Conatus
Encyclopedia
Conatus is a term used in early philosophies of psychology
and metaphysics
to refer to an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself. This "thing" may be mind
, matter
or a combination of both. Over the millennia, many different definitions and treatments have been formulated by philosophers. Seventeenth-century philosophers René Descartes
, Baruch Spinoza
, and Gottfried Leibniz
, and their Empiricist
contemporary Thomas Hobbes
made important contributions. The conatus may refer to the instinctive "will to live" of living organisms or to various metaphysical theories of motion
and inertia
. Often the concept is associated with God
's will in a pantheist view of Nature
. The concept may be broken up into separate definitions for the mind and body and split when discussing centrifugal force
and inertia.
The history of the term conatus is that of a series of subtle tweaks in meaning and clarifications of scope developed over the course of two and a half millennia. Successive philosophers to adopt the term put their own personal twist on the concept, each developing the term differently such that it now has no concrete and universally accepted definition. The earliest authors to discuss conatus wrote primarily in Latin, basing their usage on ancient Greek
concepts. These thinkers therefore used "conatus" not only as a technical term but as a common word and in a general sense. In archaic texts, the more technical usage is difficult to discern from the more common one, and they are also hard to differentiate in translation. In English translations, the term is italicized when used in the technical sense or translated and followed by conatus in brackets. Today, conatus is rarely used in the technical sense, since modern physics uses concepts such as inertia
and conservation of momentum that have superseded it. It has, however, been a notable influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer
, Friedrich Nietzsche
, and Louis Dumont
.
The Latin cōnātus comes from the verb cōnor, which is usually translated into English as, "to endeavor"; but the concept of the conatus was first developed by the Stoics
(333–264 BCE) and Peripatetics (c. 335 BCE) before the Common Era
. These groups used the word (hormê, translated in Latin by impetus
) to describe the movement of the soul towards an object, and from which a physical act results. Classical thinkers, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) and Diogenes Laertius
(c. 235 BCE), expanded this principle to include an aversion to destruction, but continued to limit its application to the motivations of non-human animals. Diogenes Laertius, for example, specifically denied the application of the term to plants. Before the Renaissance
, Thomas Aquinas
(c. 1225–1274 CE), Duns Scotus
(c. 1266–1308 CE) and Dante Alighieri
(1265–1321 CE) expressed similar sentiments using the Latin words vult, velle or appetit as synonyms of conatus; indeed, all four terms may be used to translate the original Greek . Later, Telesius and Campanella
extended the ancient Greek notions and applied them to all objects, animate and inanimate.
First Aristotle
, then Cicero and Laertius each alluded to a connection between the conatus and other emotions. In their view, the former induces the latter. They maintained that humans do not wish to do something because they think it "good", but rather they think it "good" because they want to do it. In other words, the cause of human desire is the natural inclination of a body to augment itself in accordance with the principles of the conatus.
(1265–1321) both related the concept directly to that which Augustine
(354–430 CE) saw to be the "natural movements upward and downward or with their being balanced in an intermediate position" described in his De Civitate Dei, (c. 520 CE). They called this force that causes objects to rise or fall, "amor naturalis", or "natural love".
In the 6th century, John Philoponus
(c. 490–c. 570 CE) criticized Aristotle's view of motion, noting the inconsistency between Aristotle's discussion of projectiles, where the medium of aether
keeps projectiles going, and his discussion of the void, where there is no such medium and hence a body's motion should be impossible. Philoponus proposed that motion was not maintained by the action of some surrounding medium but by some property, or conatus implanted in the object when it was set in motion. This was not the modern concept of inertia, for there was still the need for an inherent power to keep a body in motion. This view was strongly opposed by Averroës
and many scholastic
philosophers who supported Aristotle. The Aristotelian view was also challenged in the Islamic world. For example, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) seems to have supported Philoponus' views, while he developed a concept similar to inertia
. The concept of inertia was developed more clearly in the work of his contemporary Avicenna
, who conceived a permanent force whose effect is dissipated only as a result of external agents such as air resistance, making him "the first to conceive such a permanent type of impressed virtue for non-natural motion." Avicenna's concept of mayl is almost the opposite of the Aristotelian conception of violent motion and is reminiscent of Newton's first law of motion. Avicenna also developed an idea similar to momentum
, when he attempted to provide a quantitive relation between the weight
and velocity
of a moving body.
Jean Buridan
(1300–1358) also rejected the notion that this motion-generating property, which he named impetus, dissipated spontaneously. Buridan's position was that a moving object would be arrested by the resistance of the air and the weight of the body which would oppose its impetus. He also maintained that impetus increased with speed; thus, his initial idea of impetus was similar in many ways to the modern concept of momentum
. Despite the obvious similarities to more modern ideas of inertia, Buridan saw his theory as only a modification to Aristotle's basic philosophy, maintaining many other peripatetic views, including the belief that there was still a fundamental difference between an object in motion and an object at rest. Buridan also maintained that impetus could be not only linear, but also circular in nature, causing objects such as celestial bodies to move in a circle.
In the first half of the seventeenth century, René Descartes (1596–1650) began to develop a more modern, materialistic
concept of the conatus, describing it as "an active power or tendency of bodies to move, expressing the power of God". Whereas the ancients used the term in a strictly anthropomorphic
sense similar to voluntary "endeavoring" or "struggling" to achieve certain ends, and medieval Scholastic
philosophers developed a notion of conatus as a mysterious intrinsic property of things, Descartes uses the term in a somewhat more mechanistic
sense. More specifically, for Descartes, in contrast to Buridan, movement and stasis are two states of the same thing, not different things. Although there is much ambiguity in Descartes' notion of conatus, one can see here the beginnings of a move away from the attribution of desires and intentions to nature and its workings toward a more scientific and modern view.
Descartes rejects the teleological
, or purposive, view of the material world that was dominant in the West from the time of Aristotle. The mind is not viewed by Descartes as part of the material world, and hence is not subject to the strictly mechanical laws of nature. Motion and rest, on the other hand, are properties of the interactions of matter according to eternally fixed mechanical laws. God only sets the whole thing in motion at the start, and later does not interfere except to maintain the dynamical regularities of the mechanical behavior of bodies. Hence there is no real teleology in the movements of bodies since the whole thing reduces to the law-governed collisions and their constant reconfigurations. The conatus is just the tendency of bodies to move when they collide with each other. God may set this activity in motion, but thereafter no new motion or rest can be created or destroyed.
Descartes specifies two varieties of the conatus: conatus a centro and conatus recedendi. Conatus a centro, or "tendency towards the center", is used by Descartes as a theory of gravity; conatus recendendi, or "tendency away from the center", represents the centrifugal force
s. These tendencies are not to be thought of in terms of animate dispositions and intentions, nor as inherent properties or "forces" of things, but rather as a unifying, external characteristic of the physical universe itself which God has bestowed.
Descartes, in developing his First Law of Nature, also invokes the idea of a conatus se movendi, or "conatus of self-preservation". This law is a generalization of the principle of inertia
, which was developed and experimentally demonstrated earlier by Galileo. The principle was formalized by Isaac Newton
and made into the first of his three Laws of Motion
fifty years after the death of Descartes. Descartes' version states: "Each thing, insofar as in it lies, always perseveres in the same state, and when once moved, always continues to move."
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Furthermore, Hobbes describes emotion
as the beginning of motion and the will
as the sum of all emotions. This "will" forms the conatus of a body and its physical manifestation is the perceived "will to survive". In order that living beings may thrive, Hobbes says, "they seek peace and fight anything that threatens this peace". Hobbes also equates this conatus with "imagination", and states that a change in the conatus, or will, is the result of "deliberation".
As in his psychological theory, Hobbes's physical conatus is an infinitesimal unit of motion. It is the beginning of motion: an inclination in a specified direction. The concept of impetus, as used by Hobbes, is defined in terms of this physical conatus. It is "a measure of the conatus exercised by a moving body over the course of time". Resistance
is caused by a contrary conatus; force
is this motion plus “the magnitude of the body”. Hobbes also uses the word conatus to refer to the "restorative forces" which may cause springs
, for example, to contract or expand. Hobbes claims there is some force inherent in these objects that inclines them to return to their previous state. Today, science attributes this phenomenon to material elasticity
.
Spinoza asserts the existence of this general principle of a conatus in attempting to explain the "self-evident" truth that "nothing can be destroyed except by an external cause". To him, it is self-evident that "the definition of anything affirms, and does not negate, the thing's essence". This resistance to self-destruction is formulated by Spinoza in terms of a human striving to continue to exist; and conatus is the word he most often uses to describe this force.
In Spinoza's world-view, this principle is applicable to all things, and furthermore constitutes the very essence of objects, including the human mind and morals, for these are but finite modes of God. As he states in the Ethics (1677), the conatus is of "indefinite time"; it lasts as long as the object does. Spinoza uses conatus to describe an inclination of things to increase in power; rather than just continuing to exist statically, all beings must strive towards perfection. Further, all existing things act if and only if
such action maintains or augments their existence. Spinoza also uses the term conatus to refer to rudimentary concepts of inertia
, as Descartes had earlier. Since a thing cannot be destroyed without the action of external forces, motion and rest, too, exist indefinitely until disturbed.
's philosophy
of psychology
, is derived from sources both ancient and medieval. Spinoza reformulates principles that the Stoics, Cicero
, Laertius, and especially Hobbes and Descartes developed. One significant change he makes to Hobbes' theory is his belief that the conatus ad motum, (conatus to motion), is not mental, but material.
Spinoza, with his determinism
, believes that man and nature must be unified under a consistent set of laws; God
and nature
are one, and there is no free will
. Contrary to most philosophers of his time and in accordance with most of those of the present, Spinoza rejects the dualistic assumption that mind, intentionality
, ethics, and freedom are to be treated as things separate from the natural world of physical objects and events. His goal is to provide a unified explanation of all these things within a naturalistic
framework, and his notion of conatus is central to this project. For example, an action is "free", for Spinoza, only if it arises from the essence and conatus of an entity. There can be no absolute, unconditioned freedom of the will, since all events in the natural world, including human actions and choices, are determined
in accord with the natural laws of the universe, which are inescapable. However, an action can still be free in the sense that it is not constrained or otherwise subject to external forces.
Human beings are thus an integral part of nature. Spinoza explains seemingly irregular human behaviour as really "natural" and rational and motivated by this principle of the conatus. In the process, he replaces the notion of free will with the conatus, a principle that can be applied to all of nature and not just man.
is not clear. Firmin DeBrabander, assistant professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art
, and Antonio Damasio
, professor of neuroscience
at the University of Southern California
, both argue that the human affects arise from the conatus and the perpetual drive toward perfection. Indeed, Spinoza states in his Ethics that happiness, specifically, "consists in the human capacity to preserve itself". This "endeavor" is also characterized by Spinoza as the "foundation of virtue
". Conversely, a person is saddened by anything that opposes his conatus.
David Bidney (1908–1987), professor at Yale University
, disagrees. Bidney closely associates "desire", a primary affect, with the conatus principle of Spinoza. This view is backed by the Scholium of IIIP9 of the Ethics which states, "Between appetite and desire there is no difference, except that desire is generally related to men insofar as they are conscious of the appetite. So desire can be defined as appetite together with consciousness of the appetite." According to Bidney, this desire is controlled by the other affects, pleasure and pain, and thus the conatus strives towards that which causes joy and avoids that which produces pain. Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788–1860) agrees with Bidney in interpretation, but states in The World as Will and Representation
(1819) that he disagrees with Spinoza because "according to the whole of my fundamental view, all this is a reversal of the true relation. The will is first and original; knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging to the phenomenon of the will."
Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) was a student of Erhard Weigel
(1625–1699) and learned of the conatus principle from him and from Hobbes, though Weigel used the word tendentia (Latin: tendency). Specifically, Leibniz uses the word conatus in his Exposition and Defence of the New System (1695) to describe a notion similar that of Hobbes, but he differentiates between the conatus of the body and soul, the first of which may only travel in a straight line by its own power, and the latter of which may "remember" more complicated motions.
For Leibniz, the problem of motion comes to a resolution of the paradox of Zeno.
Since motion is continuous, space must be infinitely divisible. In order for anything to begin moving at all, there must be some mind-like, voluntaristic property or force inherent in the basic constituents of the universe that propels them. This conatus is a sort of instantaneous or "virtual" motion that all things possess, even when they are static. Motion, meanwhile, is just the summation of all the conatuses that a thing has, along with the interactions of things. The conatus is to motion as a point is to space. The problem with this view is that an object that collides with another would not be able to bounce back, if the only force in play were the conatus. Hence, Leibniz was forced to postulate the existence of an aether
that kept objects moving and allowed for elastic collisions. Leibniz' concept of a mind-like memory-less property of conatus, coupled with his rejection of atom
s, eventually led to his theory of monads.
Leibniz also uses his concept of a conatus in developing the principles of the integral calculus, adapting the meaning of the term, in this case, to signify a mathematical analog of Newton's accelerative "force
". By summing an infinity of such conatuses (i.e., what is now called integration
), Leibniz could measure the effect of a continuous force. He defines impetus
as the result of a continuous summation of the conatus of a body, just as the vis viva
(or "living force") is the sum of the inactive vis mortua.
Based on the work of Kepler and probably Descartes, Leibniz develops a model of planetary motion based on the conatus principle, the idea of aether and a fluid vortex
. This theory is expounded in the work Tentamen de motuum coelestium causis (1689). According to Leibniz, Kepler's analysis of elliptical orbits into a circular and a radial component can be explained by a "harmonic vortex" for the circular motion combined with a centrifugal force and gravity, both of which are examples of conatus, to account for the radial motion. Leibniz later defines the term monadic conatus, as the "state of change" through which his monads perpetually advance.
Several other uses of the term conatus, apart from the primary ones mentioned above, have been formulated by various philosophers over the centuries. There are also some important related terms and concepts which have, more or less, similar meanings and usages. Giambattista Vico
(1668–1744) defined conatus as the essence of human society
, and also, in a more traditional, hylozoistic
sense, as the generating power of movement which pervades all of nature. Nearly a century after the beginnings of modern science, Vico, inspired by Neoplatonism
, explicitly rejected the principle of inertia and the laws of motion of the new physics. For him, nature was composed neither of atoms, as in the dominant view, nor of extension, as in Descartes, but of metaphysical points animated by a conatus principle provoked by God.
Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788–1860) developed a philosophy that contains a principle notably similar to that of Hobbes's conatus. This principle, Wille zum Leben, or "Will to Live", described the specific phenomenon of an organism's self-preservation instinct. Schopenhauer qualified this, however, by suggesting that the Will to Live is not limited in duration. Rather, "the will wills absolutely and for all time", across generations. Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844–1900), an early disciple of Schopenhauer, developed a separate principle which comes out of a rejection of the primacy of Schopenhauer's Will to Live and other notions of self-preservation. He called his version the Will to Power, or Wille zur Macht.
Sigmund Freud
(1856–1939), greatly depended on Spinoza's formulation of the conatus principle as a system of self preservation, though he never cited him directly in any of his published works. Around the same time, Henri Bergson
(1859–1941), developed the principle of the élan vital
, or "vital impulse", which was thought to aid in the evolution
of organism
s. This concept, which implies a fundamental driving force behind all life, is reminiscent of the conatus principle of Spinoza and others.
For Max Scheler
, the concept of Drang is the centerpiece of philosophical anthropology
and metaphysics
. Though his concept has been important throughout his entire philosophical career, it was only developed later in his life when his focus shifted from phenomenology to metaphysics. Like Bergson's élan vital, Drang (drive or impulsion) is the impetus of all life; however, unlike in Bergson's vitalistic metaphysics, the significance of Drang is that it provides the motivation and driving force even of Spirit (Geist). Spirit, which includes all theoretical intentionality, is powerless without the movement of Drang, the material principle, as well as Eros, the psychological principle.
The cultural anthropologist
Louis Dumont
(1911–1988), described a cultural conatus built directly upon Spinoza's seminal definition in IIIP3 of his Ethics. The principle behind this derivative concept states that any given culture, "tends to persevere in its being, whether by dominating other cultures or by struggling against their domination".
and conservation of momentum. As Bidney states, "It is true that logically desire or the conatus is merely a principle of inertia ... the fact remains, however, that this is not Spinoza's usage." Likewise, conatus was used by many philosophers to describe other concepts which have slowly been made obsolete. Conatus recendendi, for instance, became the centrifugal force, and gravity is used where conatus a centro had been previously. Today, the topics with which conatus dealt are matters of science
and are thus subject to inquiry by the scientific method
.
. The conatus of today, however, is explained in terms of chemistry and neurology where, before, it was a matter of metaphysics and theurgy
. This concept may be "constructed so as to maintain the coherence of a living organism
's structures and functions against numerous life-threatening odds".
and the sciences in general, the concept of a conatus may be related to the phenomenon of emergence
, whereby complex systems
may spontaneously form from multiple simpler structures. The self-regulating and self-maintaining properties of biological and even social systems may thus be considered modern versions of Spinoza's conatus principle; however, the scope of the idea is definitely narrower today without the religious implications of the earlier variety.
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
to refer to an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself. This "thing" may be mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
, matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
or a combination of both. Over the millennia, many different definitions and treatments have been formulated by philosophers. Seventeenth-century philosophers René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
, Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
, and Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
, and their Empiricist
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
contemporary Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
made important contributions. The conatus may refer to the instinctive "will to live" of living organisms or to various metaphysical theories of motion
Motion (physics)
In physics, motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time. Change in action is the result of an unbalanced force. Motion is typically described in terms of velocity, acceleration, displacement and time . An object's velocity cannot change unless it is acted upon by a force, as...
and inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
. Often the concept is associated with God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
's will in a pantheist view of Nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
. The concept may be broken up into separate definitions for the mind and body and split when discussing centrifugal force
Centrifugal force
Centrifugal force can generally be any force directed outward relative to some origin. More particularly, in classical mechanics, the centrifugal force is an outward force which arises when describing the motion of objects in a rotating reference frame...
and inertia.
The history of the term conatus is that of a series of subtle tweaks in meaning and clarifications of scope developed over the course of two and a half millennia. Successive philosophers to adopt the term put their own personal twist on the concept, each developing the term differently such that it now has no concrete and universally accepted definition. The earliest authors to discuss conatus wrote primarily in Latin, basing their usage on ancient Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
concepts. These thinkers therefore used "conatus" not only as a technical term but as a common word and in a general sense. In archaic texts, the more technical usage is difficult to discern from the more common one, and they are also hard to differentiate in translation. In English translations, the term is italicized when used in the technical sense or translated and followed by conatus in brackets. Today, conatus is rarely used in the technical sense, since modern physics uses concepts such as inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
and conservation of momentum that have superseded it. It has, however, been a notable influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
, Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, and Louis Dumont
Louis Dumont (anthropologist)
Louis Dumont was a French anthropologist. He was an associate professor at Oxford University during the 1950s, and director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris...
.
Classical origins
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
(333–264 BCE) and Peripatetics (c. 335 BCE) before the Common Era
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
. These groups used the word (hormê, translated in Latin by impetus
Impetus
Impetus may refer to:* Impetus , a re-release of the EP Passive Restraints* Impetus , a concept very similar to momentum* Jean Buridan#Impetus Theory, middle-ages treatment on impetus and its originator Jean Buridan...
) to describe the movement of the soul towards an object, and from which a physical act results. Classical thinkers, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) and Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...
(c. 235 BCE), expanded this principle to include an aversion to destruction, but continued to limit its application to the motivations of non-human animals. Diogenes Laertius, for example, specifically denied the application of the term to plants. Before the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
(c. 1225–1274 CE), Duns Scotus
Duns Scotus
Blessed John Duns Scotus, O.F.M. was one of the more important theologians and philosophers of the High Middle Ages. He was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought....
(c. 1266–1308 CE) and Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
(1265–1321 CE) expressed similar sentiments using the Latin words vult, velle or appetit as synonyms of conatus; indeed, all four terms may be used to translate the original Greek . Later, Telesius and Campanella
Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella OP , baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.-Biography:...
extended the ancient Greek notions and applied them to all objects, animate and inanimate.
First Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, then Cicero and Laertius each alluded to a connection between the conatus and other emotions. In their view, the former induces the latter. They maintained that humans do not wish to do something because they think it "good", but rather they think it "good" because they want to do it. In other words, the cause of human desire is the natural inclination of a body to augment itself in accordance with the principles of the conatus.
Medieval views
There is a traditional connection between conatus and motion itself. Aquinas and AbravanelJudah Leon Abravanel
Judah Leon Abravanel was a Jewish Portuguese physician, poet and philosopher...
(1265–1321) both related the concept directly to that which Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
(354–430 CE) saw to be the "natural movements upward and downward or with their being balanced in an intermediate position" described in his De Civitate Dei, (c. 520 CE). They called this force that causes objects to rise or fall, "amor naturalis", or "natural love".
In the 6th century, John Philoponus
John Philoponus
John Philoponus , also known as John the Grammarian or John of Alexandria, was a Christian and Aristotelian commentator and the author of a considerable number of philosophical treatises and theological works...
(c. 490–c. 570 CE) criticized Aristotle's view of motion, noting the inconsistency between Aristotle's discussion of projectiles, where the medium of aether
Aether (classical element)
According to ancient and medieval science aether , also spelled æther or ether, is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere.-Mythological origins:...
keeps projectiles going, and his discussion of the void, where there is no such medium and hence a body's motion should be impossible. Philoponus proposed that motion was not maintained by the action of some surrounding medium but by some property, or conatus implanted in the object when it was set in motion. This was not the modern concept of inertia, for there was still the need for an inherent power to keep a body in motion. This view was strongly opposed by Averroës
Averroes
' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...
and many scholastic
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
philosophers who supported Aristotle. The Aristotelian view was also challenged in the Islamic world. For example, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) seems to have supported Philoponus' views, while he developed a concept similar to inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
. The concept of inertia was developed more clearly in the work of his contemporary Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
, who conceived a permanent force whose effect is dissipated only as a result of external agents such as air resistance, making him "the first to conceive such a permanent type of impressed virtue for non-natural motion." Avicenna's concept of mayl is almost the opposite of the Aristotelian conception of violent motion and is reminiscent of Newton's first law of motion. Avicenna also developed an idea similar to momentum
Momentum
In classical mechanics, linear momentum or translational momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object...
, when he attempted to provide a quantitive relation between the weight
Weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. Its magnitude , often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g; thus:...
and velocity
Velocity
In physics, velocity is speed in a given direction. Speed describes only how fast an object is moving, whereas velocity gives both the speed and direction of the object's motion. To have a constant velocity, an object must have a constant speed and motion in a constant direction. Constant ...
of a moving body.
Jean Buridan
Jean Buridan
Jean Buridan was a French priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe. Although he was one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the late Middle Ages, he is today among the least well known...
(1300–1358) also rejected the notion that this motion-generating property, which he named impetus, dissipated spontaneously. Buridan's position was that a moving object would be arrested by the resistance of the air and the weight of the body which would oppose its impetus. He also maintained that impetus increased with speed; thus, his initial idea of impetus was similar in many ways to the modern concept of momentum
Momentum
In classical mechanics, linear momentum or translational momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object...
. Despite the obvious similarities to more modern ideas of inertia, Buridan saw his theory as only a modification to Aristotle's basic philosophy, maintaining many other peripatetic views, including the belief that there was still a fundamental difference between an object in motion and an object at rest. Buridan also maintained that impetus could be not only linear, but also circular in nature, causing objects such as celestial bodies to move in a circle.
In Descartes
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
concept of the conatus, describing it as "an active power or tendency of bodies to move, expressing the power of God". Whereas the ancients used the term in a strictly anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
sense similar to voluntary "endeavoring" or "struggling" to achieve certain ends, and medieval Scholastic
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
philosophers developed a notion of conatus as a mysterious intrinsic property of things, Descartes uses the term in a somewhat more mechanistic
Mechanism (philosophy)
Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes are like machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other, and with their order imposed from without. Thus, the source of an apparent thing's activities is not the whole itself, but its parts or an external...
sense. More specifically, for Descartes, in contrast to Buridan, movement and stasis are two states of the same thing, not different things. Although there is much ambiguity in Descartes' notion of conatus, one can see here the beginnings of a move away from the attribution of desires and intentions to nature and its workings toward a more scientific and modern view.
Descartes rejects the teleological
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
, or purposive, view of the material world that was dominant in the West from the time of Aristotle. The mind is not viewed by Descartes as part of the material world, and hence is not subject to the strictly mechanical laws of nature. Motion and rest, on the other hand, are properties of the interactions of matter according to eternally fixed mechanical laws. God only sets the whole thing in motion at the start, and later does not interfere except to maintain the dynamical regularities of the mechanical behavior of bodies. Hence there is no real teleology in the movements of bodies since the whole thing reduces to the law-governed collisions and their constant reconfigurations. The conatus is just the tendency of bodies to move when they collide with each other. God may set this activity in motion, but thereafter no new motion or rest can be created or destroyed.
Descartes specifies two varieties of the conatus: conatus a centro and conatus recedendi. Conatus a centro, or "tendency towards the center", is used by Descartes as a theory of gravity; conatus recendendi, or "tendency away from the center", represents the centrifugal force
Centrifugal force
Centrifugal force can generally be any force directed outward relative to some origin. More particularly, in classical mechanics, the centrifugal force is an outward force which arises when describing the motion of objects in a rotating reference frame...
s. These tendencies are not to be thought of in terms of animate dispositions and intentions, nor as inherent properties or "forces" of things, but rather as a unifying, external characteristic of the physical universe itself which God has bestowed.
Descartes, in developing his First Law of Nature, also invokes the idea of a conatus se movendi, or "conatus of self-preservation". This law is a generalization of the principle of inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
, which was developed and experimentally demonstrated earlier by Galileo. The principle was formalized by Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
and made into the first of his three Laws of Motion
Laws of motion
In physics, a number of noted theories of the motion of objects have developed. Among the best-known are:* Classical mechanics** Newton's laws of motion**Euler's laws**Cauchy's equations of motion** Kepler's laws of planetary motion ** General relativity...
fifty years after the death of Descartes. Descartes' version states: "Each thing, insofar as in it lies, always perseveres in the same state, and when once moved, always continues to move."
In Hobbes
Conatus and the psyche
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), too, worked off of the previous notions of the conatus principle. However, he criticized the previous definitions for failing to explain the origin of motion. Working toward this end became the primary focus of Hobbes' work in this area. Indeed, Hobbes "reduces all the cognitive functions of the mind to variations of its conative functions".Furthermore, Hobbes describes emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
as the beginning of motion and the will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
as the sum of all emotions. This "will" forms the conatus of a body and its physical manifestation is the perceived "will to survive". In order that living beings may thrive, Hobbes says, "they seek peace and fight anything that threatens this peace". Hobbes also equates this conatus with "imagination", and states that a change in the conatus, or will, is the result of "deliberation".
Conatus and physics
I define [conatus] to be motion made in less space and time than can be given; that is, less than can be determined or assigned by exposition or number; that is, motion made through the length of a point, and in an instant or point of time.
As in his psychological theory, Hobbes's physical conatus is an infinitesimal unit of motion. It is the beginning of motion: an inclination in a specified direction. The concept of impetus, as used by Hobbes, is defined in terms of this physical conatus. It is "a measure of the conatus exercised by a moving body over the course of time". Resistance
Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:...
is caused by a contrary conatus; force
Force
In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...
is this motion plus “the magnitude of the body”. Hobbes also uses the word conatus to refer to the "restorative forces" which may cause springs
Spring (device)
A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually made out of spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after fabrication...
, for example, to contract or expand. Hobbes claims there is some force inherent in these objects that inclines them to return to their previous state. Today, science attributes this phenomenon to material elasticity
Elasticity (physics)
In physics, elasticity is the physical property of a material that returns to its original shape after the stress that made it deform or distort is removed. The relative amount of deformation is called the strain....
.
In Spinoza
Spinoza (1632–1677) applies the idea of a conatus to the human body, psyche and both simultaneously, using a different term for each. When referring to psychological manifestations of the concept, he uses the term voluntas (will). When referring to the overarching concept, he uses the word appetitus (appetite). When referring to the bodily impulse, he uses the plain term conatus. Sometimes he expands the term and uses the whole phrase, conatus sese conservandi (the striving for self-preservation).In Spinoza's world-view, this principle is applicable to all things, and furthermore constitutes the very essence of objects, including the human mind and morals, for these are but finite modes of God. As he states in the Ethics (1677), the conatus is of "indefinite time"; it lasts as long as the object does. Spinoza uses conatus to describe an inclination of things to increase in power; rather than just continuing to exist statically, all beings must strive towards perfection. Further, all existing things act if and only if
If and only if
In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, if and only if is a biconditional logical connective between statements....
such action maintains or augments their existence. Spinoza also uses the term conatus to refer to rudimentary concepts of inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
, as Descartes had earlier. Since a thing cannot be destroyed without the action of external forces, motion and rest, too, exist indefinitely until disturbed.
Behavioral manifestation
The concept of the conatus, as used in Baruch SpinozaBaruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
's philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, is derived from sources both ancient and medieval. Spinoza reformulates principles that the Stoics, Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, Laertius, and especially Hobbes and Descartes developed. One significant change he makes to Hobbes' theory is his belief that the conatus ad motum, (conatus to motion), is not mental, but material.
Spinoza, with his determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, believes that man and nature must be unified under a consistent set of laws; God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
and nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
are one, and there is no free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
. Contrary to most philosophers of his time and in accordance with most of those of the present, Spinoza rejects the dualistic assumption that mind, intentionality
Intentionality
The term intentionality was introduced by Jeremy Bentham as a principle of utility in his doctrine of consciousness for the purpose of distinguishing acts that are intentional and acts that are not...
, ethics, and freedom are to be treated as things separate from the natural world of physical objects and events. His goal is to provide a unified explanation of all these things within a naturalistic
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
framework, and his notion of conatus is central to this project. For example, an action is "free", for Spinoza, only if it arises from the essence and conatus of an entity. There can be no absolute, unconditioned freedom of the will, since all events in the natural world, including human actions and choices, are determined
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
in accord with the natural laws of the universe, which are inescapable. However, an action can still be free in the sense that it is not constrained or otherwise subject to external forces.
Human beings are thus an integral part of nature. Spinoza explains seemingly irregular human behaviour as really "natural" and rational and motivated by this principle of the conatus. In the process, he replaces the notion of free will with the conatus, a principle that can be applied to all of nature and not just man.
Emotions and affects
Spinoza's view of the relationship between the conatus and the human affectsAffect (psychology)
Affect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion. Affect is a key part of the process of an organism's interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect" .The affective domain...
is not clear. Firmin DeBrabander, assistant professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art
Maryland Institute College of Art is an art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the first and oldest art colleges in the United States. In 2008, MICA was ranked #2 in the nation...
, and Antonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, where he heads USC's Brain and Creativity Institute and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. Prior to taking up his posts at USC, in 2005, Damasio was M.W...
, professor of neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, both argue that the human affects arise from the conatus and the perpetual drive toward perfection. Indeed, Spinoza states in his Ethics that happiness, specifically, "consists in the human capacity to preserve itself". This "endeavor" is also characterized by Spinoza as the "foundation of virtue
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
". Conversely, a person is saddened by anything that opposes his conatus.
David Bidney (1908–1987), professor at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, disagrees. Bidney closely associates "desire", a primary affect, with the conatus principle of Spinoza. This view is backed by the Scholium of IIIP9 of the Ethics which states, "Between appetite and desire there is no difference, except that desire is generally related to men insofar as they are conscious of the appetite. So desire can be defined as appetite together with consciousness of the appetite." According to Bidney, this desire is controlled by the other affects, pleasure and pain, and thus the conatus strives towards that which causes joy and avoids that which produces pain. Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
(1788–1860) agrees with Bidney in interpretation, but states in The World as Will and Representation
The World as Will and Representation
The World as Will and Representation is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition was published in December 1818, and the second expanded edition in 1844. In 1948, an abridged version was edited by Thomas Mann....
(1819) that he disagrees with Spinoza because "according to the whole of my fundamental view, all this is a reversal of the true relation. The will is first and original; knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging to the phenomenon of the will."
In Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) was a student of Erhard Weigel
Erhard Weigel
Erhard Weigel was a German mathematician, astronomer and philosopher.He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig. From 1653 until his death he was professor of mathematics at Jena University. He was the teacher of Leibniz in 1663, and other notable students...
(1625–1699) and learned of the conatus principle from him and from Hobbes, though Weigel used the word tendentia (Latin: tendency). Specifically, Leibniz uses the word conatus in his Exposition and Defence of the New System (1695) to describe a notion similar that of Hobbes, but he differentiates between the conatus of the body and soul, the first of which may only travel in a straight line by its own power, and the latter of which may "remember" more complicated motions.
For Leibniz, the problem of motion comes to a resolution of the paradox of Zeno.
Since motion is continuous, space must be infinitely divisible. In order for anything to begin moving at all, there must be some mind-like, voluntaristic property or force inherent in the basic constituents of the universe that propels them. This conatus is a sort of instantaneous or "virtual" motion that all things possess, even when they are static. Motion, meanwhile, is just the summation of all the conatuses that a thing has, along with the interactions of things. The conatus is to motion as a point is to space. The problem with this view is that an object that collides with another would not be able to bounce back, if the only force in play were the conatus. Hence, Leibniz was forced to postulate the existence of an aether
Aether (classical element)
According to ancient and medieval science aether , also spelled æther or ether, is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere.-Mythological origins:...
that kept objects moving and allowed for elastic collisions. Leibniz' concept of a mind-like memory-less property of conatus, coupled with his rejection of atom
Atom
The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
s, eventually led to his theory of monads.
Leibniz also uses his concept of a conatus in developing the principles of the integral calculus, adapting the meaning of the term, in this case, to signify a mathematical analog of Newton's accelerative "force
Force
In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...
". By summing an infinity of such conatuses (i.e., what is now called integration
Integral
Integration is an important concept in mathematics and, together with its inverse, differentiation, is one of the two main operations in calculus...
), Leibniz could measure the effect of a continuous force. He defines impetus
Impetus
Impetus may refer to:* Impetus , a re-release of the EP Passive Restraints* Impetus , a concept very similar to momentum* Jean Buridan#Impetus Theory, middle-ages treatment on impetus and its originator Jean Buridan...
as the result of a continuous summation of the conatus of a body, just as the vis viva
Vis viva
In the history of science, vis viva is an obsolete scientific theory that served as an elementary and limited early formulation of the principle of conservation of energy...
(or "living force") is the sum of the inactive vis mortua.
Based on the work of Kepler and probably Descartes, Leibniz develops a model of planetary motion based on the conatus principle, the idea of aether and a fluid vortex
Vortex
A vortex is a spinning, often turbulent,flow of fluid. Any spiral motion with closed streamlines is vortex flow. The motion of the fluid swirling rapidly around a center is called a vortex...
. This theory is expounded in the work Tentamen de motuum coelestium causis (1689). According to Leibniz, Kepler's analysis of elliptical orbits into a circular and a radial component can be explained by a "harmonic vortex" for the circular motion combined with a centrifugal force and gravity, both of which are examples of conatus, to account for the radial motion. Leibniz later defines the term monadic conatus, as the "state of change" through which his monads perpetually advance.
Related usages and terms
Giambattista Vico
Giovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
(1668–1744) defined conatus as the essence of human society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
, and also, in a more traditional, hylozoistic
Hylozoism
Hylozoism is the philosophical point of view that all matter is in some sense alive. This may include the view that "inanimate" matter has latent powers of abiogenesis, a widely held position in the scientific community...
sense, as the generating power of movement which pervades all of nature. Nearly a century after the beginnings of modern science, Vico, inspired by Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
, explicitly rejected the principle of inertia and the laws of motion of the new physics. For him, nature was composed neither of atoms, as in the dominant view, nor of extension, as in Descartes, but of metaphysical points animated by a conatus principle provoked by God.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
(1788–1860) developed a philosophy that contains a principle notably similar to that of Hobbes's conatus. This principle, Wille zum Leben, or "Will to Live", described the specific phenomenon of an organism's self-preservation instinct. Schopenhauer qualified this, however, by suggesting that the Will to Live is not limited in duration. Rather, "the will wills absolutely and for all time", across generations. Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
(1844–1900), an early disciple of Schopenhauer, developed a separate principle which comes out of a rejection of the primacy of Schopenhauer's Will to Live and other notions of self-preservation. He called his version the Will to Power, or Wille zur Macht.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
(1856–1939), greatly depended on Spinoza's formulation of the conatus principle as a system of self preservation, though he never cited him directly in any of his published works. Around the same time, Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
(1859–1941), developed the principle of the élan vital
Élan vital
Élan vital was coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book Creative Evolution, in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner. Elan vital was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but...
, or "vital impulse", which was thought to aid in the evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
s. This concept, which implies a fundamental driving force behind all life, is reminiscent of the conatus principle of Spinoza and others.
For Max Scheler
Max Scheler
Max Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology...
, the concept of Drang is the centerpiece of philosophical anthropology
Philosophical anthropology
Philosophical anthropology is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person, and interpersonal relationships. It is the attempt to unify disparate ways of understanding behaviour of humans as both creatures of their social environments and creators of...
and metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
. Though his concept has been important throughout his entire philosophical career, it was only developed later in his life when his focus shifted from phenomenology to metaphysics. Like Bergson's élan vital, Drang (drive or impulsion) is the impetus of all life; however, unlike in Bergson's vitalistic metaphysics, the significance of Drang is that it provides the motivation and driving force even of Spirit (Geist). Spirit, which includes all theoretical intentionality, is powerless without the movement of Drang, the material principle, as well as Eros, the psychological principle.
The cultural anthropologist
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
Louis Dumont
Louis Dumont (anthropologist)
Louis Dumont was a French anthropologist. He was an associate professor at Oxford University during the 1950s, and director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris...
(1911–1988), described a cultural conatus built directly upon Spinoza's seminal definition in IIIP3 of his Ethics. The principle behind this derivative concept states that any given culture, "tends to persevere in its being, whether by dominating other cultures or by struggling against their domination".
Physical
After the advent of Newtonian physics, the concept of a conatus of all physical bodies was largely superseded by the principle of inertiaInertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
and conservation of momentum. As Bidney states, "It is true that logically desire or the conatus is merely a principle of inertia ... the fact remains, however, that this is not Spinoza's usage." Likewise, conatus was used by many philosophers to describe other concepts which have slowly been made obsolete. Conatus recendendi, for instance, became the centrifugal force, and gravity is used where conatus a centro had been previously. Today, the topics with which conatus dealt are matters of science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and are thus subject to inquiry by the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
.
Biological
The archaic concept of conatus is today being reconciled with modern biology by scientists such as Antonio DamasioAntonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, where he heads USC's Brain and Creativity Institute and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. Prior to taking up his posts at USC, in 2005, Damasio was M.W...
. The conatus of today, however, is explained in terms of chemistry and neurology where, before, it was a matter of metaphysics and theurgy
Theurgy
Theurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.- Definitions :*Proclus...
. This concept may be "constructed so as to maintain the coherence of a living organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
's structures and functions against numerous life-threatening odds".
Systems theory
The Spinozistic conception of a conatus was a historical precursor to modern theories of autopoiesis in biological systems. In systems theorySystems theory
Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...
and the sciences in general, the concept of a conatus may be related to the phenomenon of emergence
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
, whereby complex systems
Complex systems
Complex systems present problems in mathematical modelling.The equations from which complex system models are developed generally derive from statistical physics, information theory and non-linear dynamics, and represent organized but unpredictable behaviors of systems of nature that are considered...
may spontaneously form from multiple simpler structures. The self-regulating and self-maintaining properties of biological and even social systems may thus be considered modern versions of Spinoza's conatus principle; however, the scope of the idea is definitely narrower today without the religious implications of the earlier variety.