Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

Firstly, it’s a bit of a digression, but to see why agency might make a difference in the free will debate I’ll begin with a discussion on identity.

Identity, as some special kind of property, is sometimes dismissed altogether. The example often given is of a country. So, for instance, there is not a ‘thing’ called ‘France’ that somehow exists over and above the actual physical land of France. This example comes from Hume — a bad example, as the French probably think there is more to France than its physical geography!

Another famous example is the ship of Theseus — where parts of a ship are replaced one by one with identical parts. Eventually, every part is replaced. So, is it still the same ship? Hume probably would have to say no! But most folk, I suspect, would seem not to have too much of a problem with believing it’s the same ship — even although all its parts are replaced. This suggests that there is something more to what makes a particular ship than just its physical constituents — just as there is something more to France than its geography. The ship has some sense of essence.

If all the old pieces of the ship were taken away and re-assembled, such that we had an old version and a new version of the ship — there still seems to be no problem (although we might choose to differentiate the two — new ship and re-constituted ship). Each of the two ships would probably be regarded as having an identity of their own.

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