Leibniz against occasionalism and Newtonianism: the objection from perpetual miracles revisited

Leibniz famously charged occasionalism with entailing perpetual miracles (Objection from Perpetual Miracles = OPM). But he also extended this criticism to Newton’s theory of universal gravitation. Traditionally, scholars have interpreted this twofold application of OPM as stemming from different concerns in each case: while Leibniz’s anti-occasionalist OPM relies on the metaphysical idea that created substances must be endowed with intrinsic causal powers, his anti-Newtonian OPM is based on the claim that action at a distance through empty space is mechanically impossible. This paper proposes that the core of Leibniz’s anti-Newtonian OPM lies elsewhere. Particularly, it is argued that, for Leibniz, OPM undermines Newtonian gravitation for the very same reason that it undermines occasionalism: both stem from an inadequate conception of the laws of nature as mere regularities detached from the causal powers of the entities whose behaviour they seek to describe.