Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

of a substance that is real? This was the basis of George Berkeley’s argument for idealism that was mentioned earlier. For idealism there is nothing other than the qualities that we experience as observers — in other words — there is no substance.

The second of our truth options above — the view that reality is just an illusion — has several problems. Chief among these is that reality has a way of impinging itself upon us, and does not respond to our wishes. If there is no objective reality then where do all these illusions spring from? If reality is just being imagined then why can't it be changed in dramatic ways, just by force of will?

A similar problem is the existence of other people who seem to be having the same or similar illusions to ourselves. They too must be figments of imagination, but how is it that people so different from ourselves can be conceived? This seems to stretch the mind (the only existing mind, if we take idealism seriously) just too much!

A partial solution to this is to accept that other minds exist as well as our own. They are also having an illusion of reality. They can communicate with our mind (via our illusory voices) and hence the problem of very different people and people beyond our control and understanding is solved. The further problem however arises of how the same illusion that makes communication possible is shared. One solution to this is to say that God arranges things so that the illusions of all individual minds correlate exactly. Again this presents

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