Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche (Nicole de) ( * August 6, 1638 in Paris, † October 13, 1715 ) was a French philosopher and Oratorian.
Life
Malebranche's father was a royal council, his mother Catherine de Lauson came from the lower aristocracy, her brother Jean de Lauson was governor of Canada. He was the youngest son of a large family and youth of delicate constitution, so that he was only 16 years old began his studies at the College de Marche of the University of Paris. He studied with the Aristotelians M. Rouillet and 1654 he received his Master of Arts degree. He then spent three years studying theology at the Sorbonne. 1660, he joined the Oratorians. There he studied Plato and Augustine and came in this time with the doctrine of Descartes in touch. 1660, he was ordained a priest. In 1674 he was formally a professor of mathematics at the seminar of the Oratory, but he had already students like Jean Prestet whose Elemens of mathematiques he published in 1675, the Cartesian philosophy followed ( the connection was so tight that John Wallis the book for a work of Malebranche held ). His own De la recherche de la vérité, which he began to write from 1668, appeared due to difficulties with censorship until 1674th His efforts, its own synthesis to achieve Cartesian with theological ideas he sat with the following provisions of his main work and with the Traité de la nature et de la grâce of 1680 continued. It arose from discussions with Antoine Arnauld ( also Cartesians and also Jansenist ), which sharply criticized the book for publication, which developed a multi-year dispute. At the instigation of the trailer Arnauld his Traité in 1690 was even placed on the Papal Index, as well as in 1709 his main work research. Malebranche, however, had not only critics, he was in his time as a philosopher in high esteem, for example, called him Pierre Bayle in his philosophical dictionary one of the greatest philosophers of his time.
In mathematics cartridged Malebranche early L'Hospital, who wrote one of the earliest textbooks of Analysis, which he, like Malebranche met the early 1690s by Leibniz and Johann Bernoulli. In argument and debate with Leibniz Malebranche developed his ideas on the dynamics (including elastic collisions, but also optics, gravitation) in the 1690s. This work led to his admission to the Academie des Sciences 1699th
1713/1714 he had a philosophical correspondence with the trailer Spinoza Jean Jacques d' Ortous de Mairan, a former pupil of Malebranche. Even with Leibniz, whom he had met in Paris in 1675, he was in correspondence.
Philosophy
Malebranche argued that there is between body and soul, nor a causal interaction between as merely physical or merely spiritual phenomena. He tried to explain the Cartesian dualism of body and soul as one led by God juxtaposition ( occasionalism ), which has no causal connection. All interactions were caused rather by supernatural aid ( assistentia supernaturalis ) of God.
Plato and Augustine following explained Malebranche the knowledge of the truth, perceptions and ideas through the participation of the human mind to the divine ideas according to which God had created everything. Cognition, sensory perception and thought are therefore possible only through these ideas.
His main work is considered by the search for truth ( De la recherche de la vérité ) ( 1674/75 ).
Writings
- Oeuvres complètes, 20 volumes, Paris, 1958-1968 (Editor André Robinet, with manuscripts and letters )
- De la recherche de la vérité, Paris, 1st Edition in 2 volumes 1674/75, 6th edition in 4 volumes 1712, German editions: Investigation of truth, editor Artur Buchenau, 3 vols, Munich, Müller 1914
- From researching the truth, editor and translator Alfred Stalls, Felix Meiner 1968