Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Occasionalism
Encyclopedia Britannica, January 16, 2015. Accessed October 19, 2023.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . “Occasionalism” by Jason Jordan. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. Martin, TN: University of Tennessee at Martin, 2011. Provides a clear presentation of occasionalism with a useful inventory of arguments in its support.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 edition). “Occasionalism” by Sukjae Lee. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2019. A thorough coverage of occasionalism revealing its sources in Islamic and medieval Christian thought.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online (REP Online).
Oxford Bibliographies. “Occasionalism” by Walter Ott. Last reviewed December 1, 2022; last modified March 23, 2023.
Secondary Sources on Occasionalism
Camposampiero, Matteo Favaretti, Mariangela Priarolo, and Emanuela Scribano, eds. Occasonalism: From Metaphysics to Science. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2019.
- Special focus on early modern Cartesians and other prominent philosophers, including Cordemoy, La Forge, Clauberg, Clerselier, Fénelon, Fernel, Régis, and Regius, as well as Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz. It also covers earlier Arabic and Scholastic sources of occasionalism and their later developments in Berkeley, Wolff, and Hume.
- See Fred Ablondi‘s Review of Occasionalism: From Metaphysics to Science, edited by Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero, Mariangela Priarolo, and Emanuela Scribano. Journal of the History of Philosophy 58, no. 2 (2020): 404–45. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2020.0024.
Clarke, Desmond 
. “Causal Powers and Occasionalism from Descartes to Malebranche.” In Descartes’ Natural Philosophy, edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster, and John Sutton, 131–48. London: Routledge, 2000.
Clatterbaugh, Kenneth. “Cartesian Causality, Explanation, and Divine Concurrence.” History of Philosophy Quaterly 12 (1995): 195–206.
Clatterbaugh, Kenneth. The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy: 1637–1739. New York: Routledge, 1999.
- Covers the broader causation debate from the early modern period with a chapter devoted to occasionalism (pp. 97–128). Places modern occasionalism within its historical context and shows how occasionalism was a reasonable response to Descartes’s mind/body position.
Courtenay, W. J. “The Critique on Natural Causality in the Mutakallimun and Nominalism.” Harvard Theological Review 66 (1973): 77–94.
Cunning, David 
. “Malebranche and Occasional Causes.” Philosophy Compass 3 (2008): 471–90.
Curley, Edwin M. 
. Descartes Against the Sceptics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.
Freddoso, Alfredo J. “Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case against Secondary Causation in Nature.” In Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, edited by Thomas V. Morris, 74–118. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
- Argues that early modern occasionalism was founded on medieval Augustinian views challenging Aristotle’s views of nature and discusses three occasionalism types: the no-action, no-essence, and no-nature theories arguing that the no-nature theory is the greatest threat to Aristotelianism.
Garber, Daniel 
. “Descartes and Occasionalism.” In Causation in Early Modern Philosophy: Cartesianism, Occasionalism, and Preestablished Harmony, edited by Steven Nadler, 9–26. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.
Garber, Daniel 
. Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Garber, Daniel
. “How God Causes Motion: Descartes, Divine Sustenance, and Occasionalism.” The Journal of Philosophy 84 (1987): 567–80.
Hattab, Helen. “Conflicting Causalities: The Jesuits, their Opponents, and Descartes on the Causality of the Efficient Cause.” In Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 3, ch. 2, edited by Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler, 1–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Jolley, Nicholas 
. “The Relation Between Theology and Philosophy.” In The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy 
, edited by Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, 363–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Jordan, Jason 
. “Occasionalism.” In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. Martin, TN: University of Tennessee at Martin, 2011.
- Gives a clear presentation of occasionalism and a useful inventory of arguments supporting it.
(AI graphic primarily generated by DALL-E 3.0 on November 4, 2023 when asked to depict Descartes contemplating the doctrine of Occasionalism regarding raising his hand)
Lee, Sukjae 
. “Occasionalism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2019.
- A thorough coverage of occasionalism revealing its sources in Islamic and medieval Christian thought.
Lee, Sukjae 
. “Passive Natures and No Representations: Malebranche’s Two ‘Local’ Arguments for Occasionalism.” The Harvard Review of Philosophy 15 (2007): 72–91.
Lennon, Thomas Michael 
. The Battle of Gods and Giants: The Legacies of Descartes and Gassendi. 1655-1715, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Lennon, Thomas Michael . “The Cartesian Dialectic of Creation.” In The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, edited by Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, 331–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Lennon, Thomas Michael . “Occasionalism and the Cartesian Metaphysic of Motion.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplement 1 (1974): 29–40.
Nadler, Steven, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
- Covers Malebranche and major issues concerning free will and the problem of evil.
Nadler, Steven. “Descartes and Occasional Causation.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 2 (1994): 35–54.
Nadler, Steven. “Malebranche on Causation.” In The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, edited by Steven Nadler, 112–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Nadler, Steven. Occasionalism: Causation among the Cartesians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
- A collection of Nadler’s papers with several replies to critics.
Nadler, Steven. “Occasionalism and General Will in Malebranche.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 31 (1993): 31–47.
Nadler, Steven. “Occasionalism and the Mind-Body Problem.” In Studies in Seventeenth-Century European Philosophy, edited by M. A. Stewart, 75–95. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Nadler, Steven. “Occasionalism and the Question of Arnauld’s Cartesianism.” In Descartes and His Contemporaries, edited by Roger Ariew and Marjorie Greene, 129–44. Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1995.
Ott, Walter. Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Ott, Walter. “Causation, Intentionality, and the Case for Occasionalism.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 90 (2008): 165–87.
Perler, Dominik and Ulrich Rudolph. Occasionalismus: Theorien der Kausalität im arabisch-islamischen und im europäischen Denken. Göttingen, GER: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000.
- Covers both Islamic and Christian occasionalism.
Platt, Andrew. One True Cause: Causal Powers, Divine Concurrence, and the Seventeenth-Century Revival of Occasionalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190941796.001.0001.
- Covers the 17th-century Cartesian tradition in Europe starting with Descartes followed by Clauberg, Geulincx, La Forge, Cordemoy, and Malebranche.
Pyle, Andrew. Malebranche. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Quinn, Philip L. “Divine Conservation, Secondary Causes, and Occasionalism.” In Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, edited by Thomas V. Morris, 13–49. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.i
Radner, Daisie. Malebranche: A Study of a Cartesian System. Amsterdam, NL: Van Gorcum Assen, 1978.
Radner, Daisie. “Occasionalism.” In Routledge History of Philosophy, vol. 4: The Renaissance and 17th Century Rationalism, edited by G. H. R. Parkinson, 349–83. London: Routledge, 1993.
Schmaltz, Tad M. Descartes on Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Schmaltz, Tad M. “Malebranche.” In A Companion to Early Modern Philosphy, edited by Steven Nadler, 152–66. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002.
Schmaltz, Tad M. “Occasionalism and Mechanism: Fontenelle’s Objections to Malebranche.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16 (2008): 293–313.
Scott, David. “Occasionalism and Occasional Causation in Descartes’ Philosophy.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (2000): 503–28.
Sleigh, Robert C, Jr. “Leibniz and Malebranche on Causality.” In Central Themes in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by J. A. Cover and Mark Kulstad, 161-193. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1990.
Smith, Norman Kemp. Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy. London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd, 1902.
Watson, Richard A. The Downfall of Cartesianism: 1673–1712. The Hague, NL: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.
Watson, Richard A. “Malebranche, Models, and Causation.” In Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Steven Nadler, 75–91. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.
