Entretien D'une Philosophe Chrét. Et D'un Philosophe Chinois, Sur L'existence Et La Nature De Dieu

by Nicolas Malebranche

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

78 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1708

About the author

Nicolas Malebranche was a French Oratorian and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world. Malebranche is best known for his doctrines of Vision in God and Occasionalism.

Reviews

[João Luís · Rating 2 out of 5]

"O universo está cheio de manifestas contradições: sinal de que o Li que o governa não é sábio nem inteligente."

[Mina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The work of a 17th century French philosopher priest, this small imaginary dialogue between a Christian and a Chinese regarding religion and philosophy is vivid and original as an example of culture clash and philosophical differences.

Alas, such a discussion faced perhaps even more barriers than it would today: distance, language and framework of understanding.

What Malebranche works with is but hearsay, a summary of short rebuttals of Western religion and philosophy. His answers are comprehensive, but the dialogue is unequal for the opposing side. This makes this dialogue in itself slightly more worthy than a game of Chinese whispers. In all likelihood, there was a learned Chinese behind the questions and answers Malebranche combats, but these valiant tennis men of the mind face each other on opposing sides of different tennis courts. (image courtesy of Tim Minchin)

The worth of this dialogue comes from the then-perception of the Chinese and as a short, clearer introduction to Malebranche's opinions. In those aspects, it is fresh and quite entertaining.