Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

back to Schopenhauer, and the universal Will being expressed through individuals. But, if anything, there is even more emphasis on the self here. At least with Schopenhauer a person might sometimes be unsuccessful in reflecting the universal Will — here we are defining it!

What about purpose? There is something of a bridge between meaning and purpose in that, when speaking about life ‘having no meaning’, people usually mean life having no consequence. And we might simply interpret this as saying people are concerned with having no purpose that will make a difference to the world (or to our family, or to other people in general). This concern need not be a bad thing. It might lead us to try to discern a worthwhile purpose for ourselves.

More generally though, we can see purpose as following the same pattern as the other topics discussed in this and the previous chapter. Purpose might be innate to the universe. It might be bestowed on the universe by a God or gods. We might choose to thwart purpose, in these terms, or even thwart our own purposes! And we might even stretch the understanding of purpose to say — as with one definition of meaning above — that universal purpose consists of the combined purposes of all the beings the universe contains.

Julian Baggani (What’s it all about?) contrasts, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ with, ‘How can or does life have meaning for me?’ It seems, from my own limited research, that people are okay with personal meaning. However, they are sceptical of this leading to any moral rules.

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