Malebranche y la metamorfosis de la moral a comienzos del siglo XVIII

Las transformaciones políticas, sociales y económicas que tuvieron lugar en el periodo considerado por Paul Hazard como el escenario histórico de la «Crisis de la conciencia europea» (1680-1715) fueron acompañadas de una radical renovación cultural que se manifestó a través de la revisión de las ideas filosóficas. Este artículo pretende localizar algunos síntomas de este cambio, a saber, la metamorfosis de los paradigmas éticos, a través del análisis de algunos conceptos morales en la obra del filósofo francés Nicolas Malebranche. Centrándose en cuestiones como la autonomía moral y la legitimidad del amor propio, el artículo muestra que se puede rastrear una transformación de los criterios de moralidad dentro de la producción propia del autor, cuyos escritos se publicaron entre 1674 y 1715.

MALEBRANCHE: EL PLACER DINÁMICO Y ORDENADO

La crítica señala a Pierre Nicole como el pensador que hizo la transición entre aquellos primeros moralistas de mediados del siglo XVII que condenaban el mundo terrenal y adoptaban una actitud negativa del ser humano, y los moralistas de la primera mitad del siglo XVIII, cuya visión moderna y mundana concebía al hombre bajo una perspectiva positiva. Este estudio pretende ubicar a Nicolas Malebranche como el otro pensador, quizá más en la sombra, quizá con un modo no tan explícito, que protagoniza dicha transición. Bajo el reinado de Luis XIV, el filósofo parisino, influenciado notablemente por San Agustín y Descartes, establece una psicología dinámica que le aleja del estático epicureísmo clásico y trasciende metafísicamente la moral cartesiana, dotándola de un sistema acabado en el que la figura de Dios ilumina el conocimiento y establece una moral bien definida. Su teoría del orden supone una puesta en valor del placer mundano, así como una congénita sociabilidad cristiana. Los acercamientos y alejamientos con Descartes y la escolástica, así como sus interpretaciones de San Agustín, elucidarán en este estudio un prisma mundano de conceptos hasta la fecha de barniz cristiano. Toda moral y teoría del conocimiento parte en él de su metafísica cristiana.

Remarks on the Structure of the Recherche de la Verité: The Role of Vision in God

Remarks on the Structure of the Recherche de la Verité: The Role of Vision in God Abstract: The present article will discuss the argumentative context in which Nicolas Malebranche presents the doctrine of the vision in God in his work, Recherche de la Verité. Malebranche is known for this doctrine about human cognition, and also for his occasionalistic view of causality, and such positions are only properly understood when put in the argumentative context designed by the author, which is not usually seen in commentaries. With this goal, we intend to look into the precise position of the vision of God in the Recherche and to identify the argument of the work as a whole. Thus, by seeing how the malebranchean theory of cognition fits in his philosophical project, we will be able to adequately reconstruct this important and influential philosophical doctrine of the seventeenth century.Keywords: Nicolas Malebranche. Recherche de la Verité. Vision in God. Considerações sobre a Estrutura da Recherche de la Verité: O Papel da Visão em Deus Resumo: No seguinte artigo abordamos o contexto argumentativo em que se insere a doutrina da visão em Deus de Nicolas Malebranche na sua obra, Recherche de la Verité. Ainda que Malebranche seja conhecido tanto por essa doutrina acerca da cognição humana, quanto pela sua visão ocasionalista da estrutura causal, tais posições só são adequadamente compreendidas quando as colocamos no contexto argumentativo projetado pelo autor, o que costumeiramente não é feito. Com isso, pretendemos situar a posição da visão em Deus na Recherche partindo, em um primeiro momento, da análise do fio condutor da obra. Desse modo, ao vislumbrarmos de que modo uma teoria da cognição se encaixa no projeto filosófico malebranchista, seremos capazes de reconstruir adequadamente essa importante e influente doutrina filosófica do século XVII.Palavras-chave: Nicolas Malebranche. Recherche de la Verité. Visão em Deus. Remarques sur la Structure de la Recherche de la Verité: Le Rôle de la Vision em Dieu Résumé: Dans l’article suivant, nous abordons le context argumentative dans lequel la doctrine de la vision en Dieu de Nicolas Malebranche est insérée dans la Recherche de la Verité. Bien que Malebranche soit connu à la fois pour cette doctrine de la cognition humaine et pour sa perspective ocasionelle de la structure causale, de tells positions ne sont correctement comprises que lorsque nous les plaçons dans le context argumentative conçu par l’auteur; ce qui n’est généralement pas fait. Avec cela, nous avons l’intention de situer la position de la vision en Dieu dans la Recherche comme fil conducteur de l’oeuvre. De cette façon, lorsque nous entrevoirons comment une théorie de la cognition s’intègre dans le projet philosophique malebranchiste, nous serons en conditions de reconstruire correctement cette important et influent doctrine philosophique du XVIIe siècle.Mots-clés: Malebranche. Recherche de la Verité. Vision em Dieu. Data de registro: 04/05/2020Data de aceite: 26/08/2020

Introduction

Starting in the 1660s, a number of philosophers argued for occasionalism, a doctrine that was first developed in medieval Islamic thought. The seventeenth-century thinkers who revived occasionalism—including Arnold Geulincx, Louis de la Forge, Gerauld de Cordemoy, and, most famously, Nicolas Malebranche—were deeply influenced by the philosophy of Descartes. This book will consider the relationship between Cartesianism and occasionalism, and examine the arguments that led Descartes’ followers to endorse occasionalism. It argues that the Cartesian occasionalists chose to adopt occasionalism as a way to defend and develop the Cartesian system—and that these theoretical motivations are crucial to understanding the force of their arguments for occasionalism. In order to understand the goals or motives of a historical figure such as Descartes or Malebranche, we can compare that figure to his or her historical counterparts. This Introduction explains the concept of a counterpart, following David Lewis.

One True Cause

The French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche popularized the doctrine of occasionalism in the late seventeenth century. Occasionalism is the thesis that God alone is the true cause of everything that happens in the world, and created substances are merely “occasional causes.” This doctrine was originally developed in medieval Islamic theology, and was widely rejected in the works of Christian authors in medieval Europe. Yet despite its heterodoxy, occasionalism was revived starting in the 1660s by French and Dutch followers of the philosophy of René Descartes. Since the 1970s, there has been a growing body of literature on Malebranche and occasionalism. There has also been new work on the Cartesian occasionalists before Malebranche—including Arnold Geulincx, Gerauld de Cordemoy, and Louis de la Forge. But to date there has not been a systematic, book-length study of the reasoning that led Cartesian thinkers to adopt occasionalism, and the relationship of their arguments to Descartes’s own views. This book expands on recent scholarship, to provide the first comprehensive account of seventeenth-century occasionalism. Part I contrasts occasionalism with a theory of divine providence developed by Thomas Aquinas, in response to medieval occasionalists; it shows that Descartes’ philosophy is compatible with Aquinas’ theory, on which God “concurs” in all the actions of created beings. Part II reconstructs the arguments of Cartesians—such as Cordemoy and La Forge—who used Cartesian physics to argue for occasionalism. Finally, it shows how Malebranche’s case for occasionalism combines philosophical theology with Cartesian metaphysics and mechanistic science.

Nicolas Malebranche

Nicolas Malebranche (b. 1638–d. 1715) was a Parisian-born French philosopher and Oratorian. In 1660, Malebranche entered the Congregation of the Oratory—a Catholic order founded by Pierre Bérulle in 1611—and was ordained in 1664. As relayed by his first biographer—Yves André—in the same year as being ordained, Malebranche discovered a copy of René Descartes’s Treatise on Man in Paris and upon reading it was so ecstatic that he experienced violent heart palpitations. Ultimately, Malebranche developed a philosophical and theological system that was intentionally an amalgam of Cartesianism and the thought of Augustine of Hippo. He is among the preeminent continental rationalists of 17th century Europe along with the more well-known thinkers René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz. While one must be careful to not import too much into this categorization as it can at times obscure more than it illuminates, rationalism is roughly the view that persons can have some substantive knowledge independent of any sensory experience. Malebranche’s magnum opus—The Search after Truth—was first published in 1674–1675 and underwent numerous editions with substantive additions called Elucidations. Arguably his other greatest work—the Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion—is a beautifully written dialogue and a relatively concise account of his mature worldview first published in 1688. He is especially well known for defending three distinctive positions: (1) Occasionalism, (2) the view that we “see all things in God” (the Vision in God), and (3) a highly original Theodicy. All three of these positions are described in their respective section headings in this entry, but, in brief, occasionalism is the view that only God has true causal power; the Vision in God is the view that ideas, which Malebranche uses in a technical sense and are essential to our perception, are in God; and a theodicy is an (attempted) reconciliation of the existence of evil with the existence of an all good, all knowing, and all powerful God. Malebranche was also active in many controversies, not the least of which was his decade long public dispute with the Jansenist theologian Antoine Arnauld. This often bitter and heated debate was one of the premier intellectual events in Europe in the latter half of the 17th century. Malebranche published his final work, Réflexions sur la prémotion physique, in 1715 and died on 13 October of that same year at the Oratory in Paris.

A Contribuição do Ocasionalismo de Nicolas Malebranche para a Crítica à Causalidade de David Hume

Esse artigo tem como objetivo analisar em que medida a análise da causalidade de Malebranche, conforme apresentado em sua obra De la recherche de la vérité, contribuiu para a crítica à causalidade de Hume em A Treatise of Human nature e An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Para tanto, expõe-se a análise de Malebranche, estabelecendo em que medida ela está relacionada com a doutrina do ocasionalismo. Retoma-se, então, as críticas de Hume a essa doutrina, para, em seguida, apontar as semelhanças entre as análises dos autores, estabelecendo, sempre que possível, as possíveis influências do filósofo francês sobre o filósofo escocês. Destaca-se, além disso, aqueles aspectos da análise de Hume que não fazem parte da filosofia de Malebranche. Finalmente, situa-se os fundamentos dessa diferença, examinando-se a epistemologia humiana nesse contexto de crítica à causalidade.

Ruly and Unruly Passions: Early Modern Perspectives

A survey of theories on the passions and action in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and western Europe reveals that few, if any, of the major writers held the view that reason in any of its functions executes action without a passion. Even rationalists, like Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth and English clergyman Samuel Clarke, recognized the necessity of passion to action. On the other hand, many of these intellectuals also agreed with French philosophers Jean-François Senault, René Descartes, and Nicolas Malebranche that, for passions to be useful or to become virtues, they must be governed by reason. Without the moderation of reason, passions will be unruly, distort our notions of good, and disrupt our rational volitions. In response to these popular early modern perspectives, Enlightenment thinker David Hume offered a now-famous argument that reason without passion cannot motivate, drawing the further conclusion that reason cannot govern the passions, either. Given that no one in Hume's era seemed to defend the claim that reason alone can motivate action, what was Hume's intention?

The Ambiguities of Malebranche’s Cartesianism

The reception of Descartes in the second half of the seventeenth century took very different forms, which have been the subject of numerous and documented studies. On this subject, we cannot limit ourselves to categories that are too simplistic. Descartes had faithful disciples and resolute adversaries; he also had critical readers, combining admiration and the conviction that his philosophy, as revolutionary as it is, had to be both followed and reformed. The Oratorian Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), who passes for one of the greatest French Cartesians, surely counts among the number of readers who wants to be Cartesian, without however being understood as a disciple of Descartes. Malebranche himself has perfectly expressed the nature of his Cartesianism in declaring, at the end of his first work, the Search after Truth (Recherche de la vérité; 1674–5): “I admit however that I owe to Descartes or to his manner of doing philosophy the opinions that I oppose to his, and the boldness to criticize him.” In this chapter I attempt to clarify the sense of this remarkably ambivalent affirmation with some examples.