Occasional causes, the doctrine of
Occasional causes, the doctrine of
The doctrine that in some or in all cases of apparent causal connection, the apparent cause does not itself actually bring about the apparent effect, but only serves as the occasion on which some other agent or force brings about that effect. Thus Malebranche and the other Occasionalists held that in all cases where mind and body seem to be causally connected, the truth is not that the one is acting on the other (which is impossible because they differ essentially in kind), but that an event in the one is taken by God as an occasion for his producing an event in the other. Again, Schopenhauer maintained that every natural cause is only an occasional cause for the manifestation of the Will. — W.K.F.