Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

We will see this same idea played out when we consider value, meaning, purpose and ethics in future chapters. The deflationary theory of truth fits well with the idea of embodiment. Future chapters will explore the idea of things that we make abstract as opposed to things that we embody — and indeed, what embodiment might mean for different types of thing.

The interesting thing about aesthetics is that, for the most part, we don’t take it too seriously. We say such things as, ‘well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ — meaning that, generally speaking, we are fairly tolerant of another’s tastes and preferences. At the same time however, aesthetics matters a lot on a personal level, as discussed earlier in the chapter. It’s one of the strange paradoxes of human nature and it’s one worth keeping in mind as the discussion proceeds. I guess it is the burden of responsibility that makes it different for morality. Bad behaviour can obviously harm us or even kill us, so yes, on this reading, it matters more.

The beautiful gives us the sense that we are at home in the world. Remembering our Aristotelian soul, a key ingredient is our way of being in the world. If we find that way of being to be pleasant, then, arguably, this is beauty — we feel at home in the world — we feel connected to the cosmos, to nature and with our own bodies. Thus the word beauty leads us into a broad aesthetic that describes a right way of living — the ‘good life’.

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