Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

the best of terms here. So, with formlessness and form there is Spirit. With matter and energy there is the world soul and with body and mind there is the individual soul.

The most basic question then is surely — how does formlessness produce form and/or how does the One produce the Many? Obviously ‘the Many’ has in fact been produced, either by the One or by some other means, or perhaps there has just always been a Many. It takes at least two distinct ‘things’ (Qualities? Substances? Thoughts?) for there to be difference in the universe — and there has to be difference before there can be observation. And, to continue the argument, there has to be at least observation (sensation) before there can be agency, consciousness and life. This much seems to follow, with or without supernatural explanations. But in dealing with the potential oneness of the universe then it leads us into problems.

The perfection of the One, it seems, must be broken in order to make the Many. For instance, formlessness (the One) for Plotinus, remains formless because it cannot take on the limitation of form. So Plotinus’ concern is that there seems no good reason for the One to become the Many — or to put it in more familiar terms — no good reason for God to have made the world. Therefore, we might conjecture, there could never be a perfect world. The paradox and contingency of our world is the most basic puzzle that the universe presents to us. We could ask of this paradox, is it the difference caused by the Many that is the reason that the perfection of the One leads to a nature

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