ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes and discusses the occasionalism of Johann Christoph Sturm (1635–1703), a correspondent and would-be colleague of Leibniz’; and a prominent disciple of Weigel. Sturm endorses occasionalism in order to ground his natural philosophy, which aims to reconcile mechanism and final causes (finality). On the one hand, he reduces scholastic substantial forms to mere passive modifications brought about by local motion. Since matter, for Sturm, is passive as are all finite mental substances (with respect to transeunt causation), he argues that only God can be the truly efficient cause of motion (conceived as an action). On the other hand, he endorses final causes. However, according to Sturm, while rational beings are aware of the ends they strive for, they are as passive and directed towards them as are animals and unanimated beings. The issue of finality leads Sturm right back to his case of occasionalism. Similar to Weigel, Sturm argues for occasionalism directly by pointing out that without God’s causal engagement, the existence of the world would be ungrounded and, hence, fall into nothingness. Indirectly, Sturm avails himself of a line of reasoning borrowed from his French occasionalist predecessors. Like Weigel and perhaps motivated by similar concerns about human freedom, Sturm never extends his occasionalism to the case of the mind’s own thinking and willing. His occasionalism, too, stops short of being wholesale.
