Malebranche's occasionalism demonstrates that finite substances have no intrinsic active power, since power requires an infallible and unconditional connection between volition and outcome.

?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.

No one has weighed in yet. Be the first to share reasons for or against this statement.

Intrinsic active power(what Malebranche denies finite things have): The ability to make something happen on your own, built into what you are, without needing help from anything else.
Malebranche: Nicolas Malebranche was a 17th-century French philosopher who developed the idea that God is the only true cause of everything that happens in the world, and that our minds and bodies don't directly interact but are coordinated by God like two synchronized clocks. He's important because his unusual theory tried to solve the puzzle of how a non-physical mind can affect a physical body, and his ideas influenced later European philosophy. His work represents one of the most creative attempts in Western thought to explain the relationship between mind and matter.
finite substances(what Malebranche claims lack causal power): Individual things that exist (like you, me, or a table) that are limited and depend on something else to keep existing.
infallible(contrasting with 'reasonable judgments' to show rationality doesn't require perfection)

Based on where you are in your exploration