Conatus

Conatus (Latin conatus ( from the verb Conari ) for exertion, effort, desire ) is a philosophical term that refers to, in general, or to continue to exist with respect to a specific property to be greater (persistence, self-preservation ) or the inner slope of a thing. Conatus may relate to mental or physical objects, such as the instinctive " desire to live " or on different types of motion and inertia. Physical and general usages are often difficult to distinguish.

Antiquity

The term is used in philosophical psychology, metaphysics and physics since ancient times; the Latin expression has already Greek equivalents. In particular, here the term ὁρμή ( HORME, lat usually translated as impetus ) is needed, especially at Stoics and Peripatetics. This refers to the movement of the soul toward an object as the cause of an action.

Both Aristotle and later Marcus Tullius Cicero and Diogenes Laertius indicated a bond between the conatus and other feelings, which in their opinion, the former initiates the latter. Thus, they claimed, for example, that people do not want to do something because they are "good" for, rather they are only for " good" because they want to do it, in other words: The reason for human Seek a natural inclination of the body, to fulfill his desires in accordance with the principles of the conatus.

In Cicero and Laertius the pursuit of self-preservation in non-human individuals is called conatus beyond.

Middle Ages

John Philoponus criticizes the Aristotelian concept of motion, which he posits in particular in the analysis of projectile motion; he puts no causal efficacy space surrounding parts perish but a movement tendency in the body itself - which he calls conatus. In contrast to the modern concept of inertia, but it is subordinated to " inherent power ". (see this and the following also History of Physics )

Use the Arab philosophers in the Latin conatus often very similar sense as the term I'timad; such as some Mu'tazilites and Avicenna in the analysis of the trend of material bodies to fall down. Averroes and others defend the classical Aristotelian conception against John Philoponus. Ibn al - Haytham ( Alhazen ), but the latter defended and developed a concept that comes close to the modern concept of inertia; his contemporary Avicenna a term that comes close to the modern ( Newtonian ) pulse concept: it is proportional to the product of mass and velocity.

Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Dante, and others use conatus to velle interchangeably, vult ( voluntas ), appetitus and their derivatives, which also is accompanied by a limitation on animated animals. Thomas joins, as well as Abravanel, the conatus - term is denoted by augustin Sichen concept of a natural movement or a natural persistent clinging in an intermediate position, as "amor naturalis " ( natural affection ).

John Buridanus developed an impetus - term, which is the modern pulse concept close and, for example, non-linear movement (especially circling) includes, but holds on to many components of the Aristotelian natural philosophy, such as the thesis of a fundamental difference between stationary and moving object.

Modern Times

In the first half of the 16th century, René Descartes, his interpretation of the conatus, which he described as " acting force or inclination to move from bodies, which reflects the power of God " refers developed. The distance from uses of words related human endeavor and also from the medieval use of conatus as an internal property of things. For Descartes, unlike Buridan, the movement and the resting state, two states of the same thing, not two different.

Particularly well known are the Conatus theories of other important philosophers of the early modern period, such as Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz and Thomas Hobbes. In a often referred to as pantheistic theory, as she designs Spinoza, who Conatus - term can be connected to the divine will. Especially in dualistic framework theories, as it develops about Descartes, can between mental and material respects of Conatus - term, even as applied to motion processes can be distinguished. Leibniz sees the will as inclination or desire ( conatus ) away from for bad and towards the good for held. At about 1600 then write Bernardino Telesio and Tommaso Campanella also inanimate objects a conatus to.

Even theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries are still influenced by this tradition of Conatus - term. Today, the term conatus but is no longer used in physics and engineering. Instead, partial aspects of the so -intentioned captured by terms such as inertia or momentum conservation.