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Consonance and Dissonance between Malebranche and Spinoza: Origins and Developments of the Matter. This essay aims to reconstruct – both from a historiographical point of view and from a historical and conceptual perspective – the origins, the milestones and the fundamental points of the question of the similarities and differences between the philosophies of Spinoza and Malebranche. It is structured on two levels: on the one hand, it examines the fundamental texts in which Malebranche critically evokes some of Spinoza’s theses or replies to those who point out the points of contact between his doctrine and that of the Dutch philosopher; on the other hand, it briefly reviews the history of the cross-reception of the two authors from Arnauld and Noël Aubert de Versé up to Hegel and Schopenhauer.

Régis and Malebranche: A Complex Relationship. Pierre-Sylvain Régis was regarded by his contemporaries as the main representative of Cartesianism in France. His opposition to the other heir to the philosophy of Descartes, Nicolas Malebranche, is well known. However, the controversy on the theory that pleasure makes us happy in the present co-exists with Régis’ use of the Malebranchian doctrine of natural inclinations. Neither does his rejection of the Oratorian’s hedonism follow in any way from a deeper spiritualism, but from the complex reuse of issues deriving from Malebranche, Nicole and Descartes at the same time.

Presence and Legacy of Malebranche from Paris to Naples. A Brief Introduction. This introduction focuses on Malebranchean major issues and studies in Italy and abroad and explains the reasons at the basis if this collective work. In his numerous writings Malebranche developed an original philosophical system that he enriched in time by investigating various philosophical and theological themes (causality, mind-body relationship, the question of original sin) and by proposing new interpretive grids. Malebranche’s legacy deserves to be investigated further by means of a comparison with other authors of his time, by whom he was sometimes dragged into virulent polemics.

From the Art of the Imagination to the Science of the Mind. Some Considerations on the Concept of Memory in Malebranche and Vico. The topic of the psychology of memory is rather marginal in the contemporary debate about the imagination in early modern philosophy, despite the evident fact that without memory imagining is impossible. This question moves from the rhetoric domain to the “scientific” analysis of the mind, and occurs both in Malebranche and Vico, but via different paths in each of the two thinkers: Vico studies the mythological thought, whereas Malebranche builds a new psychology and a new critique of the Aristotelian mentality, that is to say the mentality of every man who is not enlightened by divine grace and who has not read and understood Descartes. But they both share the rejection of the art of memory – which was the most thorough knowledge about memory until then – and more generally they formulate many congruent analyzes on the subject of memory.

The «acerrimus Malebrancius». Vico, the De antiquissima Italorum sapientia and Malebranche. The article analyzes the contribution of Malebranche’s thought to the formation of the Vichian metaphysics as it is expressed in the De antiquissima Italorum sapientia. In particular, the comparison with Malebranche’s philosophy allows Vico to define three fundamental issues: bringing back the Cartesian cogito to the simple function of consciousness; reaching a correct explanation of the concept of animi mens; determining the possibilities and the limits of our knowledge.

The Malebranchian Reception of Pascal’s Anthropology. The Question of the Transmission of Original Sin. The comparison between the theoretical positions of Pascal and Malebranche on the opportunity to shed light rationally on the ways of original sin proves to be highly instructive from three perspectives. On the one hand, it enlightens us on the strategy adopted in each of these apologetic projects towards the mobilization of physiological arguments with strong materialistic undertones. In return, it injects a little dynamism into their thwarted reception, especially at the time of the Enlightenment. Finally, this comparison establishes a subtle link between two authors who have been dealt with very sparsely by traditional commentaries, concerning their conception of the use of skepticism in epistemology. Thus, through the problem of the ways of sin transmission, this is not a rethinking of the relationships between reason and faith, but is, rather, a particular use of reason and of Descartes’ analyses.

Nicolas Malebranche in Ausonio Franchi’s "Letture per la storia della filosofia moderna" (1860). In 1926 the short monography about Malebranche by Ausonio Franchi (1821-1895) was published in Milan by the Athena Publishers, in the context of the promotion of philosophy beyond the Academies. The article presents the origins of Franchi’s work, his troubled intellectual biography, his peculiar methodology as a historian of philosophy, the main points of his critics of Malebranche’s metaphysics (which focuses on the relationship between theology and philosophy) and his evaluation of the specific contribution the French philosopher gave to the progress of human thought towards a more perfect rationality.

At the limits of the Christian Orthodoxy. The “Principle of Simplicity” and the Natural and Historical Order in Malebranche and Vico. The essay provides an analysis of aspects of the thought of Malebranche and Vico, attesting the presence therein of a crucial line of modern theological and philosophical speculation, sustained by a “principle of simplicity” that might be considered a fundamental feature for an interpretation of the “modern world”. The idea that a God of wisdom brings about His design of order through the “simple means” of secondary causes is preeminent in Malebranche’s meditation; but, thanks also to the influence of this philosopher, it also plays a decisive role in Vico’s elaboration of his original concept of providence. This problematic constellation allows us to make an in-depth analytical study of certain aspects of both authors, who are by no means free from the dangers of heterodoxy, and by so doing to participate in the current historiographical debate on categories such as “radical Enlightenment”, “Catholic Enlightenment”, etc.