Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

Preface

Conatus is a Latin word meaning the will to live and the tendency for living things to grow and to flourish. Most readers are probably more familiar now with the word ‘entelechy’, which, like conatus, suggests a vital force with the potential for growth. The title has a particular resonance to the way the themes of the book are developed.

The ‘egocentric predicament’ is the idea that, as people we can at most only be certain of our own thoughts. The external world and the minds of other people are unknown to us. So there is always a need to bridge the gap between our thoughts and our experiences of the world outside our heads. Over the centuries, philosophers have considered various ways in which the gap can be closed. Lacking any final answers from philosophy and science, we need to somehow close this gap ourselves, so that we can get on with the business of living. The book suggests some ways this might be achieved.

In the original version of the book, I presented a series of essays, which I’d gathered up from several decades of writing, and set those down in more or less their original form. To these I added comments — expanding the contents of each essay with some additional information.

In this revised edition, I have streamlined the writing somewhat and also added some further thoughts to the topics explored.

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