“No Necessary Connection”: The Medieval Roots of the Occasionalist

Roots of Humen 
Steven Nadler (Contributor Webpage)

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198250081.003.0011

Abstract and Keywords

A number of philosophers, from the medieval period on (some of whom were

occasionalists), have argued that a central feature of causal relations is a necessary
connection between cause and effect. But they have also concluded that no such necessary
connections are ever to be found among things or events in nature. This chapter examines
this argument in its epistemological and ontological versions in al-Ghazali, Nicolas of
Autrecourt, Malebranche, and Hume.
Keywords:   cause, necessary connection, al-Ghazali, Nicolas of Autrecourt, Malebranche, Hume, occasionalism

In the not too distant past, it was common to treat Hume's skeptical doubts regarding the
justification of our beliefs in causal connections—understood as necessary connections
between objects or events—as having appeared per conceptionem immaculatam in his post‐
Cartesian mind.1 Thanks to recent efforts by scholars in early modern philosophy, however,
we are now more informed about the roots of Hume's conclusions in Cartesian thought
itself, especially the influence of Malebranche and his arguments for occasionalism. 2 And
by the research of historians of medieval philosophy we are reminded that many aspects of
seventeenth‐century occasionalism, in turn, have their ancestry in Latin and Arabic thought
of the Middle Ages.3 In this chapter, I offer a small contribution to the overall project of
illuminating the precedents in medieval philosophy for the theses and arguments in
Malebranche that so clearly influenced the most important and influential philosophical
analysis of causation ever. There is a tradition here, where the goal is to undermine claims
to discover real causal relations or powers in nature. I will (p.166) concentrate on one
particular aspect or tool of that tradition: the negative argument that we can never perceive
a sufficiently necessary connection between any two natural objects or events.
The major players of this story are al‐Ghazali (1058–1111); Nicolas of Autrecourt (1300–d.
after 1350); Malebranche (1638–1712); and Hume.4 And I believe that one can go beyond
speaking merely of “precedents” and “prefiguring” here and actually point to plausible lines
of influence. We know that Autrecourt was acquainted with the arguments set forth by al‐
Ghazali.5 And there is no doubt that Hume was thoroughly familiar with Malebranche's De
la recherche de la vérité and other works. But what about the link between Malebranche
and the earlier thinkers? Malebranche clearly was knowledgeable, to a certain degree, about
the tradition within medieval philosophy of skepticism regarding natural causal necessity.
In his discussion of secondary causality, he explicitly cites as kindred spirits Pierre d'Ailly
and Gabriel Biel, both of whom, though not occasionalists, argued against necessary causal
connections in nature (and in the Sacraments).6 It is not likely that Malebranche knew
Autrecourt's writings directly, but if he did in fact read d'Ailly he would have come across
Autrecourt's arguments.7 It is also possible that Malebranche was familiar with al‐Ghazali's
views, either directly or (which would be more likely) through the summary offered by
Averroës in his critique of al‐Ghazali.8 He was probably familiar with at least the general
outline of Asharite metaphysics and its accompanying occasionalism, through either
Maimonides' summary9 or St Thomas's discussions of the “Moorish” view of causality.10

(p.167) I do not, however, intend to convey the impression that al‐Ghazali, Autrecourt,
Malebranche, and Hume were all engaged in the same kind of philosophical project. Al‐
Ghazali, for example, was primarily an orthodox theologian whose goal was to critically
undermine the dogmatism of Aristotelian philosophy, without necessarily replacing it with
any philosophical system of his own; Malebranche, by contrast, was a metaphysical
system‐builder par excellence. Moreover, Hume's concerns were primarily
epistemological:11 to demonstrate the lack of rigorous justification for our causal beliefs;
and his use of the “no necessary connection” argument is only a necessary but not sufficient
part of his critique of causal knowledge. 12Malebranche's concerns, on the other hand, were
ontological: to demonstrate that there are no real causal connections between natural
events, and that God alone is a causal agent; and these conclusions are supposed to follow
directly from the argument.13 But what is interesting and important is not only that in their
respective projects they all employed the “no necessary connection” argument to critique
causal dogmatism, but also that they all used this argument in the same manner and
grounded it in the same basic premises. And this is something that has gone practically
unnoticed even among those scholars who see the affinities linking these thinkers together.
Medievalists usually content themselves with noting that there are “similarities” between
(or even a “tradition” uniting) the earlier thinkers, on the one hand, and Malebranche and
Hume, on the other hand, without explicitly tracing or analyzing the parallels. More
problematically, those scholars of early modern thought who have considered the details of
the argument as it appears in Hume, on the one hand, and in Malebranche and the others, on
the other hand, fail to grasp the extent to which it really is the same argument. In particular,
some have assumed that what sets Hume's use of the “no necessary connection” argument
apart is that, unlike the earlier thinkers skeptical of causal knowledge, his version does not
employ any theological premises (e.g., claims about divine omnipotence or the possibility
of miracles). Charles McCracken, for example, insists that while (p.168) “much in
Malebranche's argument seemed to [Hume] right,” Malebranche, unlike Hume, “had given
a theological foundation to this doctrine.”
Why we find no necessary connection between things, explained Malebranche, is because
their connections are determined by God's arbitrary decree.…For Malebranche, to say that
the relation between two distinct (finite) beings is contingent means that it is a relation
established by the will of God and that God was free to establish a different relation, had he
chosen to. For Hume, it means that we are free to picture a different relation if we choose
to. Hume thus lets the human imagination do what Malebranche says the divine will can do:
rearrange the relations between things.14
As we shall see, the “no necessary connection” argument as used by al‐Ghazali and
Autrecourt also seems easily to lend itself to such a theologically grounded reading. 15 My
main contention in this paper is that—superficial appearances aside, and bracketing
whatever programmatic differences there may be between the general critiques of causation
offered by al‐Ghazali, Autrecourt, Malebranche, and Hume—the “no necessary
connection” argument as it is found in each of them is fundamentally the same and used for
the same purposes: to argue against those who would find real causal relations in nature
under the guise of logically necessary connections.

I
Hume's employment of the “no necessary connection” argument as a part of his effort to
show that our beliefs in real causal connections between natural events are philosophically
unjustified is well known, and there is no need to go over those famous passages in any
great detail. He uses the argument in the course of demonstrating that if we do have
knowledge of causal connections (and his ultimate conclusion is that we do not), it is not
because reason reveals to us logically necessary connections. In short, Hume argues that
any object or event is discrete and “separable” from any other (p.169) object or event, and
thus its idea is logically distinct from the idea of any other. Consequently, the idea of the
existence of one does not, in itself, imply the idea of the existence (or non‐existence) of any
other. But if the existence of A does not entail the existence of B, such that it is not
logically absurd to assert A and not‐B, then there is no discoverable necessary connection
between A and B. And if reason can find no necessary connection between two things or
events, then, given the centrality of the notion of “necessary connection” to the concept of
causality, this way of justifying the assertion that there is a causal connection between them
is foreclosed. In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume writes:
There is no object, which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in
themselves, and never look beyond the ideas which we form of them. Such an inference
would amount to knowledge, and would imply the absolute contradiction and impossibility
of conceiving any thing different. But as all distinct ideas are separable, 'tis evident there
can be no impossibility of that kind. When we pass from a present impression to the idea of
any object, we might possibly have separated the idea from the impression, and have
substituted any other idea in its room.16
Whenever we think of one event followed by another, we can always conceive—perhaps
falsely, but nonetheless without contradiction or absurdity—that the first event occur
without the second or the second without the first.

Now nothing is more evident, than that the human mind cannot form such an idea of two
objects, as to conceive any connexion betwixt them, or comprehend distinctly that power or
efficacy by which they are united. Such a connexion wou'd amount to a demonstration, and
wou'd imply the absolute impossibility for the one object not to follow, or to be conceived
not to follow upon the other: which kind of connexion has already been rejected in all
cases.17
More generally, our ability to warrant a claim about a causal connection between two
things on the basis of discovering a (logically) necessary connection between them is
frustrated by the fact that “we can at least conceive a change in the course of nature: which
sufficiently proves, that such a change is not absolutely impossible.” 18 The mere logical
possibility of an alternative sequence of events is enough to rule out
demonstrative (p.170) certainty, hence strictly necessary connections. A more illustrative
passage from the Enquiry is worth quoting here:
That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case seems evident; since it implies no
contradiction that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly like those
which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary effects. May I not
clearly and distinctly conceive that a body, falling from the clouds, and which, in all other
respects, resembles snow, has yet the taste of salt or feeling of fire? Is there any more
intelligible proposition than to affirm, that all the trees will flourish in December and
January, and decay in May and June? Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly
conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative
argument or abstract reasoning a priori.19
II
In 1737, Hume wrote to a friend and suggested that he prepare himself for reading the
manuscript of the Treatise by studying Malebranche's De la recherche de la vérité.20 Hume
frequently (if not always explicitly) reveals his familiarity with Malebranche's work, and he
clearly had much to learn from the unorthodox Cartesian's discussion of causation. 21 This is
nowhere more apparent than in the “no necessary connection” argument.

Unlike Hume, who only considers the logical necessity discoverable by reason as one
candidate for the kind of necessity operative in a causal relationship, Malebranche
categorically identifies a causally necessary relation with a logically necessary one. In
the Recherche, he insists that “a true cause as I understand it is one such that the mind
perceives a necessary connection between it and its effect,” 22 and the context makes it clear
that the kind of necessity required is logical. For he then goes on to argue that no causal
connection can be found between any act of the human will (any volition) and any bodily
event just because it is possible to conceive, without contradiction, that volition not
successfully terminating in its object. Simply because I will that my arm rise, it does
not necessarily follow (p.171) that my arm will rise (although it invariably does), since it is
at least conceivable, without logical contradiction, that I will to raise my arm and my arm
does not rise. “When we examine our idea of all finite minds, we do not see any necessary
connection between their will and the motion of any body whatsoever. On the contrary, we
see that there is none and that there can be none.” 23 It follows, he concludes, that there is no
real causal connection between the two events.
It could appear from Malebranche's text that the reason why there is no logically necessary
(hence, causal) connection between a human volition and a bodily motion is because of the
ever‐present (albeit unlikely) possibility of divine intervention, the possibility that “God
[might] will to produce the opposite of what some minds will.” 24 If, despite the heretofore
uninterrupted course of nature, God might (or at least could) bring about an A without a B
or a B without an A—or even if God could have brought it about originally that A's are
regularly followed not by B's but by C's—then absolutely speaking there is no necessary
connection between A and B. If this were Malebranche's reasoning, then indeed (as
McCracken claims) his argument would differ from Hume's in the essential role played
therein by a theological premise about divine omnipotence: there would be no necessary
connections in nature because nature's sequences are ultimately contingent on God's will.
But, in fact, no such theological premise is directly at work in Malebranche's argument,
although some theological considerations appear as illustrative cases.25

When one looks closely at Malebranche's argument, it is immediately clear that the reason
why there is no logically necessary connection between a human volition and its intended
object is itself purely logical or conceptual in nature. The human will, by definition, is finite
and thus not omnipotent. And, again by definition, to be non‐omnipotent just means that if
one wills x, it does not (logically) necessarily follow that xobtains. That is why
Malebranche says that “there seems to be some contradiction in saying” that the human
mind is the real cause of the bodily movements that follow its volitions, since “the mind
perceives a necessary connection [une liaison nécessaire] only between the will of
an (p.172) infinitely perfect being and its effects.”26 Here is where the theological example
comes in handy. Because God is defined as omnipotent, there is evidently perceived a
logically necessary connection (hence, a real causal connection) between divine volitions
and all their objects. Necessarily, if God wills x, then x obtains. That just is the meaning of
omnipotence. “It suffices that He wills in order that a thing be, because it is a contradiction
that He should will and that what He wills should not happen.” 27 No such contradiction
results in the case of a human volition; thus we can perceive no necessary connection
between a non‐omnipotent will and any bodily motions.
Although Malebranche does not explicitly argue in this way against causal relations among
bodies alone, the application of the “no necessary connection” argument to the physical
world would—as Hume perceived—be a natural and powerful extension of his case. And
there is no reason to think that Malebranche did not consider the argument applicable
among bodies; in fact, there are good reasons to expect he would. For if “the mind
perceives a necessary connection only between the will of an infinitely perfect being and its
effects,” then it will find no such necessary connection between any two physical objects or
events, no more than it would find it between a human volition and bodily motions. So it is
safe to generalize and say that for Malebranche, for any two natural events A and B (be
they mental or bodily), there is no causal connection between A and B because there is no
logically necessary connection between them. And this is revealed by the fact that we can
always conceive, without contradiction, A not followed by B or B not preceded by A.

III
We have seen that both Malebranche and Hume argue, on conceptual grounds, that there
are no logically necessary connections to be found between natural objects or events. For
Malebranche, it follows from this that there are no causal relations between such events; for
Hume, it means that reason, at least, cannot discover such causal relations between
such (p.173) events.28 Let us now turn to the medieval precedents for this type of argument
against the belief in real causal connections in nature. The first systematic occurrence of
this general line of argumentation before the seventeenth century is in al‐Ghazali's critique
of Avicennan (i.e., Aristotelian) necessitarianism, as presented in his Tahafut al‐
Falasifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). At the time he composed this treatise, al‐
Ghazali belonged to the Asharite school of Mutakallimun, Islamic theologians who
defended what they saw as orthodoxy against the rationalist principles of the Mutazilites.
The followers of al‐Ashari (d. 935) propounded an occasionalist metaphysics grounded in
an ontological atomism and a rigorous understanding of divine omnipotence. Natural
substances and their accidents have no ontological independence or self‐sufficiency
whatsoever; they are entirely dependent on the continuously recurring creative activity of
God for their persistence in time and whatever modifications they possess. All natural
events are caused directly by God, the only being with real causal efficacy. 29 Al‐Ghazali
himself was particularly troubled by the Avicennan doctrines of the eternity and necessity
of the world and all the events therein, whose causal connections are characterized by a
strict logical necessity. Such doctrines rule out miracles—since not even God can do that
which is logically impossible—and it was al‐Ghazali's concern to preserve the possibility of
divine interventions that motivate his discussion of causality in Problem 17 of the Tahafut,
“Refutation of Their Belief in the Impossibility of a Departure from the Natural Course of
Events.”30
Like Malebranche, al‐Ghazali argues against real causal (and, hence, uninterruptable)
relations in nature31 by directing his attack upon the (p.174) necessity alleged to obtain in
the connections between causes and their effects. “In our view,” he begins, “the connection
between what are believed to be the cause and the effect is not necessary.” 32 Once again,
the kind of necessity at stake is logical. For any two non‐identical things or events, there is
no logically necessary connection between them such that the one implies either the
existence or the non‐existence of the other. We can take any sequence of events, no matter
how regular and invariable, and at least conceive, without any contradiction or logical
absurdity,33 that the usual consequence does not obtain. “Let us consider only one example
—viz., the burning of a piece of cotton at the time of its contact with fire. We admit the
possibility of a contract between the two which will not result in burning, or we also admit
the possibility of the transformation of cotton into ashes without coming into contact with
fire.”34 It is, of course, only a logical possibility. But it is sufficient to rule out the kind of
necessity alleged to be essential for real causality, that is, for an efficient causality
grounded in the natures of things and governing events with a metaphysically inviolable
order.
Is there a theological premise at work in al‐Ghazali's argument? At times there appears to
be. Consider the striking opening paragraph of Problem 17:

In our view, the connection between what are believed to be the cause and the effect is not
necessary. Take any two things. This is not That; nor can That be This. The affirmation of
one does not imply the affirmation of the other; nor does its denial imply the denial of the
other. The existence of one is not necessitated by the existence of the other; nor its non‐
existence by the non‐existence of the other. (p.175) Take for instance any two things, such
as the quenching of thirst and drinking; satisfaction of hunger and eating; burning and
contact with fire; light and the rise of the Sun; death and the severance of the head from the
trunk; healing and the use of medicine; the loosening of bowels and the use of a purgative,
or any other set of events observed to be connected together in Medicine, or Astronomy, or
Arts, or Crafts. They are connected as a result of the Decree of God (holy be His name),
which preceded their existence. If one follows the other, it is because He has created them
in that fashion, not because the connection in itself is necessary and indissoluble. He has
the power to create the satisfaction of hunger without eating, or death without the severance
of the head, or even the survival of life when the head has been cut off, or any other thing
from among the connected things, independently of what is supposed to be its cause.35
There are two distinct issues that could be at work here. On the one hand, it seems as
though the reason why there is no logically necessary connection, hence no real causal
connection, between any two things is because of the ultimate contingency of all sequences,
understood as their original and, according to Asharite occasionalism, continuing
dependence on God's omnipotent and free will: “They are connected as a result of divine
decree.” There is thus no absolute necessity just because God could have chosen to create
and sustain some other order of things. On the other hand, there is, even within that
divinely sustained order, the ever present possibility of a miracle: the conceivability of one
event failing to follow its usual antecedent just is the conceivability of divine intervention.
“Once it is proved that the Agent creates by His will the burning of a piece of cotton at the
time of its contact with fire, Reason will consider it to be possible that He may not create
the burning while the contact has taken place.” 36 Perhaps fire will not burn a prophet, since
“there might originate from God a new attribute in the fire which confines heat to
itself.”37 Clearly, if this is al‐Ghazali's argument, then rather than using the “no necessary
connection” appeal to argue for occasionalism (as Malebranche does), he would be using
the theological apparatus of occasionalism to eliminate necessary connections in nature.
This is not implausible, since his main concern in Problem 17 is not to argue for the
positive theses of (p.176)occasionalism regarding divine causation—the truth of which he
apparently regards as already established—but rather to combat Avicennan causal
necessitarianism in nature.
But, in spite of appearances, there are good reasons for thinking that al‐Ghazali's
demonstration of the non‐necessity of natural sequences, hence his elimination of real
causality from nature, is grounded not in any theological premises, but rather—as is the
case for Malebranche and Hume—in purely logical considerations. Let us look closely at
exactly why al‐Ghazali thinks there are no necessary connections in nature. In the lengthy
passage quoted above, he begins by stressing—as Hume does—the ontological, hence
logical discreteness of any two things or events: “This is not That; nor can That be This.”
But if two things, A and B, are not identical, nor one a part of the other, then “the
affirmation of one does not imply the affirmation of the other; nor does its denial imply the
denial of the other. The existence of one is not necessitated by the existence of the other;
nor its non‐existence by the non‐existence of the other.” Clearly, this is a logical point; it
requires no theological assumptions; nor does it, for al‐Ghazali, rest upon any. While the
occasionalism is certainly lurking in the background here—at least as a doctrine of divine
omnipotence and God's ubiquitous causal agency (“We say that it is God who, through the
intermediacy of angels or directly, is the agent of the creation of blackness in cotton, or the
disintegration of its parts, and of their transformation into a smouldering heap of ashes” 38)
—I suggest that the elimination of natural causal agency, with its inviolable, (logically)
necessary connections, rests (at least in Problem 17) on the purely logical character of the
“no necessary connection” argument.

And philosophically—given certain assumptions that al‐Ghazali makes about divine power
—this is as it should be. For he insists that God's power is limited by the law of non‐
contradiction, by the boundaries of logical possibility. “God's power extends to all that is
possible…no power extends to that which is impossible.” 39 “No one has power over the
Impossible.”40 Thus, what is possible or impossible is so in itself. But, then, so must be
what is necessary or not. If God can bring about some sequence of events (say, A followed
by not‐B) contrary to the usual course (p.177) of nature, this is only because that sequence
is, in itself and independently of God's power, logically possible and not impossible.
Consequently, the non-necessity of the usual sequence (A followed by B) is such, as well,
not relative to any divine operations or capacities. The non‐necessity of A followed by B
rests only on the intrinsic (i.e., logical) possibility of the sequence: A followed by not‐B.
Any appeals to the possibility of miraculous divine intervention, or to what order
God could have originally instituted, are superfluous to this argument. At times it is,
indeed, hard to discern what the operative line of reasoning is—theological or logical—
since the issues are connected. But given the independence of logical possibility from God's
will, the independence of non‐necessity follows as well, as I think al‐Ghazali recognized.
While al‐Ghazali's use of the “no necessary connection” argument to argue for the
ontological claim that there are no real causal connections in nature resembles
Malebranche's use of the argument, with Nicolas of Autrecourt we are back in the realm of
the epistemological; thus, the oft‐quoted epithet “the fourteenth‐century Hume” seems apt.
Autrecourt is not arguing for occasionalism, and—in fine skeptical fashion—he seems to
suspend judgment on the ontological question of whether there really are causal
connections in nature. What he does clearly argue, however, is that we cannot know about
such connections and thus perform causal inferences with what he calls the “certitude of
evidentness [certitudo evidentii],” or “certitude in the unqualified sense [certitudo
simpliciter].” And, like the other thinkers we have examined so far, his main weapon in
deflating claims to causal knowledge is the “no necessary connection” argument.41

According to Autrecourt, all certitude worthy of the title is reducible to two kinds: the
immediate testimony of consciousness, that is, of sensation and inner experience (what he
sometimes calls “the cognition our intellect has of its own acts”); and that guaranteed by
the principle of non‐contradiction (what he calls “the first principle”). Certainty is absolute,
he insists, and does not admit of degrees.42 And the only things about which we can have
such certainty are non‐inferential phenomenological data, explicit identity statements, and
whatever is deducible from some evident (p.178) premise with logical necessity. Explicit
identity statements are immediately guaranteed by the principle of non‐contradiction;
deductions are resolvable into the “first principle” since what they demonstrate, in many or
fewer steps, is either the identity of the conclusion with the antecedent, or that the
conclusion is a part of the antecedent. “In every inference that is reduced immediately to
the first principle,” that is, in every certain inference, “the consequent, and the antecedent
either as a whole or in part, are factually identical [sunt idem realiter].…In every evident
inference, reducible to the first principle by as many steps as you please, the consequent is
factually identical with the antecedent, or with part of what is signified by the
antecedent.”43 It follows that in all certain inferences, in all evident knowledge claims about
the connections between things, “the antecedent and the opposite of the consequent cannot
simultaneously be true without contradiction.”44 If the inference from A to B is certain, then
it is logically contradictory to assert A and not‐B; and where no such absurdity results from
denying the consequent of the antecedent, no certain knowledge can be had of the
connection.
Autrecourt then argues that causal knowledge claims cannot attain such certainty and
evidence, since the logical necessity between antecedent and consequent that is required for
certification by the “first principle” can never be discovered between any two distinct
things or events. The inference from one thing as cause to another as effect (or vice versa),
like the inference from observable accidents to the existence of some underlying substance,
can never be certain. “From the fact that some thing is known to be, it cannot be inferred
evidently, by evidentness reduced to the first principle, or to the certitude of the first
principle, that there is some other thing.” 45 In such cases, it is not contradictory to assert the
antecedent with the denial of the consequent. A contradiction results only when the
consequent is identical with, or at least a part of the antecedent, and ex hypothesi in the
causal case we are dealing with two non‐identical things. Hence, “the opposite of the
consequent [is] compatible with whatever is signified by the antecedent, without
contradiction.” As Autrecourt says at length,
In such an inference in which from one thing another thing would be inferred, the
consequent would not be factually identical with the antecedent, nor with part
of (p.179) what is signified by the antecedent. It therefore follows that such an inference
would not be evidently known with the aforesaid evidentness of the first principle. The
antecedent is conceded and posited by the opponent. The implication is plain from the
definition of “contradiction,” which runs “an affirmation and a negation of one and the
same attribute…etc.” Since, then, in this case the consequent is not factually identical with
the antecedent, or with part of the antecedent, it is manifest that, assuming the opposite of
the consequent and the antecedent to be simultaneously true, there still would not be an
“affirmation and negation of one and the same attribute.”46
In other words, there is no necessary connection between any two distinct things or events;
because of their ontological discreteness, there is a corresponding logical discreteness: we
can always conceive, without contradiction, the one without the other. Hence, we cannot
demonstrate—and the only means of demonstration available to us is that rigorously
governed by the principle of non‐contradiction—any causal connection.

At times, Autrecourt does provide theologically‐based reasons for thinking that there is no
logically necessary connection—hence, no demonstrable causal connection—between any
two things. But the “no necessary connection” argument outlined above, which appeals
only to the ontological (hence, logical) distinction between any two non‐identical objects or
events, is clearly free from, and logically independent of, any theological premises. For
example, he argues against the legitimacy of inferring from observable accidents to
underlying substratum—a case analogous to the causal one—that 

When a log or a stone has been pointed out, it will be most clearly deduced that a substance
is there, from a belief accepted simultaneously. But this cannot be inferred from a
simultaneous belief evidently. For, even if all kinds of things are perceived prior to such
discursive thought, it can happen by some power, namely the divine, that no substance is
there. Therefore in the natural light it is not evidently inferred from these appearances that a
substance is there. This inference is apparent from what has been explained above. For it
was said that an inference which is evident in the natural light is evident in an unqualified
manner, so that it is a contradiction that by some power it could occur that the opposite of
the consequent would be compatible with the antecedent. And if he says that the
inference is evident when it is added to the antecedent that “God is not performing a
miracle,” this is disproved along the same line of argument as is found in a
similar (p.180) case in the first letter to Bernard [where Autrecourt shows that the addition
of such a premise begs the question].47
To import these considerations to the causal case: there is no necessary connection between
any alleged cause and effect because God can always bring about the one without the other;
and we can never be certain on any given occasion that God is not doing so. In the
fragments of Autrecourt's fifth letter to Bernard of Arezzo, we find the following series of
claims:

This consequence is not evident by an evidence deduced from the first principle: Fire is
close to the flax and there is no impediment, hence the flax will be consumed.

We do not know with evidence that things other than God can be the cause of any effect.
We do not know with evidence that any cause which is not God causes efficiently.

We do not know whether there is or can be any natural efficient cause.48

The apparent line of argument here is that in any given sequence of natural events alleged
to be causal, we cannot be certain of a necessary connection between the events. For all we
know, God, who can bring about the one without the other, may be the cause bringing
about the second event. But I think that it is quite clear when Autrecourt is using a purely
logical argument and when he is using a theologically‐weighted one. As one commentator
notes, “Nicholas [of Autrecourt] uses logical, theological, and empirical arguments” in his
critique of our alleged knowledge of causal connections, but “it is always worth noting that
the logic of his position in no way depends on the theological argument.”49

IV
I have examined several applications of a particular mode of arguing against causal
necessity in nature. The argument proceeds by demonstrating that between any two natural
events, we can never discover a logically necessary connection; it is always possible to
conceive, without contradiction, the one event without the other. It follows from this,
accordingly, that there are no demonstrable causal relations between these two events. In
the most well‐known use of this argument, Hume (p.181) concludes only to an
epistemological claim: whether or not there are any necessary connections in nature, we can
never rationally justify our belief in them. Nicholas of Autrecourt, too, adopts this skeptical
stance: we can have no evident knowledge of causal connections. The occasionalists
Malebranche and al‐Ghazali, on the other hand, go further and argue that where there are no
demonstrable causal relations, there are no causal relations tout court. But whether their
projects are epistemological or ontological, all employ this general line of argument in a
similar manner to undermine dogmatism about natural causality.
There are, of course, other important similarities and differences between these thinkers.
For example, we can find in all of their works the additional, empirical argument (also
made famous by Hume) that causality cannot be observed. Experience (whether of a single
or of multiple instances) reveals only a sequence of events or constant conjunction, and not
necessary connections. Al‐Ghazali, demanding an explanation of how one could know that
fire was the real cause of the burning of cotton, insists that 

The only argument is from the observation of the fact of burning at the time of contact with
fire. But observation only shows that one is with the other, not that it is by it and has no
other cause than it.…Existence with a thing does not prove existence by it.50
Likewise, Malebranche notes that “what the senses actually tell you” is that 

when a body at rest is struck by another body, it begins to move. You can believe here what
you see, for it is a fact and the senses are good enough witnesses when it comes to such
facts. But you should not judge that bodies have in themselves some moving force, or that
they can communicate such a force to other bodies when they strike them, for you see no
such thing happen as that.51
On the other hand, in terms of differences, Hume turns out to be one of Malebranche's most
rigorous critics, and takes the occasionalists to task for their claim to have actually
discovered necessary connections between the will of an infinite, omnipotent being and
natural events.52
(p.182) Of equal interest is a difference in the analysis of causality itself. Autrecourt and
Hume insist only that the lack of logical necessity between things is an argument against
our being able to have demonstrative knowledge of natural causality. But al‐Ghazali and
Malebranche actually identify a causally necessary sequence with a logically necessary
one. This is what allows them to claim that where there is no logical necessity there is no
causal necessity. But why should one think that the necessity at the heart of causality is a
logical one? In al‐Ghazali's case, the explanation is simply that that is the opinion of those
he is attacking. For Avicenna, a causal connection grounded in the natures of things is a
logically necessary one; the existence of a cause without its metaphysically determined
effect is impossible. All al‐Ghazali needs to do to undermine Avicennan causal
necessitarianism is adopt this analysis of causality and then show how no such necessity is
ever to be found in nature. But between al‐Ghazali in the twelfth century and Malebranche
in the seventeenth century, we have philosophers such as St Thomas and William of
Ockham, for whom causal or natural necessity (the operation of real efficient causes) is
distinct from logical necessity. What is necessary on account of the natural order (that is,
what is necessary ex hypothesi or secundum quid) is not absolutely (i.e., logically)
necessary, since God, in his absolute power, could have established a different natural
order.53 In other words, there is a distinction between nomological necessity (that is,
necessity relative to some non‐necessary set of laws—for example, the laws of nature) and
logical necessity. Thus, even assuming that Malebranche, like al‐Ghazali, is arguing against
an Aristotelian causal picture, it would be one which is informed by intervening
developments. Why, then, does Malebranche conflate causal with logical necessity?
Now that is an interesting question.

Notes:
I would like to thank William Courtenay, Nicholas Jolley, Marleen Rozemond, Berent Enç,
and Tom Lennon for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this chapter.

(1) This tendency persisted in spite of the fact that earlier in this century, R. W. Church
(among others) argued that Malebranche “anticipated and contributed” to doctrines that are
“too widely thought of as having originated wholly with Hume”; see Church 1938.

(2) See especially Wright 1983: ch. 4; and McCracken 1983: ch. 7.

(3) See e.g. Courtenay 1984; Fakhry 1958; and Weinberg 1948. See also Lennon 1985:
286. Lennon notes that “the connection between Hume and [the] twelfth‐century
occasionalist debates is Malebranche, whose influence on Hume is enormous.”

(4) There are certainly other philosophers who might be included in this type of project as
well. For example, Hume's arguments come very close—even in their wording—to those
offered by Ockham in his discussion of causation.

(5) See Wolfson 1969.

(6) See Elucidation XV of the Recherche, OC III.243: “All [the Scholastics] that I have
read, with the possible exceptions of Biel and Cardinal d'Ailly, think that the efficacy that
produces effects comes as much from the secondary cause as from the first cause.”
(7) Malebranche's citation of d'Ailly refers to the first article in the first question of Book
IV of d'Ailly's Sentences commentary, which happens to be the exact place where he
discusses a central argument used by Autrecourt. For a discussion of d'Ailly's use of
Autrecourt, see Courtenay 1971: 113.

(8) Averroës' Tahafut al‐Tahafut was first translated into Latin in 1328.

(9) See Guide for the Perplexed, I. 73.

(10) Thomas actually relies heavily on Maimonides' account. See e.g. his De Potentia Dei,
Q. 3, art. 7.

(11) The same could be said for Nicolas of Autrecourt.

(12) Hume uses the “no necessary connection” argument only to show that reason does not
reveal the necessary connection essential to a causal relation. He then needs to appeal to
other considerations to show that experience does not either.

(13) Wright points out this difference in his 1991. See also Theau 1976: 549–64.

(14) 1983: 262–3. See also Theau 1976: 552.

(15) See Lennon 1985: 286.

(16) A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, part 3, sec. vi; Hume 1978: 86–7.

(17) Treatise, I.3.xiv; Hume 1978: 161–2.

(18) Treatise, I.3.vi; Hume 1978: 89.

(19) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume 1975: 35.

(20) See Popkin 1964: 774–5.

(21) McCracken suggests that “Hume not only kept the Recherche in mind, as he wrote on
causality, but…he even had it open for consultation while writing” (1983: 258).

(22) Recherche, Book VI, Part 2, ch. iii; OC II:316; LO, 450.

(23) Recherche, VI.2.iii, OC II.312–13; LO 448.

(24) Recherche, VI.2.iii, OC III.317; LO 450.

(25) Although, of course, Malebranche does have other arguments against natural causality
that do employ theological premises; see e.g. Entretiens sur la métaphysique, VII.

(26) Recherche, VI.2.iii, OC III.316; LO 450.

(27) Recherche, VI.2.iii, OC III.316; LO 450.

(28) It is important to add the proviso that for Hume, reason's failure to discover logical
necessity between events is only part of his general skeptical argument, and does not by
itself suffice to undermine all causal‐knowledge claims. He must still show that experience
does not reveal any (non‐logical) necessity above and beyond constant conjunction.

(29) A general discussion of Asharite metaphysics is in Fakhry 1958: ch. 1. There is some

debate, however, over the accuracy of Fakhry's account, and particularly over whether al‐
Ashari categorically denied secondary causality. See Frank 1966; and Bargeron 1978.

(30) For discussions of al‐Ghazali's critique of causality, see Fakhry 1958: ch. 2;

Weinberg 1964; Courtenay 1984; Marmura 1965; Bargeron 1978; and Goodman 1978.

(31) There has been vigorous debate over whether al‐Ghazali is arguing, like Malebranche,
for the claim that there are no real causal connections in nature; or simply that, while there
is real natural causality, it is not characterized by strict necessity. Fakhry 1958,
Marmura 1965, Wolfson 1969, and Weinberg 1964, all take him to be arguing against
natural causality. Courtenay (1984), on the other hand, suggests that al‐Ghazali offers a
theory that espouses “a causality that operates ex natura rei,” albeit a causality that lacks
necessity. Also arguing, with Courtenay, against the “traditional” view of al‐Ghazali are
Goodman 1978; and Frank 1966. Goodman is particularly concerned to distance al‐Ghazali
from what he calls “the occasionalism of the Kalam.” For further discussion of these issues,
see also Bargeron 1978; and Freddoso 1988: esp. 94–7.

While I agree with Courtenay and Bargeron that there is material in the Tahafut which
supports both readings, I am interested in al‐Ghazali here insofar as he does undoubtedly
contribute to the tradition of skepticism about, or denial of natural causality. The denial of
natural causality may not be the position that al‐Ghazali always and consistently adopts, but
it is certainly a position that he does take in certain passages in the Tahafut.

(32) Tahafut, al‐Ghazali 1963: 185.

(33) Al‐Ghazali defines such an absurdity as “the affirmation of something together with its
denial; or the affirmation of the particular together with the denial of the general; or the
affirmation of two together with the denial of one” (ibid. 194).

(34) Ibid. 185.

(35) Tahafut, al‐Ghazali 1963: 185.

(36) Ibid. 188. Of course, if the possibility of miracles is used to argue against necessary

connections, then the consequent lack of necessary connections cannot then be used to
argue, against the Avicennans, for the possibility of miracles.

(37) Ibid. 190.

(38) Tahafut, al‐Ghazali 1963: 186.

(39) Ibid. 193.
(40) Ibid. 194.

(41) By far the best and most thorough study of Autrecourt's thought is Weinberg 1948.

(42) “Second Letter to Bernard of Arezzo,” in d'Autrecourt 1994: 61.

(43) D'Autrecourt 1994: 63–5.

(44) Ibid. 63.

(45) Ibid. 65.

(46) Ibid. 65–6.

(47) D'Autrecourt 1994: 75.

(48) Weinberg 1942.

(49) Weinberg 1964: 272–3.

(50) Tahafut, al‐Ghazali 1963: 186.

(51) Méditations chrétiennes, V.5, OC X.48. See also (d'Autrecourt 1994: 73)

d'Autrecourt's “Second Letter,” and Hume, Enquiry, IV.2.

(52) See e.g. Treatise, Hume 1978: 160. For a good discussion of Hume's critique of
Malebranche, see Wright 1991.

(53) See, e.g., St Thomas, De potentia Dei, Q. 1, art. 3–5.