Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

which case, the cut-off point of what is just a thing and what qualifies as a ‘something’ just seems arbitrary, or at least, based solely on how difficult it would be to replicate something in actuality, rather than just in theory.

But, wait up! Let’s go back to what was said about the qualities of an object. All qualities are relationships of some sort. And we can quickly conclude that every object must have a unique set of relationships. Every object is in fact a ‘something’ rather than a thing.

Physics certainly accepts the reality of everything being known only through relation. But physics — and science more generally — finds this situation intolerable. Scientists long for some ‘real’ thing that will ground reality and keep it from being merely about the qualities of the things we perceive. As observed above, they long for that ‘ultimate substrate’ — something that exists in its own right and can be shown to exist. It would not be just another step in an infinite regress of trying to discover what things are made of. It would be the ultimate ground, the primary stuff of the universe, the final destination, the ‘thing-in-itself’. In short, and perhaps surprisingly, what science seems to be looking for bears a striking resemblance to the ancient notion of essence.

Essence though is a concept equally as difficult as substrate. To approach it, we are best to examine a few of the other words that had specific meanings in ancient thought — often different meanings to the way we understand the terms today.

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