Heidegger

PART FOUR - THE CONATUS PRINCIPLE. The theory of eliminative determinism seeks to modify the notions of Indra’s Net and conjoin this beautiful ancient metaphor with remediated elements of a de-mystified, eliminativist, occidental, secular deterministic ontology. The factor of ‘cause’ that initiates change in motion, as in the case of a billiard ball striking another was accepted generally until the brilliant mind of Hume addressed the question. For Aristotle there was a final cause or teleological (entelékheia) end towards which the event is purposed. This notion is also rejected in eliminative determinism. Aristotle wrote that every event had both an efficient and a final cause, which is hard to understand when we think that *purpose* requires agency, intelligence and intention. It made perfect sense for Aristotle when the substance of things contained the ‘entelechy’ or ‘end within,’ which brings about, for instance, the growth of an acorn into an oak. The eliminativist view is that the change from acorn to oak is a manifestation of deterministic, non-agential persistence (conatus) devoid of some mystical ‘entelechy.’ Acorn and oak? There has been much philosophical discussion concerning which came first - the chicken or the egg? The answer is neither. Both terms are identificatory labels for existential modalities of the same changed object. Mereologically of course, for like the parts of the Ship of Theseus were completely renewed during its long voyage – the cellular composition of most biological species is changed completely over a period of time. In the course of seven years every cell in the bodies of the ship’s crew is completely renewed.
The real or sentential extantal subject is that which equates or corresponds with the entiative object (the nominatum) named by the signifier - the name or noun by which it is identified. The nominatum of the signifier ‘the man’ is at the same time a familiarly shaped human with a head, a body two arms and two legs and the holonistic assemblage or conglomerate of the human existential quantum and cellular components and their ever-changing states and modalities – a seething similitude of requisite physical change-based somatic equivalences that occur to the quantum-based, component mini-entities that consist of the entity – ‘man.’ For Descartes in a letter to Mersenne in 1642, the active power or propensity of bodies to change and move exists by courtesy of and in compliance with the power of the Christian God. he adds that: ‘God can bring about everything that I clearly and distinctly recognize as possible.’
Some later philosophers of the seventeenth century preferred a more natural explanation of events. Entities were now seen by some as existing in modalities of a systematised persistence to remain extant in their current existential modality. Spinoza attributed all power and change to God or Nature depending upon the circumstances. For Spinoza each existential mode of an object has an innate striving (conatus) to persevere in being. Conatus also refers to the force with which the motion of an object is initiated and maintained. In his exposition of Descartes, Spinoza, (1. IIId3) in his definition of conatus ad motum, writes: ‘By striving for motion we do not understand any thought, but only that a part of matter is so placed and stirred to motion, that it really would go somewhere if it were not prevented by any cause.’ Spinoza’s account of striving (conatus) in physics, however, is understood as a tendency to a certain kind of motion.’ (Spinoza IIIp10 and IIIp 6.) What other way is there to describe the motivational complexity of an insensate object’s holarchic reconfiguration? How else are we to describe the physical imperative of self-energisation, self-adjustment and self-actualisation? The use of the very word ’self’ immediately taints or besmirches our text with overtones of personification - how can a rock have a ’self?’ There is no alternative for the natural philosopher but to employ such ‘unnatural’ natural language, encumbered as it is with the clumsy semantic payload of anthropocentric implication, which act to animate the inanimate and attribute human characteristics to objects devoid of feeling, consciousness or animation. MARGARET CAVENDISH (C. 1623-1673) DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. Of all the seventeenth century philosophers, the one who I feel closest too is the notorious Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle. (pp. 1623-1673) She was quite pretty, very wealthy of course, but also rather idiosyncratic, swore like a trooper, wore what were considered in those times to be strange clothes, was a vegetarian, and in the heyday of hunting was against animal blood sports. She was referred to by all and sundry as: ‘Mad Madge.’ (O’Neil. ed. 2007) Her philosophy however was far from mad. As a natural philosopher, Cavendish rejected Aristotelianism and the mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century. First, the natural world is wholly material, and given that there are no vacua in nature (78-9), nature is a unified whole that is further self-moving (Cavendish. 1688. pp. 47-8; 70-4; 208ff.) This explains O’Neill’ s label of Cavendish’s system as organic materialism – nature is a self-moving unity, much like an organism in which parts serve the whole and must be defined in terms of the whole. For Cavendish causation is explained through a kind of sympathy or affinity of parts within a whole, as opposed to external motion transferred from substance to substance (pp. 139-44).5. Matter is essentially moving, and motion as a mode is essentially connected with a substance. In a pleasing accord with eliminative determinism, Cavendish claims that any theory of causation dependent upon the transfer of motion model, will, in Cavendish’s evaluation, fail to explain these most basic metaphysical principles. Another point of contact across the centuries is that for her the notion that inherently moving matter can also regulate itself lends a modern holon a provenance of self-sufficiency. Sadly in explanation for this phenomenon the lady held that every part of matter senses and reasons in some degree, so in that ontological area it is only a partial meeting of minds. We touch hands collegially once again however, when Cavendish insists that the natural world has existed eternally and is infinite. (pp.32; 73). This last has led some to insinuate that she skirted perilously close to atheism – or actually crossed that religious Rubicon (6. I) After all, it is true that Cavendish attributes all natural effects to the self-regulating corporeal whole that is nature itself. There is no clear role for God in her natural philosophy – neither in the maintenance, nor in the creation of nature. (pp.208-12). Cavendish identified two degrees of matter – animate and inanimate (p.211). Further, human ‘souls’ are the imaginative and arrogant creation of none other than humans, who want to separate themselves (erroneously) from the nature of which they are a mere part. 7 In Cavendish’s conception of natural beings; human dominance over other creatures is wrong, because humans and every other being in the world are made from the same material (pp.66-7). Not surprisingly, then, one of her poems advocates vegetarianism and a cessation to hunting. (O’Neill.ed. 2007) Of course, it wasn’t roses all the way, for she generated some naughty bits too. In fact, Cavendish identified two degrees of matter – animate and inanimate (p.211). She further differentiates two forms of knowledge that animate matter has – rational and sensitive knowledge (pp. 23-4). This is not to say that any given part of matter we may isolate is one of these three types, for Cavendish believes any part of matter we may isolate, no matter how small, will include both inanimate and animate elements, as well as reasoning and sensing parts (p.206). The genius of Hume perceived the phenomena of causal interaction between objects as an internalised misconception based upon our repeated exposure to such apparent causal interaction. For Hume (1748) …
‘One object followed by another, whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other.’ Honderich (2007) points out that…
‘The Humean view has persisted, among all those disinclined to mystery in connection with causation, not because of these defences, but for want of a ‘ satisfactory alternative.’ David Hume was on the way to it - and made a tremendous leap of cognition, but he just fell short of it. I held my breath whilst reading the relevant passages waiting for the epiphanic moment of sudden understanding or revelation. and the final explanation or critical exegesis which never came.
References: Cavendish. Margaret. ‘Observations upon Experimental Philosophy.’ 1688. Editor: Eileen O’Neill. Adobe Reader PDF eBook. Descartes. Rene. ‘Letter to Mersenne.’ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. _http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-works/_  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descar…) Honderich. Ted. ‘Causality or Causation — the Fundamental Fact Plainly Explained.’ 2007. _http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwCausationHonderich.html_  http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwCausati…) Hume. David. ‘Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.’ Selby-Bigge Edition. Oxford University Press. Spinoza. Ethics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. _http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-psychological/_  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoz…)

Posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 3:25 pm
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