Introducing the Conatus

(Read this first.)

Spinoza sets up the principles for the Conatus in the second part of the Ethics which deals with psychology or "the nature and origin of mind." Spinoza's reasoning begins with God, which is not the personal God of religion but rather the universe. God is anything that can be attributed to existence as such, and so is infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, anything you can think of. But God is not personal, as taking an individual form would negate the infinite and necessary nature of God, who is not a thing but literally everything. 

Gods's existence is necessary by definition in Spinoza's system because anything that exists describes God, which is defined as everything. 

This is important for his psychology because it entails that only God is a substance. Everything else in the universe is contingent, including human beings. Anything in the universe which we have an idea of are bodies, finite things like ourselves extended in space and time. Our ideas are of something existing, and we not being infinite cannot perceive everything. The only ideas we have that are not of bodies would be ideas of ideas, ad infinitum, eventually leading to a body. 

"..if there were also any other object of the mind besides a body...the ideas of some effect produced by this object would necessarily exist in the mind. But because there is no such idea, and therefore the object our mind is a body existing, and nothing else."

The principles which govern bodies derive from thought, but since thought is of bodies, these principles should apply to all bodies, including our own. Thus Spinoza says to understand the human mind, we must understand the nature of the human body and bodies in general. 

"..everything that we have said of the idea of the human body is necessarily true of the idea of any other thing...therefore, in order to determine the difference between the human mind and other things and its superiority over them, we must first know, as we have said, the nature of its object, that is to say, the nature of the human body."

There are two fundamental principles governing bodies; 

Axiom 1. All bodies are either in a state of motion or rest.

Axiom 2. Every body moves, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly.

These are the only things which distinguish bodies, and not substance. Any individual thing in the universe is a body in motion or rest, and if in motion, differing by degree of motion. All things share in this and can affect each other (contrary to Leibniz).

Bodies aim to preserve their state of motion, but can changed by any other body to different degrees of rest or motion.

What gets us to the Conatus are composite bodies. These bodies preserve their total state in opposition to the effects of other bodies because each part moves in the same state. So to change the state of motion or rest requires changing the state of every part together. A good example is a bundle of sticks, or dry spaghetti. Individually they are easy to break, but together it takes more effort. Even if you break one the others remain, and their composite nature reduces the casualties. 

"When a number of bodies of the same or different motion are pressed together by others, so that they lie upon the other, or if they are in motion with the same or with different degrees of speed, so that they communicate their motion to one another in a certain fixed proportion, these bodies are said to he mutually United, and taken together they are said to compose one body or individual, which is distinguished by other bodies by this union of bodies."

The form of a body is maintained by continual replacement. The nature of the whole makes it so all members are the same, and maintains this only by degrees of addition or subtraction. The whole operates differently than the parts, and so can maintain its nature throughout change in quantity. Quantity becomes quality. 

The form of something isn't static and universal like it was for Plato, but a dynamic changing actual thing. A drive which continues the individuated existence of something. The form is a tendency to act in a certain way for self-preservation. The body can change, grow and diminish, but so long as the body can perform the action which it could have done before, it's nature is maintained. 

"if the parts composing an individual become greater or less proportionately, so that they persevere towards one another the same kind of motion and rest, the individual will also retain the nature which it had before without any change of form."

This sets up the Conatus, which is presented to us in part three. 

Prop IV "a thing cannot be destroyed except by an external cause."

A thing cannot be destroyed by itself, but only an external cause. By destroy Spinoza means the dissolution of a body or a change in its "natural" state of motion, or tendency to act. This follows from the law of inertia; a body in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by another object. Because there is nothing substantial to individuals other than their perseverance in total motion or rest, change in this is annihilation. As the essence of a body does not entail existence. 

"the definition of any given thing affirms and does not deny the existence of the thing; that is to say, it posits the essence of the thing and does not negate"

Prop V "in so far as one thing is able to destroy another they are of contrary natures; that is to say, they cannot exist in the same subject."

This is because of the law of the excluded middle. Something cannot be what it is and is not at the same time and place. Motion is defined by these qualities. 

Prop VI "each thing, in so far as it is in itself, endeavors to persevere in its being.

it is opposed to everything which could negate its existence."

If things can exist together, then they can share an essence together beyond their separate states. Parts can form a whole by what they have in common. This is very important as composite body's are "synthetic" as they continue in existence, thus higher forms of matter are possible. The Conatus is opposed to reductionism, which views things as static. 

Prop VII "the effort by which each thing endeavors to persevere in its own being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing itself."

The being is the essence, though in "extended" or spatial-temporal terms.

Prop VIII "the effort by which each thing endeavors to persevere in its own being does not involve finite but indefinite time"

This is a major difference between the Conatus of Spinoza and Hobbes. Striving defines the essence of something, not its existence. The beginning and end do not measure the existence of something; its (continual) existence is its essence.  Hobbes says that the impetus "ceaseth only in death," that is in spatial temporal terms. Spinoza's Conatus is a feature of the physical world, not just of organic things. Any individual thing is defined by Conatus.

The Conatus is a way to reconcile the changing nature of the phenomenal world with identity by positing an underlying force which is not extinguished by different time and space. By staking our identity on striving, this concept opens up dynamic and progressive views of human nature. By striving to be actual, we are actual. We can create higher forms of being, not as a static finished product, but continually maintained.