My own view, however, is that Descartes may not have had a determinate position on the issue of the causality of bodies, and that it is only our knowledge of the subsequent development of Cartesian metaphysics in the direction of
occasionalism that leads us to suppose that this issue must have come into sharp focus for him.
These methods may, however, be inadequate to distinguish between interactionism, on the one hand, and
occasionalism, parallelism, or some other alternative to interactionism on the other.
NAZIF MUHATAROGLU, "The Islamic and Cartesian Roots of
Occasionalism." Adviser: Brandon Look.
In System of Efficient Causes and Philosophical Treatise on the Immaterial Nature of the Soul, Knutzen rejects pre-established harmony and
occasionalism, defending 'physical influx' in their place.
Chapter five consists of a short survey of causality and
occasionalism in falsafa and kalam respectively, thus selling the stage for al-Ghazali's own elaborations on the subject.
Here, his geometrical arguments for atomism are presented along with an explanation as to why the mutakallimun as a whole, even until today, are so committed to atomism and
occasionalism.
Even here there is little genuine agreement, for Leibniz recasts the metaphysics underlying the correlation in terms of pre-established harmony rather than causation or
occasionalism.
(2) A less moderate, potentially theologically radical position is
occasionalism, originally Islamic but most notably proclaimed in the early modern period by the Christian Cartesian, Malebranche: "[N]atural causes are not true causes; they are only occasional causes that act only through the [immediate] force and efficacy of the will of God." (3) As Dan Garber describes it in reference to the world of bodies,
occasionalism is the doctrine that:
In the 335 years since the publication of the first volumes of The Search After Truth, in which Malebranche first affirmed both
occasionalism and human free will, most of Malebranche's readers have concluded that he is not entitled to both.
Occasionalism is for Ibn Abi Jumhur no longer an essential part of the mutakallimun's cosmology.
Unwittingly, in their drive to assert God's sole agency, the
occasionalism that Ash ari discourse erected as a counter to causation served to undermine knowledge of God that can be gained through knowledge of 'causal relations'.
ANDREW PLATT, "The Rise of Cartesian
Occasionalism." Adviser: Eileen O'Neill.