MALEBRANCHE, (N.)

Reponse du Pere Malebranche pretre de l'Oratoire, a la Troisieme Lettre de M. Arnauld Docteur de Sorbonne, touchant les Idees & les Plaisirs.

      A Amsterdam, Chez Henry Wetstein, 1704. (6), 400, (2) pp.; (4), 42 pp. Small 8vo. Nineteenth century polished calf, gilt triple fillet ons sides, richly decorated spine with raised bands, labels with gilt lettering, inside dentelles, all edges gilt (E. Niedree). Not in Thomas; not in Cioranescu; not in Conlon, Prelude. First edition, apparently rare. At the end of this answer by Malebranche to objections raised by Arnauld has been bound, with its own pagination, the three letters by Arnauld against Malebranche. The Malebranche-Arnauld debate was one of the great intellectual events of the seventeenth century, and it attracted the attention of many, including Leibniz, Locke and Newton. Malebranche also had a significant impact on the French Enlightenment. His ideas received a wide and thorough hearing in the Republic of Letters, thanks initially to the efforts of Pierre Bayle and, later, of the Encyclopedistes. In Britain, the philosophers George Berkeley and David Hume were, despite their critiques of Malebranche's views, deeply indebted to his analysis of causation and, in the case of Berkeley, to his understanding of the relationship between God and creation (see Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, vol. 3, pp. 9-12).Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715), one of the principal figures in the development of Cartesianism, was born in Paris and received his formal intellectual training in philosophy and theology at the College de la Marche and the Sorbonne. In 1664 he came upon Descartes's posthumously published Traite de l'Homme, an early, unfinished work describing the mechanics of human physiology and indicating Descartes's distinction between soul and body. Deeply impressed, Malebranche applied himself to the study of Cartesian philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. This study resulted in the publication of his famous De la Recherche de la Verite followed, five years later, by his Traite de la Nature et de la grace. Both works aroused an immense controversy which forced Malebranche to spend much of his life explaining and defending his views and in doing so showed his considerable talent for philosophic argument. He examined and refuted objections and, in doing so, used the occasion to elaborate or revise some of his views.Malebranche was continually involved in polemics with, among others, Foucher, Le Valois (de la Ville), Fontenelle, Leibniz, Regis and Lamy. The most interesting and important polemic -and the most acrimonious and voluminous- was with that exceptionally keen critic, coauthor of the Port Royal Logic, and philosophically talented Jansenist, Antoine Arnauld. Arnauld's most important attack on Malebranche was his Des Vrayes et Fausses Idees, Cologne, 1683.