Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

15. Quality

‘That which is without quality cannot be measured, the invisible cannot be examined, the incorporeal cannot be weighed, the limitless cannot be compared, the incomprehensible cannot admit of more or less.’

Gregory of Nyssa

The ‘Eleatic dictum’ (from Plato’s The Sophist) suggests that, for a thing to exist, it must have causal powers. This is not a thought that is heard much today — in fact, it would seem to go against the scientific view of matter, where matter is fairly inert and inactive unless it is acted upon. Therefore, the view currently held is almost the reverse of the Eleatic dictum — causation doesn’t really kick in until there is agency, and agency requires consciousness. Plato seemed to be telling us instead that ‘reasons’ and intentions exist right from the get-go. The universe is always up to something!

If the universe were to already contain ‘reasons’ — built in, as it were, to its very fabric — then we could describe it as ‘axiarchic’. Canadian philosopher John Leslie coined the term. It comes from the Greek, meaning something like, ‘value is primary’. For Plato, ‘the form of the Good’ is what bestows existence on things, thus

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