Occasionalism


Book Description

Steven Nadler presents a collection of essays on philosophical problems about causation in the seventeenth century. His focus is on a particular doctrine, "occasionalism", found among a number of early modern followers of Descartes. The essays consider the philosophical, scientific, theological, and historical context for the doctrine.




Occasionalism and the Debate about Causation in Early Modern Germany


Book Description

This is the first book to focus on occasionalism in early modern German philosophy. It demonstrates that occasionalism provided a strong foundation for the thought of four important yet underexamined German philosophers: Erhard Weigel, Johann Christoph Sturm, Christian Wolff, and Gottfried Ploucquet. Occasionalism is most often associated with Cartesian early modern Christian philosophers, the most famous of whom is perhaps Nicolas Malebranche. Early modern German occasionalism has received very little scholarly attention, leaving us with an incomplete picture of the German causation debate from Leibniz to Kant. This book combines a chronological investigation of four influential and historically connected cases of occasionalism in early modern Germany with a reconstruction of arguments to address specific problems in metaphysics, natural philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy of psychology. Providing a sufficient ground for nature and human beings’ mental and physical existence is a pressing issue for Weigel, Sturm, Wolff, and Ploucquet. In examining the thought of these four understudied German philosophers, this book helps us rethink the relation between metaphysics of nature and science of nature and better understand the development of early modern debates about causation. Occasionalism and the Debate about Causation in Early Modern Germany is an important resource for scholars and advanced students working on the history of early modern philosophy and the history of metaphysics and causation.




One True Cause


Book Description

Starting in the 1660s, followers of the philosopher Descartes argued for what has come to be known as "occasionalism." In its most extreme form, occasionalism is the doctrine that God directly causes everything that happens in the world, and no other being is a true cause of any effect. The views of Cartesian occasionalists were once largely dismissed by English-speaking philosophers. But since the 1970s, a growing body of secondary literature has highlighted the historical significance, and philosophical interest, of their views. This study expands on recent scholarship to provide the first comprehensive account of occasionalism in the seventeenth century.




Islamic Occasionalism


Book Description

Originally published in 1958. Occasionalism is generally associated in the history of philosophy with the name of Malébranche . But long before this time, the Muslim Theologians of the ninth and tenth centuries had developed an occasionalist metaphysics of atoms and accidents. Arguing that a number of distinctively Islamic concepts such as fatalism and the surrender of personal endeavour cannot be fully understood except in the perspective of the occasionalist world view of Islam, the volume also discusses the attacks on Occasionalism made by Averroes and St. Thomas Aquinas.




Occasionalism


Book Description

Traditionally interpreted as an outcome of Cartesian dualism, in recent years occasionalism has undergone serious reassessment. Scholars have shifted their focus from the post-Cartesian debates on the mind-body problem to earlier discussions of body-body issues or even to the problem of causation as such. Occasionalism appears less and less a cheap solution to the mind-problem and more and more a family of theories on causation, which share the fundamental claim that all genuine causal powers belong to God. So why did the most spectacular emergence of occasionalism take place precisely in the post-Cartesian era? How did the scientific revolution and the need to fight back against the early modern resurgence of naturalism contribute to the success of occasionalist doctrines? This book provides a historical and theoretical map of occasionalism in all its various forms, with a special focus on its seventeenth-century supporters, adversaries, and polemical targets. These include not only canonical authors such as Cordemoy, La Forge, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz, but also less explored figures such as Clauberg, Clerselier, Fenelon, Fernel, Regis, and Regius. Furthermore, the book covers the earlier Arabic and Scholastic sources of occasionalism and its later developments in Berkeley, Wolff, and Hume.




Oxford Studies of Metaethics 19


Book Description

Oxford Studies in Metaethics is the only publication devoted exclusively to original philosophical work in the foundations of ethics. It provides an annual selection of much of the best new scholarship being done in the field. Its broad purview includes work being done at the intersections of ethical theory with metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. The essays included in the series provide an excellent basis for understanding recent developments in the field; those who would like to acquaint themselves with the current state of play in metaethics would do well to start here.




A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy


Book Description

This is a reference for early modern philosophy. Representing the most contemporary research in the history of early modern philosophy, it is organized by thinker rather than theme, and covers every important philosopher and philosophical movement of 16th- and 18th-century Europe.




Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy Volume IV


Book Description

Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. The articles in OSEMP will be of importance to specialists within the discipline, but the editors also intend that they should appeal to a larger audience of philosophers, intellectual historians, and others who are interested in the development of modern thought.




Islam, Causality, and Freedom


Book Description

In this volume, Ozgur Koca offers a comprehensive survey of Islamic accounts of causality and freedom from the medieval to the modern era, as well as contemporary relevance. His book is an invitation for Muslims and non-Muslims to explore a rich, but largely forgotten, aspect of Islamic intellectual history. Here, he examines how key Muslim thinkers, such as Ibn Sina, Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi, Jurjani, Mulla Sadra and Nursi, among others, conceptualized freedom in the created order as an extension of their perception of causality. Based on this examination, Koca identifies and explores some of the major currents in the debate on causality and freedom. He also discusses the possible implications of Muslim perspectives on causality for contemporary debates over religion and science.




History of Universities Volume XXXIII/2


Book Description

This issue of History of Universities XXXIII/2, contains the customary mix of learned articles and book reviews which makes this publication such an indispensable tool for the historian of higher education.