 Ibn Rushd’s naturalistic conception of generation and corruption is of a piece with one of his most famous philosophical stances, his rejection of al-Ghazālī’s occasionalism. On this theological tradition, “when a man moves a stone by leaning against it and pushing it, he does not push it, but it is the Agent who creates the motion” (LongMeta XII.18.112 {1504}). Ibn Rushd heaps scorn on this view in the Incoherence, resting his case most fundamentally on the link between a thing’s causal role and its defining nature: “it is self-evident that things have essences and attributes that determine the special functions of each thing and through which the essences and names of things are differentiated. If a thing did not have its specific nature, it would not have a special name nor a definition, and all things would be one” (II.1 {520}). (For discussion of this argument see Kogan 1985 ch. 3.)