Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

truth more to our inner emotions and physical presence in the world. The danger in this is that we just accept whatever desires and compulsions we happen to have been born with or developed during our lives. Whilst this may be authentic, it may not be the best outcome!

Also, as I suggested earlier, truth is a map that tries to correspond with the real world. This notion seems especially problematic for embodiment. It’s possible that the only truth that really exists is what we embody.

Embodying beauty is the closest we get. Yes, surely — not just with our physical appearance but also voice, mannerisms, that way of being in the world that we equated with soul.

Embodying values, meaning and purpose? Up to a point, but does this not need some working out with our rational mind? Abstraction seems forced upon us, just because of the way the human mind works. This point was critical to our understanding of value earlier in the work.

Embodying our ethics? Unfortunately yes! But, as with some of what was said above, this is where we probably want to put in a bit of effort to be more socially acceptable!

If the Aristotelian view of the soul (that is — the workings of mind and body together with their context) were adopted, then ‘soul’ is just the actions of the embodied self. There is no need to reify everything into the One, universal spirit, world soul and all the rest. This is just to create more splits than are needed. It might work against interbeing rather than for it. As

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