Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

us to understand the world only through observation (empiricism) without at least some rationalism mixed in. And perhaps it would genuinely be impossible to have rationalism — just thinking — without some input from observation. However, the idea that all of our truth-seeking could or should be by way of empiricism does have some support by way of what’s called ‘externalism’. I use this term — and its opposite, ‘internalism’ — with some caution, but in metaphysics externalism seems to be suggesting that empiricism alone is enough to arrive at truth. (Externalism in terms of consciousness suggests that the brain does not function without some kind of interaction with the outside world. In ethics, internalism suggests that our decisions are enough to determine our action, or, for externalism, that we need some further motivation to make moral choices. It’s important to distinguish externalism from externality here. Externality is often a factor in discussions about free will. An externality is something that (perhaps) intervenes to prevent a person from acting freely.)

A few other overlaps can be mentioned. For instance, it could be said that science includes a certain amount of scepticism, since, in theory at least, nothing is believed without experiment — and then only accepted contingently. More controversially perhaps, I’d suggest that all forms of truth-seeking involve a certain amount of mysterianism. People cannot help but find patterns in things, even when there are literally none. I’m meaning mysterianism here in a very general way, and more will be explained in future chapters. But the point I’m making is

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