Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

to be true of human societies — where good and evil can certainly be spoken of. There is a huge amount of human evil, and even for those who have no belief in God this is a puzzle to be reckoned with. Does good ultimately triumph over evil? It seems innate to most of our nature’s to believe so. But this is perhaps just a quirk of our evolution and of society and culture. Ultimately there should be no expectation of an easy answer and there are no guarantees.

So three types of paradox seem to be with us unavoidably — the ultimate explanation of the universe, the amoral balance of co-operation and competition in nature and the moral balance of good and evil in humanity. But human nature and human culture are not fixed. Things have been different with us in the past — things are different in some human cultures today. A single human life may be insignificant in the great scheme of things, but nonetheless it can be a meaningful life. We can face the inevitability of our mortality with equanimity. We can live with grace and dignity. We can die with the knowledge of a life lived well. We can be at peace with ourselves and with others. We can find home in the connections with body, nature and cosmos. All of this, I’d suggest, is within our grasp and is worthwhile. All of this must be done through narrative. We’ve seen in this work that even our most cherished viewpoint of our own consciousness is a contested space! There might be no ‘true self’ — no authenticity. So this, if you like, is a fourth paradox — we think we see the world as it really is, but actually we only live in stories.

Time then for a final review of the journey of

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