche a été exclu d’une histoire de la radicalité présentée comme caractéristique des Lumières. Or ce faisant, on a oublié que le malebranchisme était déjà une réception particulière : celle de la physiologie cartésienne qui, combinée à la théorie de l’opacité à elle-même de l’âme déchue, fournit des matériaux théoriques de choix pour l’édification ultérieure de formes variées de matérialismes. C’est dans ces termes que se pose précisément le paradoxe des conséquences chez Malebranche : c’est parce qu’il a voulu christianiser la physiologie que le malebranchisme a physiologisé le christianisme et qu’il faut désormais lui faire une place, et peut-être même une place de choix, dans l’histoire de la sécularisation.

Malebranche has been excluded from a history of Enlightenment radicalism, which means overlooking the fact that Malebranchism is a particular interpretation of Cartesian physiology, which, ­combined with the theory of the opacity of the fallen soul to itself, provides theoretical material for ­constructing various materialisms. It is in these terms that the paradox of ­consequences in Malebranche arises: it is because he wanted to christianize physiology that Malebranchism physiologized Christianity.

Cet article s’efforce de prendre la mesure de l’impact du cartésianisme dans les transformations du concept d’imagination à la fin du XVIIe siècle en prenant pour points d’ancrage les développements consacrés à cette notion chez Malebranche et Fontenelle. Ces deux penseurs accentuent des polarités qui sont présentes dans la conception cartésienne de l’imagination : Malebranche fait fond sur la notion d’imagination passive pour en faire le pivot d’une théorie de la contagion des affects et des représentations, alors que Fontenelle mobilise celle d’imagination active pour élaborer son histoire de l’esprit humain. Tous deux, à terme, font de l’imagination une notion centrale dans la formation d’un proto-concept de « culture ».

Les Méditations chrétiennes et métaphysiques, publiées pour la première fois en 1683, se proposent d’approfondir à nouveaux frais les enjeux théoriques de la Recherche de la vérité et des Conversations chrétiennes. Leur stratégie consiste à faire parler Dieu lui-même, qui enseigne et éclaire tous les esprits. La raison finie s’y interroge sur la source de son savoir et de son bonheur, pour découvrir un Autre qui la dépasse et qui la fonde. Cet Autre, c’est la raison infinie et universelle, à la fois extérieure et intérieure à l’esprit : elle se révèle enfin comme le Verbe éternel qui est à la fois la vérité et l’ordre, la clé de voûte épistémologique et morale de l’existence individuelle.

The “Discourse on Metaphysics” is widely considered to be Leibniz’s most important philosophical work from his so-called “middle period”. Written early in 1686, when Leibniz was 39 years old, it consolidates a number of philosophical ideas that he had developed and sketched out in the years beforehand in a host of short private essays, fragments, and letters. This essay guides the reader through the key themes of the “Discourse”, such as God’s choice of the best, the nature of substance, final causes, and the relationship between soul and body. The chapter concludes with a consideration of what prompted Leibniz to write the “Discourse”; I suggest that the “Discourse” is likely to have been conceived as an attempt to reach supporters of Descartes and Malebranche, not only to challenge key tenets of their respective philosophies but also to present a viable alternative.

Three points of view on the problem of the answerability of philosophical questions are developed:
a) the traditional view that the questions are perfectly genuine but just very difficult;
b) what I call the 'nonsensicalist' view, characteristic of logical positivists and Wittgensteinians, that they are largely meaningless pseudo-problems;
c) the 'mysterian' or transcendental naturalist view that they are genuine problems but ones that our intellects are unequipped, or at least very ill-equipped, to handle.

The article deals with the critical reception of the Cartesian theory of the eternal truths. It aims to analyze the central role played by Descartes’ doctrine in Early Modern Philosophy, with particular regard to the reflections of Leibniz, Malebranche and Spinoza. Indeed, part of their philosophy can be considered as an attempt to criticize the premises of the Cartesian theory in order to avoid their consequences. There are then strong reasons for believing that the importance of the theodicean issues in Early Modern Philosophy is directly related to Descartes’ doctrine of the free creation of the eternal truths.

Où commence la gloire du ciron ? Où finit-elle ? Pourquoi choisir ce « petit » animal pour réfléchir au privilège accordé au sens de la vue ? Ce n'est pas toute l'histoire du ciron – si l'on entend par là l'histoire naturelle de son espèce telle qu'on pourrait la faire selon les moyens scientifiques de notre époque ou d'une autre – qui nous intéresse ici, mais l'histoire de sa perception dans la pensée, de sa position dans la compréhension du monde physique à travers sa présence – sa référence – récurrente dans des textes littéraires et philosophiques français.

Cet ouvrage reconstruit la conception politique de Malebranche en dégageant de ses textes une autre déclinaison possible de la théorie politique à l’époque moderne, qui vient s’intégrer dans une anthropologie se caractérisant par un examen critique et généalogique des rapports de pouvoir. Il met au jour ces éléments conceptuels servant de charnière entre les thèses fondamentales de la pensée de l’oratorien et sa vision politique. C’est dans une telle perspective que cette étude a pu saisir chez Malebranche un « occasionnalisme politique », en démontrant que l’institution de la civitas peut être comprise à la lueur de la conception de l’unicausalité divine et de la théorie occasionnaliste des rapports entre l’âme et le corps.

The paper examines the seeds of ethnology and of the philosophy of culture in a late Malebranche text, Dialogue between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher, and the Jesuit responses published by the Journal de Trévoux, an influential academic journal from the 18th century. The article insists on the central metaphysical concept of the debate, “the intelligible extension” that represents for Malebranche the archetype of all possible bodies. His image of Chinese philosophy is influenced by the opponents of the Jesuit missionaries and is a synthesis between the 17th century European knowledge of Chinese thinking and Spinoza’s metaphysics. The result is a materialistic dualism, a Chinese spinozism that Malebranche endeavors to transform in his version of Christian cartesianism. His opponents, the Jesuit journalists, have a linguistic and historical erudition concerning Chinese culture, but they lack philosophical instruments. The
conclusion imagines a philosophy of cultural exchanges joining Malebranche’s philosophical principles and the Jesuit knowledge of other civilizations.

Francis Bacon, Descartes and Malebranche are the sources of Conti’s interest in imagination, fantasy and their aberrations. This kind of interest grows stronger and stronger gets the antirationalistic trend during the 1740s. Through his own development of these topics, Conti ends up making a concrete effort to create an original kind of «philosophical poetry». On the other hand, his meditation brings him to a serious thinking about as a topic theme as human soul, which corresponds to the parallele refl ection of his friend Muratori. A comparison between the points of view of the two thinkers cleary shows the materialistic attitude of Conti’s reflection, which proves his attention to the most recent developments of the Enlightenment enquiries.

Ha sido un lugar común en la crítica filosófica ridiculizar a Berkeley o reducirlo a un extraño episodio de la historia de la filosofía, de poca consistencia teórica, mero eslabón intermedio entre Locke y Hume –en una consideración tal vez análoga a la de Malebranche como supuesto nexo, muy curioso, entre Descartes y Spinoza-. Se propone en estas líneas que una perspectiva más adecuada para abordar las ideas de Berkeley, en continuidad con autores como A.A. Luce, podría ser la de caracterizarlas como conformando una metafísica de la vida personal. La expresión es retrospectiva y no pertenece a la época en la que vivió Berkeley pero, sin embargo, podría arrojar luz sobre la inspiración, unidad y actualidad de su pensamiento, así como sobre algunos temas particulares por él tratados.

In his De la recherche de la vérité (The Search after Truth) of 1674-75, Nicolas Malebranche makes a number of apparently contradictory remarks about women and their capacity for pure intellectual thought. On the one hand, he seems to espouse a negative biological determinism about women’s minds, and on the other, he suggests that women have the free capacity to attain truth and happiness, regardless of their physiology.  In the early eighteenth-century, four English women thinkers – Anne Docwra (c. 1624-1710), Mary Astell (1666-1731), Damaris Masham (1659-1708), and Mary Chudleigh (1656-1710) – engaged with Malebranche’s ideas. Their writings reveal how we might dispel the apparent contradictions in Malebranche’s thinking about women, and reaffirm the liberating potential of Cartesian philosophy for women in the early modern period.

In this paper, I argue that a strong interpretation of efficacious ideas, whereby they appear to become true causal agents, must be rejected precisely because it pushes us into an incorrect reading of Malebranche's theory of the divine and human faculties (contra Jolley).

The paper discusses  the theological implications and presuppositions of Leibniz's criticism toward Malebranche's Occasionalism. The basic view held by Leibniz is that miracle is not a sign of God's Absolute Power, but a part of God's Plan and it has its own "laws". This view has some similarities with Malebranche's ones, but - in the opinion of the author - is more radical.

Berkeley argues that our ideas cannot represent external objects, because only an idea can resemble an idea. But he does not offer any argument for the claim that an idea can represent only what it resembles - a premise essential to his argument. I argue that this gap can be both historically explained and filled by examining the debates between Cartesians and sceptics in the late seventeenth century. Descartes held that representation involves two relations between an idea and its object – resemblance and causation – and that these relations are very closely linked to each other. I look at variations upon this claim in later Cartesians, especially Desgabets and Re ́ gis. I also examine the critics who attacked this claim, especially Huet, Foucher, and Du Hamel, who developed arguments similar to Berkeley’s but concluded that (Cartesian) representation is simply impossible. I also argue that Malebranche, although an adherent of the Cartesian theory of intentionality, used a modified version of this argument to argue for his claim that ideas do not exist in the mind at all. These thinkers, and especially Malebranche, provide the context in which we should understand Berkeley.

There is a tension at the heart of Francis Hutcheson's moral theory. It can be seen most clearly in the contrast between the judgments he makes throughout his corpus about particular cases-of kindness, generosity, friendliness, and mercy-and the formula he proposes for 'computing the goodness' of a person's character at the end of his fourth treatise. Insofar as it is a tension that continues to be found in a number of contemporary moral theorists, exploring its origins promises to be instructive both for the history of ethics and for contemporary debates. After diagnosing the tension, this essay argues that it stems from Hutcheson's attempt to combine a perceptual theory of moral sentiments with a mathematical theory of moral calculation. The problem is not inescapable, but those who wish to combine these two elements will need to take careful steps to avoid.

Soit qu’elle rejette l’humanisme, soit qu’elle se l’approprie, la si fameuse Lettre sur l’humanisme que Heidegger rédigea en 1946 parle d’un humanisme difficile à cerner, tant pour le philosophe que pour l’historien des idées. Ce constat, cette interprétation peut-être, nous est venue à la faveur de lectures croisées. (1) Une lecture attentive de la Lettre montre que, tout en critiquant les humanismes historiques, Heidegger défend un humanisme immémorial inscrivant au cœur même de l’essence de l’homme son essentialité. (2) La lecture de Malebranche révèle, par contraste, l’incertitude des suggestions heideggériennes concernant aussi bien le topos de l’exception humaine que le phare de la «proximité de l’être». (3) À la lumière des mises au point que l’on trouve  sous la plume de l’historien-philosophe que fut Henri Gouhier dans L’anti-humanisme au XVIIe siècle, nous nous sommes proposée de soumettre le propos de la Lettre à une lecture historico-critique, dont il ressort, d’une part, que nous avons affaire à la profession de foi d’un humaniste du XXe siècle, et d’autre part, que les frontières du repoussoir heideggerien sont fort problématiques : s’il est vrai que tout humanisme juge essentielle l’essence de l’homme, il n’en est pas moins vrai que, pour ce faire, les humanismes historiques déterminent en se déterminant leurs propres opposés; que ces clivages eux-mêmes portent sur l’ordre et le rapport instables des étants, voilà qui fait l’histoire de l’humanisme tout entier, et ne le condamne en rien à n’être que l’histoire d’un échec.

À l’instar du « dualisme », de l’« harmonie préétablie » et du « parallélisme », l’« occasionnalisme » est souvent présenté comme une doctrine unifiée reportant toute puissance ou toute causalité en Dieu en en destituant du même coup les créatures. Cependant, des différences notables apparaissent entre les auteurs traditionnellement rangés sous cette bannière. Comment distinguer alors ceux qui se contentent d’utiliser des arguments répertoriés comme « occasionnalistes » et ceux qui manifestent une adhésion positive à cette doctrine ? Le cas d’Arnauld est à cet égard exemplaire. Car il mobilise des arguments occasionnalistes ponctuels afin de prémunir la théorie cartésienne des rapports de l’âme et du corps de ses mauvaises interprétations possibles. Peut-on alors le considérer comme partiellement occasionnaliste ou doit-on conclure à un occasionnalisme stratégique et intéressé ?

ABSTRACT. — Like « dualism », « preestablished harmony » and « parallelism », « occasionnalism » is often put up as a unified doctrine assigning all power or causality to God and relieving all creatures of it. Yet notable differences separate the authors who are usually regarded as occasionnalists. Then how can we distinguish the ones who only use arguments regarded as occasionnalist ones, and those who join this doctrine ? In this respect, the case of Arnauld is a pattern. Because he uses punctual occasionnalist arguments in order to caution Descartes against the malicious interpretations of the theory of mind and body’s distinction.

El artículo realiza un acercamiento a las teodiceas de Leibniz y de Malebranche centrándose en los conceptos de “deber moral” y “economía”. A partir de aquí se calibran los términos bajo los cuales ambos filósofos entienden la libertad divina, así como la cantidad de bien que debe derivarse de la racionalidad a la que Dios se somete cuando crea el mundo. El modelo leibniciano será estudiado a la luz de los retos que, desde perspectivas polarizadas, plantearon autores como Hobbes y Spinoza a la disyunción entre la absoluta trascendencia de Dios a su creación y la subsunción de la divinidad a prescripciones lógico-metafísicas. Se destaca que el rigor conceptual de Malebranche y la esencia económica que postula para la divinidad se concilian con una concepción filosófica e histórica netamente cristiana en la que la racionalidad pura se remite a fundamentos teológicos.

The Argument of the "Perpetual Miracle" and its Theological Implications: on Leibniz-Malebranche Relationships. One of Leibniz's strongest arguments against the Occasionalists (including Malebranche) is that, since they see all natural laws only as constant connections, Occasionalists are unable to distinguish a natural law from a constantly repeated miracle (argument of the "perpetual miracle"). The paper shows that Leibniz's argument is not entirely adequate as a criticism of Malebranche, in that it stems from a theology that is quite different to that of Malebranche. For Malebranche, miracles are the effects of God's "particular will" and are quite different even from God's legal distribution of Grace. A miracle ruled by a law is, therefore, a conceptual impossibility. To Leibniz, miracles include everything that overrules creatures and their forces. Miracles may thus be governed by laws and, indeed, all miracles performed by God in o...

In the early modern period, contempt emerged as a persistent theme in moral philosophy. Most of the moral philosophers of the period shared two basic commitments in their thinking about contempt. First, they argued that we understand the value of others in the morally appropriate way when we understand them from the perspective of the morally relevant community. And second, they argued that we are naturally inclined to judge others as contemptible, and that we must therefore interrupt that natural movement of sense-bestowal in order to value others in the morally appropriate way. In this paper I examine in detail the arguments of Nicolas Malebranche and Immanuel Kant concerning the wrongness of contempt, emphasizing the ways in which they depend on conceptions of community and of the interruption of moral sense-bestowal. After showing how each of these arguments fails to comprehend the nature and the wrongness of contempt, I argue that we can find the resources for a more adequate account in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, and specifically in his reflections on ontology and on the meaning of community.

From the Art of the Imagination to the Science of the Mind. Some Considerations on the Concept of Memory in Malebranche and Vico. The topic of the psychology of memory is rather marginal in the contemporary debate about the imagination in early modern philosophy, despite the evident fact that without memory imagining is impossible. This question moves from the rhetoric domain to the “scientific” analysis of the mind, and occurs both in Malebranche and Vico, but via different paths in each of the two thinkers: Vico studies the mythological thought, whereas Malebranche builds a new psychology and a new critique of the Aristotelian mentality, that is to say the mentality of every man who is not enlightened by divine grace and who has not read and understood Descartes. But they both share the rejection of the art of memory – which was the most thorough knowledge about memory until then – and more generally they formulate many congruent analyzes on the subject of memory.