conation

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English

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Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin cōnātiō (an act of attempting).

Noun

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conation (countable and uncountable, plural conations)

  1. (philosophy) The power or act which directs or impels to effort of any kind, whether muscular or psychical.
    • 1899, George Frederick Stout, A Manual of Psychology, page 234:
      Any pleasing sense-experience, when it has once taken place, will, on subsequent occasions, give rise to a conation, when its conditions are only partially repeated...
    • 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine:
      You can sit quiet and hear the processes going on, going about their business; volition, desire, will, cognition, passion, conation.
    • 1987, Marshall J. Farr, 'Cognition, Affect, and Motivation: Issues, Directions and Perspectives Toward Unity', in Conative and Affective Process Analysis, p. 347:
      [The] 'purposive conscious striving' aspect of conation is very likely a concept we need to treat separately if we are to study human motivation successfully []

Derived terms

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References

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Anagrams

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