Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

put forward the argument that space only exists because of the relations between the things in it. But, as we saw in the last chapter, relation is concerned with the qualities that objects have when perceived. It could be that this is mere appearance — that there is a real substrate — and hence relation is just our perception and not a necessary truth.

‘Conventionalism’ is the idea that all things that are considered absolute necessities are in fact true by definition (and thus, something that is just an absolute possibility is not true by definition). Whether or not this adds anything to our discussions is a moot point — it’s still difficult to be certain whether a particular truth is natural or absolute.

The alternative to a logically necessary truth is just a brute fact! We have to assume their truth otherwise nothing else seems to make sense. Otherwise there may be a circularity or an infinite regress.

Finally, we have ‘absolute contingency’ — although it is a strange term to use. This simply means things that could not reasonably be considered to be true. Absolute contingencies are things which don’t happen in our world (or at least don’t appear to happen). There are some philosophers who believe what we’re describing as ‘absolute contingencies’ really do exist! Robert Nozick’s, Philosophical Explanations goes into ideas of every possibility being played out — that is, that all possible worlds are real worlds — what he described as the ‘principle of fecundity’, sometimes known as the ‘principle of plenitude’. But, more generally,

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