Time Atomism and Ash‘Arite Origins for Cartesian Occasionalism Revisited

In gauging the contributions of Asian thinkers to the making of modern “Western” philosophy and science, one often encounters the difficulty of establishing a direct influence. Arun Bala and George Gheverghese Joseph have termed this “the transmission problem.”1 One can establish a precedence, as well as a strong probability that an influence occurred, without being able to find concrete evidence for it. In the face of this difficulty (which …