Occasionalism and the Debate about Causation in Early Modern Germany

This is the first book to focus on occasionalism in early modern German philosophy. It demonstrates that occasionalism provided a strong foundation for the thought of four important yet underexamined German philosophers: Erhard Weigel, Johann Christoph Sturm, Christian Wolff, and Gottfried Ploucquet.

Christian Henkel is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Montreal, Canada. His work focuses on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century metaphysics and natural philosophy. His published work has appeared in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy and Early Science and Medicine.

Introduction 1. Erhard Weigel. Continuous Creation, Discontinuous Time, and Occasionalism 2. Johann Christoph Sturm. Mechanism, Occasionalism, and Final Causes 3. Christian Wolff. Mind-body Interaction, Language, and Occasionalism 4. Gottfried Ploucquet. Occasionalism and the Grounding of Sense-Perception Conclusion Appendix: Biographical Sketches