Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
Y252, April 8-May 15, 2008
Arnauld and Malebranche: Two Followers of Descartes
Professor Elmar J. Kremer

The course will focus on a famous written dispute between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld that took place between 1680 and Arnauld's death in 1694. The dispute was set off by Malebranche's attempt to explain why not all men are saved, but it had to do more generally with "the problem of evil," and it involved many central philosophical topics of the period, including the nature of ideas, the status of the eternal" truths of mathematics, the relation of the human mind and body, and divine and human freedom. It has been described by Daniel Garber as "one of the central events of the intellectual life of the late seventeenth-century."

Two questions that emerged from the philosophy of René Descartes provide important background for the Malebranche-Arnauld dispute and will be emphasized throughout the course: (1) whether God has knowledge and will in the same sense as human beings do (the question of the univocity of knowledge and will as between God and human beings); and (2) whether creatures are true causes or merely occasions for God's exercise of true causality (the question of occasionalism).

The passages on which each lecture is based will be posted in advance in the class outlines in the course web page. The supplementary readings can be found at ekremer.artsci.utoronto.ca/resources.

Course curriculum

April 8 Introductory class

April 10 Descartes' doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths, and Malebranche's reaction

April 15 Malebranche's theory of ideas and the status of the eternal truths (Supplementary Reading: Malebranche, Search after Truth, Book I, Chapter 1 and 2; and Book 6, Part 2, Chapter 1-7; and Elucidation Ten)

April 17 Arnauld attack on Malebranche's theory of ideas and eternal truths (Supplementary Reading: Arnauld, Of True and False Ideas, Chapter 4, 5, 6)

April 22 Malebranche's occasionalism and its origins in Descartes (Supplementary Reading: Malebranche: Search after Truth, Book VI, Part 2, Chapter 3; and Elucidation Fifteen)

April 24 Arnauld's rejection of occasionalism

April 29 Malebranche's "theodicy"" (Supplementary Reading: Treatise of Nature and Grace, First Discourse and Troisieme Eclaircissement)

May 1 Arnauld''s interpretation and criticism of Malebranches "theodicy"

May 6 Malebranche on the role of Jesus Christ in the distribution of grace, and why not all are saved (Supplementary Reading: Treatise of Nature and Grace, Second Discourse)

May 8 Arnauld's criticism of Malebranche's Anthropomorphism

May 13 Malebranche and Arnauld on grace and free will (Supplementary Reading: Treatise of Nature and Grace, Third Discourse)

May 15 The development of Arnauld's account of grace and free will; echoes of the Malebranche-Arnauld dispute in Leibniz and Hume