Malebranche and Berkeley: Two Different Approaches to the Metaphysics of Causation

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  • マルブランシュとバークリ －因果性の形而上学への二つの異なるアプローチ－

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In this paper, I compare the causal theories of Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) and George Berkeley (1685-1753). And, by paying attention to their relationship to the scholastic theory of causation, I will show that Malebranche and Berkeley approach the metaphysics of causation in two different ways. The causal theory of Malebranche is known as occasionalism, which says that it is only God that is the true cause of everything, and that creatures, which are commonly taken to be causes, are not true causes but only occasions or occasional causes. It is true that Berkeley advanced a causal theory which is similar in some ways to occasionalism, in that he also regarded God as the fundamental principle of causation and deprived causal power of so-called bodies. However, there is an important difference between Malebranche and Berkeley. Malebranche reaches his theory of causation, occasionalism, by showing that concurrentism, a standard view in Scholasticism, results in occasionalism, if one pursues the implication of concurrentism to its limits. In this sense, he starts from within the scholastic theory of causation. By contrast, Berkeley derives his theory of causation from his metaphysical position known as immaterialism, which says that there exists only two kinds of things, namely, ideas, which are inactive beings that are perceived by spirits, and spirits, which are active beings that perceive ideas. In this sense, he bypasses the scholastic theory of causation.

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