Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

transposed to a different world! So there’s no easy way back to those earlier splits examined in previous chapters — splits that might be amenable to mending! Now there is a ‘constitution problem’ on a massive scale.

The meaning of transcendence is ambiguous, to say the least. Firstly, anything which is said to transcend is still by definition part of the universe, since the universe is all there is. If what is meant is simply another part of existence, outside our normal experience, this does not seem to present us with any problems. So, for instance, viewing things in infra-red could be described as transcendent in this sense, since it is outside our normal experience given by our senses. Secondly, it could also be said that a lot of our experiences — especially conscious, subjective experiences — are transcendent. They add up to more than what can be fully described in a purely objective physical level. Does it matter then, if they are ‘reduced’ (by science, or by some other means) to the level of just interactions within a purely material world? Or does it remain important to us that our thoughts and feelings are not thus reduced — that they remain somehow transcendent? Physicalism, and reductionism in general, seems determined to find material explanations.

Should we then follow the ways of the physicalist and renounce the search for anything other than basic objective reality? The existentialists spoke of ‘abandonment’ when speaking of the need to give up transcendence.

But I don’t think that the search should be given

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