Nicolas Malebranche

Nicolas Malebranche was a French Oratorian priest and rationalist philosopher. He was influenced by the works of René Descartes and St. Augustine, and sought to reconcile Cartesianism with Roman Catholic theology. He developed a system of metaphysics and epistemology based on the idea that human beings see all things in God, who is the only true cause of everything that happens in the natural world. He also defended a version of occasionalism, which holds that God is the only real agent who produces changes in the world. He wrote several books, including The Search After Truth, Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Treatise on Nature and Grace, and Christian and Metaphysical Meditations. He was involved in controversies with other philosophers, such as Antoine Arnauld, Gottfried Leibniz, and Pierre Bayle. He was regarded as one of the most original and influential thinkers of his time, and his ideas had an impact on later philosophers such as George Berkeley, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. He died of pneumonia in 1715 at the age of 77.