Abstract

Chapter 6 argues that La Forge is a “partial” occasionalist, who appeals to “body–body” occasionalism to defend Descartes’ central epistemic thesis that mind is better known than body. La Forge argues for an occasionalistic version of Descartes’ physics. However, La Forge presents a theory of the mind–body union that implies that the human mind and body causally interact. While he says bodies are the “only occasional causes” of sensations in the mind, he uses “occasional cause” to refer to a type of accidental efficient cause. La Forge’s arguments for occasionalism are limited to body–body interaction: Although he holds that God continually re-creates finite substances, he is not committed to full-blown occasionalism. La Forge does not adopt occasionalism simply because he takes it to be a logical consequence of Cartesian physics. He sees body–body occasionalism as playing a broader theoretical role: He uses it to respond to criticisms of Cartesian epistemology.