Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

an illusion because of the existence of a benevolent God who would not deliberately deceive his creation. But this argument relies on the existence of God for the existence of objective reality. Also the process of thinking does not necessarily prove the existence of mind. It could just as easily be said, ‘thought is going on’. (Another option is, ‘I feel, therefore I am.’ And a further one recognises the need for our continued identity and states, ‘I remember, therefore I am.’)

The ideas being discussed here are sometimes given the very general title of ‘foundationalism’ — thus, what is the foundation for our thoughts? Descartes’ ideas, which have been explored a little above, could be described as ‘rational foundationalism’, or just ‘rationalism’, that is, whatever is understood of the world is determined by thought. By contrast, the ideas of Immanuel Kant, which will be touched on in later chapters, could be described as ‘natural foundationalism’ — thus, derived ultimately from nature — and this term is often just described as ‘empiricism’ — hence the two types of truth-seeking that we encountered above. (‘Naturalism’ generally means that things just are as they are — there are no rules or laws that govern the way the universe operates. Naturalism — so far as the understanding of the world in general is conceived — might be taken to mean that objects should be taken just as they are given and it rejects the idea of any hidden aspects to nature. So not just no rules and no laws, but no ‘universals’ (of which more later). For naturalism there is no need to evoke any supernatural explanation for the universe — everything is completely knowable. Naturalism

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