Conatus

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Conatus is a Latin word meaning the will to live and the tendency for living things to grow and to flourish. The word is best known for its association with the philosopher Spinoza. The ‘egocentric dilemma’ is the idea that we can only really be certain of our own thoughts. The external world and the minds of other people are unknown to us. There is always a need to bridge the gap between our thoughts and our experiences. Over the centuries, philosophers have considered various ways in which the gap can be closed. Lacking final answers from philosophy and science, there are two ways in which we bridge the gap – essence and narrative. These two approaches are the main topic of this book.

Tom Wallace

I have a blog site here: https://abtw777.blogspot.com/ On the blog site I post news of new work and where it can be found. My non-fiction writing is mainly on philosophy, politics and climate change. My earliest writing I published as a collection of philosophy essays under the title Conatus. Further philosophical ideas are explored in Twenty-One Levels of Self-Deception. Political thought first appears in Three Miles of Rice Pudding (which is part memoir) followed closely by the purely non-fiction work, Utopia Governance and the Commons. A Little Book on Climate Change completes the current non-fiction works. I have also produced a number of short stories and these appear either individually or as collections. Audio versions of some of the stories are provided via my Youtube channel. Readers can find my Amazon author’s page, with links to the books in Kindle and paperback, here (USA): https://www.amazon.com/stores/Tom-Wallace/author/B0828988X5?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true And here (UK): https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Wallace/e/B0828988X5?ref_=pe_1724030_132998060 Some books appear on the website Inkitt. My profile on the site can be found here: https://www.inkitt.com/abtw777 My short stories can be read on the website Booksie. Follow the link here: https://www.booksie.com/users/tom-wallace-202564 And also via my Storywrite profile here: https://storywrite.com/abtw777 Apart from writing, I draw and paint and do a little computer animation. I have a Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvjSfgSXBLTJQrBAETwaqzQ?view_as=subscriber I live in Scotland, UK, in a small town near to Edinburgh.