Occasionalism: Causation Among the Cartesians (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780198250081)

Steven Nadler presents a collection of essays on the problem of causation in seventeenth-century philosophy. Occasionalism is the doctrine, held by a number of early modern Cartesian thinkers, that created substances are devoid of any true causal powers, and that God is the only real causal agent in the universe. All natural phenomena have God as their direct and immediate cause, with natural things and their states serving only as "occasions" for God to act. Rather than being merely an ad hoc, deus ex machina response to the mind-body problem bequeathed by Descartes to his followers, as it has often been portrayed in the past, occasionalism is in fact a full-blooded, complex and philosophically interesting account of causal relations. These essays examine the philosophical, scientific, theological and religious themes and arguments of occasionalism, as well as its roots in medieval views on God and causality.

Author: Steven Nadler
ISBN-10: 0198250088
ISBN-13: 9780198250081
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 01/07/2011
Pages: 230
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.50w x 0.90d