Editing Nicolas Malebranche (section)

==Biography==

===Early years===
Malebranche was born in Paris in 1638, the youngest child of Nicolas Malebranche, secretary to King [[Louis XIII of France]], and Catherine de Lauzon, sister of [[Jean de Lauson]], a [[Governor of New France]]. Because of a malformed spine, Malebranche received his elementary education from a private tutor. He left home at the age of sixteen to pursue a course of philosophy at the [[Collège de la Marche]], and subsequently to study [[theology]] at the [[Collège de Sorbonne]], both colleges from the [[University of Paris]]. He eventually left the Sorbonne, having rejected [[scholasticism]], and entered the Oratory in 1660. There, he devoted himself to [[ecclesiastical history]], [[linguistics]], the Bible, and the works of [[Augustine of Hippo|Saint Augustine]]. Malebranche was ordained a priest in 1664.

In 1664, Malebranche first read [[René Descartes|Descartes]]' ''[[Treatise on Man]]'', an account of the [[physiology]] of the human body. Malebranche's biographer, Father Yves André reported that Malebranche was influenced by Descartes' book because it allowed him to view the natural world without [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] [[scholasticism]]. Malebranche spent the next decade studying [[Cartesianism]].

===Philosophical career===
In 1674–75, Malebranche published the two volumes of his first and most extensive philosophical work. Entitled ''Concerning the Search after Truth. In which is treated the nature of the human mind and the use that must be made of it to avoid error in the sciences'' ({{langx|fr|link=no|De la recherche de la vérité. Où l’on traite de la Nature de l’Esprit de l’homme, et de l’usage qu’il en doit faire pour éviter l’erreur dans les Sciences}}), the book laid the foundation for Malebranche's philosophical reputation and ideas. It dealt with the causes of [[human error]] and on how to avoid such mistakes. Most importantly, in the third book, which discussed pure understanding, he defended a claim that the ideas through which we perceive objects exist in God.

Malebranche's first critic was the [[Abbé]] [[Simon Foucher]], who attacked the ''Search'' even before its second volume had been published. Malebranche replied in a short preface added to that second volume, and then, in the 1678 third edition, he added 50% to the already considerable size of the book with a sequence of (eventually) seventeen ''[[Elucidation]]s''. These responded to further criticisms, but they also expanded on the original arguments, and developed them in new ways. In the Tenth ''Elucidation'', for instance, Malebranche introduced his theory of "intelligible extension", a single, [[archetypal]] idea of extension into which the ideas of all particular kinds of bodies could be jointly resolved. In others, Malebranche placed a greater emphasis than he had previously done on his occasionalist account of causation, and particularly on his contention that God acted for the most part through "general volitions" and only rarely, as in the case of miracles, through "particular volitions".

Malebranche expanded on this last point in 1680 when he published ''[[Treatise]] on [[Nature]] and Grace''. Here, he made it explicit that the generality of the laws whereby God regulated His behaviour extended not only to His activity in the natural world but also applied to His gift of [[divine grace|grace]] to human beings. The book was attacked by fellow Cartesian philosopher [[Antoine Arnauld]], and, although Arnauld's initial concerns were theological ones, the bitter dispute which ensued very quickly branched out into most other areas of their respective systems. Over the next few years, the two men wrote enough [[polemics]] against one another to fill four volumes of Malebranche's collected works and three of Arnauld's. Arnauld's supporters managed to persuade the [[Roman Catholic]] Church to place ''Nature and Grace'' on its ''[[Index of Prohibited Books]]'' in 1690, and it was followed there by the ''Search'' nineteen years later. (Ironically, the Index already contained several works by the [[Jansenist]] Arnauld himself.) Other critics with whom Malebranche entered into significant discussion include another fellow Cartesian, [[Pierre Sylvain Regis]], as well as [[Dortous de Mairan]]. De Mairan was sympathetic to the views of [[Baruch Spinoza]], and felt that he had found similar views in his reading of Malebranche: Malebranche assiduously resisted such an association.

===Timeline===
* 1638 - Born in Paris to Nicolas Malebranche and Catherine de Lauzon.
* 1654 - Enters the Collège de la Marche and later the Sorbonne to study philosophy and theology.
* 1660 - Ordained as a member of the French Oratory.
* 1664 - First reads Descartes' ''Treatise on Man'' and spends the next ten years studying philosophy.
* 1674–75 - Publishes ''The Search After Truth''.
* 1678 - Adds ''Elucidations'' to new edition of the ''Search''.
* 1680 - Publishes ''Treatise of Nature and Grace''.
* 1683 - Publishes ''Christian and Metaphysical Meditations''. Arnauld publishes ''On True and False Ideas'', the opening salvo in their dispute.
* 1684 - Publishes ''Treatise on Ethics''.
* 1688 - Publishes '' Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion'' (''Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion'').
* 1690 - ''Treatise of Nature and Grace'' is placed on the ''[[Index of Prohibited Books]]''.
* 1694 - Death of Arnauld.
* 1708 - Publishes ''Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher''.
* 1709 - ''The Search After Truth'' is also placed on the Index.
* 1713–14 - Correspondence with [[Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan]] on [[Spinozism]].
* 1715 - Malebranche dies.