Conatus and experimental thinking

I really liked the idea we discussed in class --- that the reason Damasio mentions conatus so often, and indeed is weaving Spinoza's concepts throughout his book, is because Spinoza was able to conceive of a way of seeing the human body's function, or any organisms function as in a constant state of what we now call Homeostasis purely based on philosophical investigation. He had no way of knowing whether this was true scientifically, he could only base his theory on observation and speculation, and now that we have the tools to investigate his theories, they have been proven to be true. Furthermore, many important, and ground-breaking theories have developed from his conatus hypothesis (like emotion and feeling being different functions of the body pursuing homeostasis). I also think that Damasio references conatus so often because he operates from a social constructionist stand point, where he sees psychology not as a science unto itself to the exclusion of all other sciences or disciplines, but instead as a science that can benefit from, and indeed requires multiple perspectives and modes of investigating human thought, including philosophy like that of Spinoza.