ABSTRACT
Nicolas Malebranche provided several arguments for occasionalism. Emanuela Scribano has provided an intriguing historical analysis of the epistemic condition for causation, tracing it back to Galen. Galen postulated this condition due to his general project of “merging Aristotelian biology with Platonic metaphysics, introducing or rather reintroducing an intelligent mind, a demiurge, to account for the order of nature”. Despite its clear and simple goal, God’s creation is rich and complex. In Malebranche’s view, it requires God to establish several orders, structured by different sets of laws. There is no doubt for Malebranche, then, that God possesses knowledge of conditionals of freedom, which is required for his choice among the higher laws of nature and the course of worlds with rational creatures. Malebranche is and was a famous proponent of an occasionalist theory of causation according to which God is the only true cause while all “natural causes” are but occasions for God to actually bring about their ascribed effects.
