Arnold Geulincx

Arnold Geulincx , 1624-69, Flemish Cartesian philosopher, b. Antwerp. One of the founders of occasionalism , his philosophy is characterized by a curious blending of rationalism and mysticism. Arguing that God is the sole active power, he denied any real interaction between finite things, which serve merely as "occasional causes." He explained the relationship between mind and body by the analogy of two clocks that are synchronized by God at each instant. Although there is no interaction, there is a continual harmony between them. His principal works, which appeared posthumously, were Ethica (1675) and Metaphysica vera (1691).

Bibliography: See H. J. de Vleeschauwer, Three Centuries of Geulincx Research (1957).

Geulincx, Arnold (1624–69), philosopher. He was deprived of his professorship at Louvain in 1658 because of his attacks on Scholasticism and monasticism. He then went to Leiden and became a Calvinist.

Starting from R. Descartes' distinction between body and thought, Geulincx developed the theory known as Occasionalism. He denied any action of bodies on bodies or bodies on spirits or spirits on bodies, and consequently of all movements produced by our will. God is the sole cause of all movement and thought. Man can achieve nothing of himself. God, however, is wholly inaccessible to man, and to lead the moral life man must turn to the Divine in himself, i.e. the human reason by which he participates in the Divine nature.