Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

created by God that creates the illusion of causality between us and the universe. Whilst, for Descartes, the principle thing about reality is extension in space, Leibniz thought this implied that there could then be more than one substance (since extendible substances can be divided) hence the reason his ‘monadology’ has consciousness as the primary substance. The ‘projection’ of reality he envisaged is reminiscent of the way the perfect world of forms — from Plato — takes on an apparent reality in the ‘material’ world, as explored, in particular, by Plotinus.

To get a real handle on the meanings of form, substance, substrate and essence, we can start by asking, what is it that makes a thing into a ‘something’? A thing in general into some particular thing? All we can see of a thing is the qualities it displays to the world. Earlier we picked out the difference between primary and secondary qualities. Here we can note that even the primary qualities rely on someone being there to do some kind of measurement. We can simply say that all of the qualities need some kind of relationship. Either they must be compared to other objects in order to deduce their size and shape and how old they are. Or they need to be sensed by an observer who can experience colour, smell, taste and so on.

We can ask, what is the most basic of things? There are just a limited number of fundamental particles, for instance, so surely these are the most basic things we can properly call a ’thing’. What’s more, at least it is assumed, all fundamental particles of a particular kind are identical. For instance, all electrons are

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