Supernaturalism, Occasionalism, and Preformation in Malebranche

Supernaturalism, Occasionalism, and Preformation in Malebranche Karen Detlefsen University of Pennsylvania Malebranche is both an occasionalist and an advocate of the preformationist theory of generation. One might expect this given that he is a mechanist: pas- sive matter cannot be the source of its own motion and so requires God to move it (occasionalism); and such matter, moving according to a few simple laws of motion, could never fashion something as complex as a living being, and so organisms must be fashioned by God at Creation (preformationism). This expectation ªnds a challenge in Kant’s depiction of the relation between causation and generation. According to Kant, preformation is the generation theory one would expect the advocate of the pre-established harmony to endorse, while the occasionalist would endorse a theory whereby God directly forms the organism upon every insemination. I make sense of Malebranche’s position in light of Kant’s suggestion by examining the relation Malebranche sees between science and metaphysics, the roles that he believes empirical inves- tigations and ªnal causes have in scientiªc practice and explanation, and the role of the supernatural in Malebranche’s philosophy. Malebranche is an advocate of both occasionalism and preformationism. Occasionalism is Malebranche’s theory of causation, and as a general doctrine, it holds that the only true and active cause is the will of God. Cre- ated beings are not actively efªcacious, and so, have no power by which to affect changes. Preformation is the theory that, at Creation, God pre- I thank audiences at The American Philosophical Association Central Division Meeting (Minneapolis, May 2000) and The History of Philosophy of Science Working Group Con- gress (Montreal, June 2002) as well as members of my Spring 2003 graduate seminar at The University of Pennsylvania for valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper. An- drew Pessin’s comments at the former conference were especially beneªcial and pivotal in my thinking about this material. Further thanks are due to Saul Fisher, Sean Greenberg, Ernan McMullin, Tan Kok Chor, and two anonymous referees of this journal. Perspectives on Science 2003, vol. 11, no. 4 ©2004 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 443 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/106361403773082261 by guest on 29 September 2021 444 Supernaturalism, Occasionalism, and Preformation in Malebranche formed every organism that would ever live, encasing generation within generation in the reproductive organs of the ªrst member of each species. For preformationists, what we witness as and call “generation” is merely the becoming visible of what was previously invisible, and there is no development of organic form in any meaningful sense of the word “development.” Preformation is often contrasted with epigenesis, which posits that the fetus develops by the sequential emergence of parts, and that this rep- resents a truly new coming-into-being of organic form.1 To the student of Malebranche, it may come as no surprise that he endorses both occasionalism and preformationism. Both views, arguably, are grounded in and are natural outgrowths of his more foundational mechanical philosophy—the idea that all changes in the phenomenal material world are explained in terms of sub-visible extended matter moving according to a few general laws of motion. Among the arguments for occasionalism identiªed by commentators, for example, is the claim that ªnite and inert extension cannot move itself and so must be moved by something with the unfailing 1. “Preformation” is an ambiguous term in early modern theories of generation. As Jacques Roger and Peter Bowler have both noted, it denotes two distinct theories which answer the key question of generation in importantly different ways (Roger [1963] 1997, pp. 259–60; Bowler 1971, pp. 221–22). One theory, which we might call “natural preformation,” postulates that the form of the living organism is generated sometime before insemination, and by some natural agent, usually by the parental soul (either maternal or pa- ternal, depending on where the germ is believed to be formed). Insemination starts the process merely of growth and not of organization or unity. The second theory, which we might call “divine preformation” (and which some commentators call “pre-existence”), also postulates that the form of living organisms is generated before insemination and also maintains that insemination starts the process merely of growth and not of development of organic form. But unlike natural preformation, on this theory, the generation of form oc- curs not at just anytime before insemination and not by a natural agent. Rather, God created each organism, all at once, at Creation. Unlike natural preformation, that is, divine preformation provides a ªnal and foolproof explanation for the problem of organic origins because it equates generation with supernatural creation. Throughout this paper, I shall use the term “preformation” to indicate divine preformation, because if Malebranche is a preformationist at all, he is a divine preformationist. Epigenesis, like preformation, is not a single monolithic theory. Phillip R. Sloan, for example, distinguishes between between Harvey’s epigenesis, a “neo-Aristotelian theory of the gradual organization of unformed matter into a new organism under the action of vital powers,” and the “mechanistic epigenesis” of Descartes, a theory which explains “the for- mation of the embryo purely from the assumptions of a particulate conception of matter, contact forces, vortices, and the three laws of nature” (Sloan 2002, pp. 233–34). Precisely because there are different forms of (and motivations for) both epigenesis and preformation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the distinction between the two theories is not always sharp. See footnote 26 below. At this juncture, I contrast preformation as the theory that God created all organisms, fully-formed, at Creation with epigenesis as the theory that organisms are gradually formed and organized from material that was previously unformed and unorganized. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/106361403773082261 by guest on 29 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 445 ability to do so, namely God (e.g., Nadler 1997, pp. 80ff and Sleigh 1990, pp. 171ff; see also Lennon [1974] for a variation on this).2 Analogously, one argument for preformationism rests on the belief that extended matter moving according to a few simple laws could never fashion something as complex as an organic body, and so, in order to save the more foundational mechanical philosophy, one must assume that God fashioned these bodies at Creation (Roger [1963] 1997, ch. 6). But complications arise when we consider Kant’s depiction of the relation between causation and generation. In the Critique of Judgment, Kant suggests that the “internally purposive form” of organic beings can be explained by either occasionalism or the pre-established harmony. The latter is Leibniz’s theory of causation, according to which God formed the world at Creation in such a way that through its own active power all future events would unfold. According to Kant, the advocate of occasionalism would support a theory of generation in which “the supreme world-cause, in accordance with its idea, would immediately provide the organic for- mation to the matter commingling in every impregnation,” and in this case, “everything that is natural is entirely lost”—nature itself has no active power in its creations because each organic form emerges upon procre- ation as a direct result of God’s forming the generative matter. Moreover, according to Kant, one option endorsed by the advocate of the pre- established harmony is preformation, and in this case, the supreme world-cause “would only have placed in the initial products of its wisdom the predisposition by means of which an organic being produces more of its own kind and constantly preserves the species itself” (Ak 5:422–23/Kant [1790] 2000, §81). On Kant’s schema, for the preformationist, nature has some active power: champions of preformation “would at least have left something to nature,” such as the mother’s ability to nourish and develop the pre-formed germ, and the predisposition of the species to preserve itself (Ak 5: 423/Kant [1790] 2000, §81). Taking naturalism to be the doctrine that nature itself has at least some power to bring about effects (though this conception will be challenged below), performationism permits some degree of naturalism.3 Malebranche, obvi- ously, does not ªt the schema: he is an occasionalist and a preformationist. 2. Secondary sources and sources cited infrequently are embedded in the text according to author, date, and page number; primary texts follow the scheme identiªed in the “Refer- ences.” 3. This limited naturalism is implied quite clearly in Kant’s (1763) The One Possible Ba- sis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God, where he portrays preformation as the theory in which “each individual is immediately made by God and therefore is of supernatural origin so that only perpetuation, that is the transition from one time to another in evolution, is entrusted to natural law” (Ak 2:114/Kant [1763] 1979, p. 141). Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/106361403773082261 by guest on 29 September 2021 446 Supernaturalism, Occasionalism, and Preformation in Malebranche Further, if occasionalism requires

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