Cartesian and Malebranchian Meditations Raffaele Carbone Abstract: In his Christian and Metaphysical Meditations (1683) Malebranche develops a reflection in which the self discovers in its interiority that the interlocutor able to answer some of its questions is the divine Word. Through references to the Holy Scriptures and to Augustine, Malebranche constructs a meditative itinerary that differs from the one proposed by Descartes, as it moves from the lumière naturelle in the Cartesian sense to the lumière of the Word. In the light of these historical-theoretical data, we propose a reconstruction of the role played by interiority and meditation in certain texts by Malebranche, highlighting the moments in which he appropriated the Cartesian heritage and those in which he distanced himself from Descartes’ philosophical paradigm. Keywords: nicolas Malebranche, René Descartes, meditation, Holy Scriptures, Augustine. 1. Introduction e Christian and Metaphysical Meditations were first published in 1683, printed in Holland but under the cover of a fictitious publisher in Cologne, Balthasar d’Egmond & Company. is first edition bears the title Méditations chrétiennes and—like the third edition of the Christian Conversations (1685)— the statement “by the author of e Search aſter Truth [par l’auteur de la Recher- che de la vérité ]” (Malebranche 1683, front-page). is statement is replaced by the name of Malebranche, Priest of the Oratory, from the 1699 edition onwards. is same edition, “revised, corrected and augmented,” is given the definitive title Méditations chrétiennes et métaphysiques (Malebranche 1699, front-page). It comprises two volumes: the first includes Meditations I to XVI; the second in- cludes Meditations XVII to XX and the A Treatise of the Love of God followed by the ree Leers to Father Lamy. e last edition of this work to appear during Malebranche’s lifetime was published in Lyon, by Léonard Plaignard, in 1707 (Malebranche 1707). is is the edition that the Oratorian recommends in the “Avertissement” of e Search aſter Truth, edition of 1712 (Malebranche 1962: OC 1, 28–9; Malebranche 1997, xlvi). Father André provides us with some interesting information on the circum- stances of the composition of the Christian Meditations. As the Christian Con- versations had aroused the interest of several enlightened minds, Malebranche decided to set out “the same truths […] in the form of Meditations, to make them Raffaele Carbone, University of Naples Federico II, Italy, raffaele.carbone@unina.it, 0000-0003-4974-2315 Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list) FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Raffaele Carbone, Cartesian and Malebranchian Meditations, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979- 12-215-0169-8.08, in Andrea Strazzoni, Marco Sgarbi (edited by), Reading Descartes. Consciousness, Body, and Reasoning, pp. 129-153, 2023, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0169- 8, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0169-8