Nicola Malebranche. Solving the problem of the relationship between soul and body
Nicolas Malebranche was the most significant of all of Descartes’ followers; he was the systematizer and the greatest theorist of occasionalism. The starting point in the development of occasionalism (from the Latin occasio – case, occasion) was the problem of the relationship between the soul and the body. The solution to this problem proposed by Descartes did not satisfy even many of his followers, and seemed insufficiently convincing to them. The supporters of occasionalism held the opinion that natural interaction between bodily and spiritual substances was impossible. At the same time, they explained the relationship between the soul and the body by divine intervention.