His works:
1674–75 – Publishes The Search After Truth.
1680 – Publishes Treatise of Nature and Grace.
1683 – Publishes Christian and Metaphysical Meditations.
1684 – Publishes Treatise on Ethics.
1688 – Publishes Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion
1708 – Publishes Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher.
Works about his works:
- Chamberlain, C., 2018, “Our Bodies, Our Selves: Malebranche on Feelings of Embodiment,” Ergo, 5: 507–39.
Chamberlain explains how Malebranche views the relationship between one’s body and one’s perception – causal connection, material connection and perspective connection. Chamberlain also explains how this relationship helps Malebranche clarify why even though sensory experiences are so unreliable and misleading, God, as powerful and benevolent as he is, gives us bodies with such sensory experiences. One reason would be that it is better for human being’s survival, and the other is that body provides something to sacrifice, an opportunity to prove one’s faith to achieve salvation.
2. Nolan, L., and J. Whipple, 2005, “Self Knowledge in Descartes and Malebranche,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 43: 55–81.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/177622
This articles first points out a difference between Descartes and Malebranche: Descartes thinks that mind is better known than body and Malebranche argues that the existence of mind is better known than body, but the nature of mind is not. Then this article evaluates both arguments and argues against Malebranche’s A Priori argument (which states that modification of body could be done by ideas representing them but modification of mind could only be done by experience) and points out that it fails as an internal critique of Descartes’s theory of the mind.
3. Lee, S.,2008, “Necessary Connections and Continuous Creation: Malebranche’s Two Arguments for Occasionalism,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 46: 539–65.
Lee evaluates two arguments for occasionalism that Malebranche uses: one is no necessary connection argument (NNC) and the other is conservation but continuous creation argument (CCC). Lee points out there is an interesting shift in Malebranche’s works from NNC to CCC. Lee also explains why Malebranche prefers CCC argument in his later works because it is stronger arguing against divine concurrentism, it allows room for human beings to be responsible for some of their actions as moral agents…