Talk:Conatus

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Featured article star Conatus is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Peer review This article was externally reviewed (2007-04-23) by Steve Nadler, Professor of Philosophy, and Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I thought the piece was quite good, although its final sections are much thinner than the earlier ones.

Some thoughts:

1. In the initial sentence, you might add 'striving' to the list of terms that translate 'conatus', since it is sometimes translated that way. Also, in that first sentence, what about saying "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"? That is a more general way to put the point, and leaves open the possibility that the thing is either mind, matter or a unity of both.

2. In the next sentence, I have to confess I'm not a fan of the phrase "Continental Rationalists", since it is an out-of-date way of referring to philosophers in the period and doesn't really capture anything that would substantively unite them. But that's just my preference (although the phrase has really fallen out of favor).

3. In the Descartes section, I would say not "Despite his dualism, Descartes rejects the teleological, or purposive, view of the material world", but rather BECAUSE of his dualism -- by ridding the material world of anything mental, he can effectively void all talk of ends or intentions from explanations in physical science. Also, technically, it is not right to talk of atoms with respect to Descartes -- he explicitly denies atomism; rather, he is a non-atomistic corpuscularian -- everything is explained in terms of parts of extension, or particles of matter, but not, strictly speaking, atoms.

4. Under Spinoza, I would say that "Spinoza uses conatus to describe an inclination of things to increase in power", rather than "increase in character".

A question about the last sentence of this section: If a thing is destroyed by "the action of external forces", how could it be a case of "self-destruction"?

I hope this helps.

Steve Nadler

Contents

[edit] GA (On Hold)

Citations. If you're going to have a list of references and cite with name and page number, please use the Harvard style.

Whoops... I was confusing MLA and Harvard... I'll implement the standardized Harvard templates tomorrow.
Done! -- Rmrfstar 20:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Citations needed.

  • First paragraph under "Classical origins". First sentance under "In the psyche" under "Hobbes".
    • Done.
  • Second and/or third sentance in the paragraph after the quote under "In physics" under "Hobbes".
    • This whole paragraph is found in "Jesseph", and seems to me sufficiently cited.
  • First sentance, third paragraph under "Spinoza".
    • Done.
  • First sentance, second paragraph under "Psychological manisfestation".
    • Done.
  • First and/or second sentance under "Physical manisfestation".
    • I removed the second sentence (I can't find a good enough citation for it), and I think the first sentence needs no specific, separate citation as it is so general and is supported by so many.
  • Clear up specify tag under "Modern interpretations".
    • Will do this tomorrow. -- Rmrfstar 03:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Done! -- Rmrfstar 20:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Address these issues and I believe it would meet GA standards. Vassyana 14:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking good. Vassyana 12:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I believe that all of your objections have been addressed as of now. -- Rmrfstar 20:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review (Passed)

  1. Well-written. The writing is clear and fairly concise. It is clean and provides a reader an excellant overview of the topic.
  2. Factually accurate and verifiable. The article is well-cited and provides an accurate presentation of the topic. There is room for improvement. The article could have a greater number of references to provide a broader coverage of available sources and to provide information to flesh out the article more.
  3. Broad in coverage. Certainly covers all the bases and gives a solid impression of the breadth of the subject. Again, there is still room for improvement. Short sections could be expanded. Additional sources could provide additional interpretations and viewpoints for the article.
  4. Neutral point of view. No problems at all. The presentation is interesting but neutral.
  5. Stable. The article is stable.
  6. Images. Good use of images, but perhaps reconsider selection and placement to better compliment the article.

Overall, well within GA standards, but definately room for improvement. If someone was looking to bring this up to 1.0 or FA status, I would recommend the above mentioned improvements and a peer review. Good job on the article. Vassyana 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A few comments

I, Cryptic, will add notes here as I read through the article.

Lede

  • This sentence, Often the concept is associated with God's will in a pantheist view of Nature, as Spinoza used it, though not always. is obnoxiously worded.
Done.

Classical origins

  • What exactly is ὁρμήν? This is the English wiki, not the Greekish wiki.
I don't know... it's Greek to me!
  • Cicero's full name is given as a caption to the picture, but not in the prose. Perhaps you should consider putting the full name next to Diogenes Laertius for consistency, and replacing the caption with information about the medium and origin of that sculpture.
OK.
  • There's no time frame whatsoever. The reader should be familiar with the basic time line of these definitions without having to click the links to the philosophers' articles.
Done.
  • "impetus" should be replaced with a more commonly used word. Wikilinking it doesn't help, as impetus is just a disambig with definition that really makes sense here.
I used a different word because impetus happens to be a technical term used elswhere in a different sense within the article.
  • The last paragraph just boggles me. Is it about science or romance?
Metaphysics, a mixture of the two.

In Teh Psychzor

  • Missing a quotation mark after threatens this peace. (fixed)
  • I truly loathe the second quote. Who said it? Schmitter? Given that it's such a large and dense chunk of text, it should either be set off as a block quote or paraphrased.
I separated it from the text.

In Fizyx

Why not, indeed?
  • The plural conatuses is used for the first time here. I had been under the impression that conatus (which, by the way, needs to be italicized consistently) was not a quantifiable noun.
I reworded this.
  • No comma needed in springs, and bladders for example. (fixed)
  • I before e except after c. (fixed)

Spinach

  • Specify!
  • Wtf is conatus sese conservandi?
I have defined this in the article.
  • Use a consistent tense. You flip-flopped from he used the term to he most often uses.
I believe I have fixed this.
  • as Descartes had before even him yarg. I had to read that one 5 or 6 times to understand it.
Better?

I'd keep going, but I have no attention span. It's time to watch porn. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad reference

  • Very small point: Note 57 lists "Vico 1988", but the date listed in the Further Reading section for this reference is that of its original publication (1710), and does not list the date of republication. Chubbles 23:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I fixed this. -- Rmrfstar 00:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spinoza and "self-preservation"

Nice article, however... The last section on other philosophers links them several times to Spinoza's conatus, understood as "self-preservation". This is a misunderstanding of Spinoza, and is a more accurate description of Hobbes' conatus. For Spinoza, the conatus was a sort of tendency towards empowerment, a dynamic, and not a static notion as "self-preservation" — see for ex. Gilles Deleuze's little book on Spinoza with an index of Spinozist notions (Spinoza: Practical Philosophy). Self-preservation is only the "first determination" of conatus, according to him "the conatus, in second determination, is the tendency to maintain and obtain at maximum the aptitude to be affected [cites Ethics, IV, 38]" (Deleuze, 1981).

Beside, the so-called counter examples of a "lit candle" or "suicidal people" (?) are really simplists. Would you really think that Spinoza was dumb enough not to think about this objection? The fact that a candle dies is explained by any other death in Spinoza's system: a "bad encounter" with another, foreign part, certainly not something belonging to the body itself. A "suicidal person" would also be "suicidal" because "sad", and "sad" in turn because of ill-fated encounter with parts that he should have known better than to meet (see Courses on Spinoza and letters to Blyenberg; English transl.))... Again, see Deleuze's book for an exposition of this, and, for ex., Ethics, IV, P39 (and scholium), IV Axiom. According to Deleuze, in sadness, our power is blocked and can only react, while in joy, our power is affirmed and the conatus expands itself (Ethics, IV, P18). The conatus (third determination) is also the striving to expands one joy, according to Deleuze (cites Ethics, III, 12, 13, 28, etc.)

I thus move here the passage on "Counter-examples", which I think only leads the reader to a misunderstanding of Spinoza:

Despite Spinoza's extensive arguments for the existence of a universal conatus principle, many arguments against it have been formulated. Martin Lin, professor at the University of Toronto, points to lit candles, time bombs and suicidal persons as counterexamples to Spinozan conatus. Some counter-counter examples may be the observations that lit candles do not light themselves, or that “Tongley's sculpture or a time bomb involve parts that never succeed in constituting genuinely integrated wholes.”-Lin 2004, p. 30-

Furthermore, Nietzsche's should be cited precisely ; besides, using the forged book The Will to Power as a reference is not really reliable. Date & number of fragment using the German completed edition would be more serious. Lapaz 23:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, 1) I didn't add those counterexamples and 2) I'm not really an expert on Spinoza's mechanical views of the universe, so I'll leave your additions here. I must add, however, that I try to avoid Delueze and other such nonsense as much as possible, and I strongly recommend others do so as well. It's very difficult to do so over here in popomo, anti-scientific Europe. (Since when is Deleuze considered an expert on the history of science!! Good god....). Anyway, please try to find more serious analytic and/or scientific sources on these topics. Thank you very much.--Francesco Franco 09:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)--Francesco Franco 09:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Mind you, now that I think on't, you can add ANYTHING you like at all. I don't even know why I responded. No one will know the difference one way or the other and, if they do, the truly knowlegable ones won't give a fuck since this is Wackipedia and not something serious and scholarly. What a complete waste of time and energy!!I used do it because I was nuts., but I'm doing much better now. You? --Francesco Franco 09
24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Hello Lapaz, thanks for helping. here's what I think:
I agree with most of your edits. I think the matter of the static vs. dynamic conatus of Spinoza is akin to splitting hairs, and nothing is misleading. Do you think anything needs to be further changed?
I do feel that the counter arguments should be left in, not because they are serious arguments which disprove Spinoza (they're not), but for the edification (brain food?) of the average curious adult. Also, it's a matter of NPOV, I think. I don't think anyone could be led to misunderstand Spinoza simply by reading this section called "Counter-arguments". Especially considering the counter-counter arguments mentioned. However, I dont' feel particularly strongly about the matter.
What's wrong with citing The Will to Power? Do you have access to the German complete edition? Do you read German? I don't. -- Rmrfstar 21:12, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree on this one. The Will To Power is a collection of aphorisms and longer writings by Neitzche that were deliberately taken out of context, altered, manipulated and poshumously publishedby his sister to serve as anti-semitic, proto-Nazi propaganda. It's HER work, much more than his. Therefore, it shouldn't be cited as a legitimate source for the beliefs of Freidrich Nietzche, nor much else for that matter. It's apocryphal.--Francesco Franco 09:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Franco for further explanations concerning "The Will to Power". Amusingly, one of the first philosopher to have acclaimed Mazzino Montinari's philologist work on the matter was... Deleuze. I don't know where you get your idea that Deleuze is "anti-scientifical", but I do have to point out that Deleuze's work on Spinoza has been recognized by a number of people. Furthermore, I do not think that the "matter of the static vs. dynamic conatus" is "splitting hairs" — indeed, it is a very important feature of Spinozism. I don't think either that for the sake of "NPOV" we should include a not too bright counter-argument; see WP:UNDUE. Otherwise, I'm sure the article could still be improved, but it's not easy to work on such a notion — and if Wikipedia certainly is not Wakopedia, philosophical matters seems hard to discuss on wikis. Regards, Lapaz 20:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)