Malebranches Occasionalism The Philosophy in the Garden...

Malebranches Occasionalism: The Philosophy in the Garden of Eden ABSTRACT: According to Malebranche, Adam should be considered as an occasionalist philosopher. Not only did philosophy originate in paradise, but it in fact originated as Malebranchian occasionalism. It was in order to be able to persist in his occasionalist belief that Adam was given exceptional power over his body, that is, the power to detach the principal part of his brain (i.e., the seat of the soul) from the rest of the body. It was only in continually detaching the principal part of his brain from the rest of the body that Adam was able to persist in his occasionalist belief despite the unmistakable testimony of his sense to the contrary. Having once sinned, he†¦show more content†¦Although, upon tasting a fruit with pleasure, Adam, as an occasionalist, knew that it was the invisible God who was causing this pleasure in him, his senses were persuading him to the contrary, namely that it was the fruit that he saw, held, and ate, that was causing this pleasure in him. T hus, the first and most firmly convinced occasionalist philosopher was without sensible knowledge of Gods continual acting upon him, and his own philosophy must have already been, in his eyes, directly contrary to the testimony of his senses. Since, as an occasionalist philosopher, Adam undoubtedly knew that he could know nothing unless God enlightened him, and sense nothing unless God modified his mind, the fact that what he knew was never what he sensed, and vice versa, must have, in his eyes, reflected a certain contradiction in Gods conduct: First, since what Adam knew was that God was acting upon him, and since what he sensed was that bodies were acting upon him, it must have been God Himself who wanted Adams sensible experience to be contrary to his knowledge of Gods causal efficacy, that is, to that which God Himself was making Adam