occasionalism

n. the philosophical doctrine that events are not directly caused by the antecedent events that appear to produce them, and particularly that material things cannot cause mental phenomena or mental phenomena influence material things. Rather, all things material and mental are caused by God’s volitional acts. A change in a mental or material condition provides God with the occasion to produce a change in some other mental or material condition. Thus, the material or mental phenomena that might appear to be real and direct causes are merely occasional causes. Extreme forms of occasionalism reject causal influence of any mental or material phenomena on any others. Occasionalism was first formulated by French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), largely as a response to the mind–body problem arising from Cartesian dualism. —occasionalist adj.

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Psychology term of the day

January 30th 2025

febrile seizure

a seizure arising from a high fever. It is the most common type of seizure in childhood and 20 to 30% of them recur. Febrile seizure is a benign condition for most children, but experiments with nonhuman animals and neuroimaging studies in humans suggest some febrile seizures may damage the hippocampus.