Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

the universe, at bottom, is about quality. Goodness itself requires the existence of things. This, on the face of it, seems rather an unusual belief, but I think it is a helpful place to start this section on value and this chapter on quality. We have to dig deep into where any rules or theories about ethics, morality and goodness spring from if we have any hope of progressing. And it’s important to realise that behind all claims to rightness and beauty lie values. The idea of axiology — an axiarchic universe — seems intuitively useful and very much in the spirit of the Aristotelian soul, described in the previous section.

Here, some thoughts from earlier in the book can be brought to mind. Remember Plato called our world the ‘Realm of Becoming’ and that Hegel thought that the synthesis of form and formlessness is becoming. Time itself is sometimes described as ‘pure becoming’ as it does not rely on anything else for its change. All other things are ‘becoming’ within time — they rely on time in order for change to occur. (This view of time might be contrasted with Henri Bergson’s notion of durée — where we might almost describe time as the changes made by agents in the world that allow for time’s progression.) Again, these thoughts suggest that the universe is never passive or inert.

It can be noted here, as considered in the previous chapter, that sensation takes in a little more than ‘observation’. It could be any one of our five senses, for instance, or it may include emotions and sentiments such as shame, generosity, and the appreciation of beauty.

174