CHAPTER ONE

1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The theory of knowledge, or epistemology, offered by the 17th century Dutch

philosopher Benedict de Spinoza may yet prove to be the most daring in the history of
philosophy. Not only does Spinoza claim to be able to know all the ways one can know
something, he also claims to be able to know what everything is 1. Few philosophers
besides Spinoza have sought and proclaimed possession of absolute knowledge quite like
he had. Of the philosophers who have claimed absolute knowledge, only Spinoza has
offered it, not as the reception of a divine revelation, and not as the fulfillment of a
historical process, as in Hegel’s epistemology, but as a means for intuitively affirming
the truth inherent within all of reality. Reality is susceptible to such an intuition, he said,
because every being is a mode of it, or a way that it expresses itself. In other words, for
us to come to know the “absolute” is for the absolute to come to know itself. There is
thus something basically self-reflexive and introspective about Spinoza’s epistemology.
At the same time, knowledge for Spinoza is always of what he calls God or Nature,
which can also be understood as the universe itself2.

Spinoza constructs a theory of knowledge (which is in fact a theory of error) from the
assumption that there really are adequate ideas3. Spinoza is concerned with the
explanation of error and of ordinary, imperfect knowledge in order to overcome the
ignorance and unscientific thinking that embeds error in ordinary language. By
imagination or confused experience, Spinoza delineates knowledge or awareness derived
from sense-perception. An idea at this level represents neither the true nature and essence
of the body nor the true nature of the external object; it represents a particular
modification of extension, but does not in itself reflect the true causes of this
modification4. In critiquing knowledge deriving wholly from sense-perception as
subjective and partial rather than being genuine knowledge, Spinoza is firmly within the

1
rationalist tradition of philosophy going back to Plato’s distinction between knowledge
and opinion. Thus Spinoza distinguishes three levels of knowledge, the lowest level of
which is (cognitio primi generis), knowledge wholly derived from sense-perception and
which corresponds to Plato’s opinion. What distinguishes Spinoza here is the way that
the rationalist conclusion is deduced as a necessary consequence of conceiving the mind
as the idea of the body, in conjunction with the premise that only logically necessary
propositions represent genuine or certain knowledge.

Genuine or certain knowledge is by definition a set or sequence of ideas in which each

follows logically from its predecessor. However, in so far as we are not engaged in pure
thought, our mental life is a sequence of ideas reflecting the successive modifications of
the body in its interaction with other bodies, and such a sequence is never logical since
these ideas logically unrelated to each other5. Sense-perception can never therefore yield
genuine knowledge, only incomplete knowledge in that they it cannot represent the true
order of causes in Nature. Such ideas of imagination or confused experience constitute
our common-sense knowledge.

However, whether or not Spinoza’s epistemology is valid by any standard besides his
own, remains a point of contention. Most philosophers believe that Spinoza’s
epistemology wildly oversteps the limits of human finitude, while others believe that
even if Spinoza certainly experienced something within himself that he called “the
truth,” we have no real access to it ourselves. This article explores the role and function
of knowledge in Spinoza’s philosophy as a whole and the methodology he uses to know
things and to know knowledge. The article closely follows Spinoza’s threefold division
of the different types of knowledge as presented in his Ethics. This threefold division is
constituted by the distinctions among imagination, intuition, and the exercise of the
intellect.

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1.2 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The primary purpose of this essay is to critically examine Spinoza's theory of knowledge.

1.3 THESIS

The thesis of this essay state that obtaining of true knowledge is the sole avenue for
liberating oneself from the limits and fallibility of an average human existence.

1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

This work shall cover Spinoza's theory of knowledge. It shall be limited to Spinoza's
three levels of knowledge.

1.5 METHODOLOGY

This work shall make use of analytical, philosophical and evaluative method of research.

1.6 SOURCES

The source of material for this essay shall be the libraries of Olabisi Onabanjo
University, University of Ibadan, SS Peter and Paul seminary, Books, Journal Articles
World Wide Web (www), other Electronic Sources and personal communication with my
project supervisor and other academicians.

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 REFERENCES

1
Floistad, Guttorm, “Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge in the Ethics” in Spinoza: A
Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday/Anchor
Press, 1973), 101-127.

2
Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. (San Francisco: City Lights Books,
1988).

3
Della Rocca, Michael. Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996).

4
Curley, Edwin, “Experience in Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge” in Spinoza: A
Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday/Anchor
Press, 1973), 25-59.

5
Garret, Don, “Spinoza,” in A Companion to Epistemology, ed. Ernest Sosa and Jonathan
Dancy, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), 488-490.

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 CHAPTER TWO

CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE

2.1 CONCEPT OF KNOWLEDGE

What is knowledge? Does knowledge differ from opinion or belief? Are there different
types of knowledge? How do we decide what constitutes knowledge? As a starting point
in an attempt to understand the concept of knowledge, a variety of definitions and
schools of thought will be examined. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines knowledge
as:

“1. a) awareness or familiarity gained by experience

(of a person, fact, or thing) b) a person’s range of
information. 2. a) a theoretical or practical
understanding of a subject, language, etc. b) the
sum of what is known. 3. true, justified belief;
certain understanding, as opposed to opinion.1”

This definition can be more properly described as a collection of definitions. Do they

make sense? Are they compatible? How do they contribute to our understanding of
Knowledge? The first definition in the above list states that knowledge is an “awareness
or familiarity gained by experience (of a person, fact, or thing)”. This definition follows
in the tradition of the school of philosophers referred to as empiricists. They believe that
knowledge can only be acquired through experience 2. The main contributors to this view
have included the philosophers Locke, Berkely, Bacon and Hobbes. As Locke the
recognised founder of British empiricism, born in 1632, put it:

“Let us suppose that the mind to be, as we say,

white paper, void of all characters, without any
ideas; how comes it to be furnished? When comes it
by that vast store, which the busy and boundless
fancy of man has painted on it with an almost

5
 endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of
reason and knowledge? To this I answer in one
word, from experience: in that all our knowledge is
founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself”3

If knowledge can be gained only through experience, then this would mean that we could
only claim to know that a successful general called Julius Caesar ruled Rome and was
assassinated more than two thousand years ago if and only if we experienced Caesar’s
rule and assassination. Indeed, much of what we view as knowledge of our world, past
and present, would need to be discounted as knowledge.

Within a University context, if the empiricist view of knowledge was adopted, then
students could only claim to have acquired knowledge if and only if the subjects they
studied contained practical elements. If a lecturer taught students theoretical aspects of
Information Systems Development, for example, and the students had no experience of
developing information systems, then according to the empiricist school of thought, the
students had no right to state that they were knowledgeable in the area of Information
Systems Development. Perhaps, though, in a subconscious way, employers and
universities do lend partial support to the empiricist argument when they hold student
placement schemes in high regard. Such experience is often held up as a valuable
experience, something that enhances the student’s education, thus perhaps reflecting a
tendency to value knowledge acquired through experience greater than theoretical
knowledge.

Another problem with the empiricist definition of knowledge (“awareness or familiarity

gained by experience”) is that it makes no distinction between truth and falsehood.
Suppose that a student has a small group of friends, and that these friends have engaged
in plagiarism throughout their university education, and, suppose further, that these
collection of experiences lead him to believe that plagiarism is acceptable behaviour for a
student; then according to the definition that knowledge is “awareness or familiarity

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gained by experience” the student could claim to know this to be the case. Yet plagiarism
is not acceptable behaviour, so the student cannot claim to know: he can only claim to
have a belief.

Truth ought to be a prerequisite of knowledge, in order to distinguish it from false belief

(definition 3. supports this view: “true, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed
to opinion”). Lastly, the empiricist approach to what constitutes knowledge has difficulty
explaining knowledge derived by rational thought (as opposed to knowledge derived by
experience). This would mean that any conclusions that we arrived at about our
environment through the use of reasonable and logical thought processes would not count
as knowledge. The absurd effect of this would be that only that which our senses had
experienced would count as knowledge. Which means that our knowledge of the world
would be extremely limited, if not negligible. However, as Descartes pointed out, our
senses sometimes deceive us (e.g. hallucinations during illness, mirages, mistaken
identities, optical illusions, etc.), therefore experienced knowledge is often unreliable and
should not have a greater claim to knowledge than that gained from rational thought4.
What, then, can we conclude about the view of knowledge expressed in the Concise
Oxford Dictionary, that knowledge is “awareness or familiarity gained by experience”?
Yes, knowledge can be gained through experience, but this is not the only way one can
acquire knowledge. It can also be achieved through rational thought. Importantly, for
something to be accepted as knowledge it must be true (this helps distinguish between
fact and belief). This latter point could aid in one fundamental aspect of the development
of the University web site, in that those responsible for their University web site must be
sure, prior to displaying information, that what is presented is accurate and not merely
based on beliefs.

Hacker stipulates that for any activity to qualify as knowledge it must fulfil three
conditions namely; belief, truth and justification5. These three conditions aid in gauging
those aspects of human life that constitutes knowledge and those that are not. Bennaars

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and Njoroge concur that knowledge refers to justified true belief. They view belief as the
first step in knowledge. In this case belief is viewed as a strong conviction and not a mere
opinion. For example, if one says, he/she believes strongly and convincingly that it will
rain tonight then it shows that he/she has a very strong conviction that it has to rain. The
utterance might have been made after one seeing very thick clouds on the sky. According
to Hume, belief is a special sort of feeling. He argues that when a person compares a
proposition which he/she belief with another about which he/she has no belief, it does
seem to be true that the two propositions evoke different feelings. Benton contends that
belief manifests itself by a persons decision and the degree of confidence or hesitation
he/she has towards certain issues6. For example, parents show their belief in teachers by
sending their children to school to be taught.

The truth is the second step in determining whether something qualifies as knowledge or
not5. He highlights three ways in which the word truth might be used. First, is that the
word truth is used to show something genuine or emphasis a certain statement. For
example, following the ideas of Hospers if an individual says that he/she possesses a true
Egerton certificate then it means that he/she has a genuine Egerton certificate 7. It is not a
counterfeit certificate. He further argues that the word truth is used to stress a certain
point.

For example, if a person says that, Daniel is his/her true friend then it means that Daniel
is really a friend. Hospers goes ahead to argue that a true proposition describes the actual
state of affairs. For example, if it is a fact that one owns a mobile phone and he/she says
to another person that he/she has a mobile phone then his/her statement is true because it
correspondents with facts. Hamilton argues that sometimes the coherence of propositions
is what constitutes the truth8. For example, if twenty witnesses who do not know each
other testify independently to have seen Mr. Juma breaking into a shop last Sunday
evening and all say the same thing without having any conspiracy with one another then

8
their testimony is assumed to be the truth. Thirdly, Hospers contends that truth signifies
what works.

For example, if a driver thinks that it is a certain bolt which is faulty in his/her vehicle,
then this can be proved to be true if it is changed and the vehicle starts working.

The third requirement for anything to qualify as knowledge is justification . This implies
that if someone claims to know something to have true belief then he/she must be able to
give reasons for his/her claim. The individual concerned must have evidence to support
his claims. Shand concurs that in judging persons by their belief it is demanded that they
be justified in believing as they do and not achieve truth by lucky guesses. Benton
summarises that a belief, which is correct but based on no evidence, cannot be counted as
knowledge9. From the ongoing argument, it is explicit that an individual must be ready to
review his/her knowledge from time to time in light of new evidence. For instance, if
earlier belief held that there are eight planets in the universe while the latest discoveries
suggests otherwise, then the individual must change his/her knowledge to be in line with
the latest research discoveries. There are divergent views from various scholars on the
issue of justification.

Huemer claims that it is possible for one’s belief to be justified and true, however fail to
count as knowledge. To illustrate this point one may imagine two job applicants, Ben and
Peter10. Suppose Peter has evidence that it is Ben who will get the job. Imagine that one
of the requirements of the job is having a university degree. Peter had earlier checked
Bens documents and realised that he has a University degree. Hence Peter has strong
evidence to belief that Ben will get the job. However, supposed it was unknown to Peter
that the certificate, which Ben had, was not genuine. Possibly both of them may fail to
get the job. This is clear evidence that it does not always follow that justified true belief
yields knowledge. Shand agrees that justification is not always necessary in all issues to
qualify as knowledge11.

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There are situations when a person has knowledge without knowing completely its
source. Shand contends that this happens when the source of the evidence for our belief
is completely unrecoverable12. Shand’s argument seems to be true for facts one has
received from other people. For example, an adult might have known long time ago from
his pre-schoolteacher that Kwame Nkrumah died in 1971; it may be difficult for that
individual to identify the evidence for the teachers claim. Some other scholars view
knowledge from pragmatic perspective.

According to Teichman, real knowledge includes practical skills; human knowledge is

what works in practice. Real knowledge entails practical skills like knowing how to ride
a car, to mend a broken chair or to write. Teichman further argues that certain practical
knowledge is instinctive for instance a baby naturally knows how to suckle without any
skills13. Other authors have attempted to show the link between knowledge and
epistemology. Sadker clarifies that epistemology examines the nature and the origin of
human knowledge14. According to Stumpf epistemology is a term that is derived from
Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (account) 15. Epistemology studies the way
in which a human being knows the rules by which he/she reasons, the limits of what
he/she can know and the criteria or standards he/she uses for judging whether something
qualifies as knowledge or not. The primary purpose of epistemologists is to examine
human knowledge. Hospers affirms that epistemology examines the sources of
knowledge, its nature and various kinds16. The epistemologists critically examine issues
of knowledge as explained below.

According to Gusmano epistemologists such as Hume ask the following questions:

i) What is meant by the term knowledge?

ii) Is it possible for human beings to arrive at knowledge?
iii) If so, how is knowledge attained? Are there specific methods of discovering the truth?
iv) What is meant by the term “truth” and how is it known if one has arrived at it?

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v) Are human senses a reliable source of objective information of reality?
vi) Can the concepts of reason, logic and mathematics grasp the nature of reality?
vii) Do human beings get all of their ideas from experience or are they born with certain
ideas?
A human being is endowed with a critical mind. That explains why the epistemologists
ponder over several questions. It is this critical nature that provokes man to ask himself
or herself several questions in his or her day-to-day life. And the above-mentioned
questions are just but a few.

2.1.1 Knowledge as a Person’s Range of Information

The definition of knowledge as a “person’s range of information” is contradictory to the
previous definition of knowledge (“awareness or familiarity gained by experience”).
Whereas the latter definition confines knowledge to personal experience, the former
accepts non-experiential knowledge (i.e. rational thought).
However, it is the latter definition that is limited and debilitating (as discussed earlier),
and it is the former definition, although somewhat vague, that has the advantage of not
excluding rational thought as a means of acquiring knowledge. Once again, though, there
exists the problem of a definition of knowledge not distinguishing between truth and
falsehood. For example, a member of the public may hold information about a particular
university, but the view may be biased and based on gossip rather than on fact, yet
because this belief is clearly a part of this “person’s range of information”, then it would,
according to the above criteria, count as knowledge.

Knowledge as a “person’s range of information” presents knowledge acquisition as an

active process. Information is data that has been interpreted (either by the perceiver or
someone else) in a way that is understandable to the perceiver 17. This means that
knowledge cannot simply be given to someone, as one would give a present, but that the
receiver, in order to become knowledgeable, must become involved in the knowledge

11
acquisition process. This view is supported by definition 2a (“a theoretical or practical
understanding …”). This has clear implications for universities and web site
development: universities, if they wish to impart knowledge to the web site visitor, ought
to design their web site in such a way as to leave the visitor with an understanding of the
university’s services, culture, etc. (i.e. provide information).

2.1.2 Defining Knowledge

In essence, the above discussion produces the following criteria in establishing what
counts as knowledge:
• It must be true
• The perceiver must believe this to be the case
Suppose that a business student with no mathematical background where to memorise
Euclid’s Elements and that the student believes these mathematical statements to be
correct. According to the above two criteria the student would be knowledgeable in
Euclid’s Elements. This is patently absurd: the student, through rote-learning, has merely
memorised the Elements. He is in no position to judge their validity or otherwise. This
tells us that another criteria needs to be added to the above two criteria in order for
something to count as knowledge:

• It must be true

• The perceiver must believe this to be the case

• The perceiver must be in a position to know this to be the case.

Someone could claim to “know this to be the case” either by personal understanding (e.g.
he has a degree in mathematics) or through the word of an acclaimed expert in the field.
This third criteria also implies that for knowledge to occur, the perceiver has gone
through an active process towards acceptance of a fact (this protects against the claim
that those who merely repeat “facts” through rote-learning are acquiring knowledge:
what they are acquiring are words, remembered like a mantra, not knowledge).

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However, is there knowledge that does not meet the above three criteria? The above
conditions refer to “factual knowledge”, e.g. that man has walked on the moon. But what
about knowledge gained through experience, e.g. “practical knowledge”? An example of
this latter type of knowledge is knowledge on how to complete a research paper. Or
knowledge of how to repair a flat tyre. The three criteria for establishing knowledge is
still applicable: for instance, in the case of the research paper, what the tutor says about
completing a research paper must be true (although there may be different correct ways,
thus allowing for more than one “truth”), the student must believe this to be the case, and
she must be in a position to believe this (e.g. trusts the tutor, has followed the advice
before, understands the process, etc.).

Knowledge gained through experience, particularly practical knowledge, ought to count

as knowledge, although it also ought to be recognised that it is a different type of
knowledge from factual knowledge. What about knowledge of people, places and things?
This is sometimes referred to as “knowledge by aquaintance?” 18. If a University has an
excellent reputation in research should this count as knowledge? Yes, provided the three
criteria established earlier still hold. That is, what is being claimed is true, it is believed
to be the case, and the person making the claim is in a position to support the claim.

2.2 SCHOLARS VIEW ON KNOWLEDGE

2.2.1 The Aristotelian Theory of Knowledge
"Ancient" philosophy is often contrasted with "Modern" philosophy (i.e. philosophy from
the Enlightenment through late 19th century) by saying that the latter focused on
knowing whereas the former was concerned with being. This would misleadingly suggest
that epistemology took a backseat to metaphysics in ancient philosophy and that the
engagement with epistemology is a distinctly modern project. The philosophy of
Aristotle presents a vivid counterexample to this cliche'. To be sure, modern philosophers
did pose epistemological questions in a way which raised a partially different set of

13
questions from those with which Aristotle was concerned, but concern with the
differences between ancient and modern approaches to knowledge should not blind us to
the fact that in matters epistemological both ancients and moderns shared a wide range of
presuppositions about the nature of knowledge, and this shared core was, in effect, the
contribution of Aristotle19.

A second misunderstanding about Aristotle arises from the common pedagogical

approach of pitting Aristotle against his mentor, Plato. Against Plato's other-worldliness,
Aristotle is this worldly; against Plato's extreme rationalism, Aristotle is an empiricist.
Plato stands for the eternal universal embodied in mathematics; Aristotle for the
contingent perishable particular of biology. For example in the Renaissance, Raphael
painted "The School of Athens" with Plato pointing heavenward and Aristotle pointing
earthward. To be sure, Aristotle raises many criticisms against Plato's conception of
"Forms," but when it comes to their theories of knowledge they agreed far more than they
disagreed. The cliche's in which Aristotle is opposed to Plato should be resisted.

The heart of what it was that both Ancients and moderns shared lies in Aristotle's
contributions to logic, collected under the title of the Organon. Not only did Aristotle
basically "invent" the subject of logic as a discipline, give it its basic terminology, and set
its agenda of problems; but also he managed to say almost everything worth saying about
the subject that was said prior to the last hundred years. By the time of Descartes, two
thousand years after Aristotle lived, it had become quite fashionable to scorn Aristotle,
but Descartes' ideal of knowledge as like a vast geometry, a deductive system of
propositions proved to follow with certainty from indubitable axioms was not his
creation, but an ideal already envisioned in Aristotle's Organon, and is implicit in Plato's
"Divided Line" conception of "dianoia.".

Furthermore. Descartes and all his fellow modern philosophers right down through Kant
take it absolutely for granted that knowledge is expressed inwhat wer then called

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"judgments" (or as we would say today, in a less "mentalistic" but more "linguistic"
vocabulary. "propositions") which have the logical forms that Aristotle had classified and
named. Here Aristotle first stated the central notion that knowledge is expressed in
"propositions" or "statements" with simple subject predicate form, and that this
represents the metaphysical (or "ontological") relation between what he called "beings"
(ousia, in Greek), but which has traditionally been translated as "substances," (the
subjects of predication) and their "properties" or "attributes" (the predicates attributed to
the subject). Indeed, from the point of view of much contemporary (i.e., 20th century)
epistemology, which has relinquished the "modern" (i.e. Enlightenment) goal of
certainty, Aristotle appears to have understood the contingent nature of knowledge
acquisition (i.e. its dependence on an inductive inference from particular observations) in
a much broader and more reasonable way than the rather narrow views typical of modern
philosophers.

However, the study of Aristotelian logic is not our goal here, suffice it to say that
Aristotle recognized with perfect clarity that the logician's syllogistic demonstration of
his conclusion can provide knowledge only if it is deduced validly from true premisses.
Those premises could be known to be true if they were deduced from "higher" premises
which were known to be true, but how can these premises in their turn, be known to be
true? This question suggests a "regress" that must end in some first premiss not known by
deduction from some yet higher premiss. Aristotle calls such foundational premises
"basic truths." Thus he concludes there can be knowledge by demonstration (deduction)
only if there is knowledge of such basic truths by some other means than deduction. Like
Plato, Aristotle concludes that this knowledge takes as its object the universal form or
essence inherent in the particular primary substance.

Aristotle agrees with Plato that knowledge is of what is true and that this truth must be
justified in a way which shows that it must be true, it is necessarily true. Since physical
particulars, the "beings" or "substances" of which reality is composed can change, the

15
object of knowledge cannot be the particular, but must be of that which is "universal."
When I know "Fido is a dog." I know by sensory observation an individual particular
perishable substance, the dog "Fido." But in knowing he is a dog, what I know, the object
of my knowledge, is the universal, "Dogness" which is found not only in Fido, but also
millions of other substances; it is the "commensurate universal" that which all the
particulars exhibiting a form have in common. This is the form, so again Aristotle agrees
with Plato that the object of knowledge is the universal form or, as it came to be known,
"essence" or "essential nature" (Barnes, 1984)

However, the Aristotelian form differs from the Platonic in that it is absolutely in the
substance (in Latin, "in rem" as opposed to the Platonic "ante re" signifying Plato's view
that the form's existence is independent of the physical particular), so there is nothing
"other worldly" about the object of knowledge for Aristotle (Barnes, 1984). Furthermore,
also unlike Plato, in Aristotle there is no putting down of sensory perception as a
hindrance (almost) to knowledge, in order to elevate the mental. I become acquainted
with the form in the substance directly, or "immediately"; I see the dogness in Fido. Thus
it is through the senses that we begin to gain knowledge of the form which makes the
substance the particular substance it is. But while the process begins with sensory
perception, genuine "knowledge" is not delivered simply in the act of perception, but
rather is attained only in the "judgment" that what I perceive has this particular form.
From the memory records of repeated perceptions, Aristotle tells us, "experience" is born.
[Note that this Aristotelian definition of "experience" as requiring the miind's ability to
somehow find what is common in the memory's records is altogether different from the
way the same word is used in Enlightenment philosophy, which opposes that which we
know "by experience" to that which is known by the "mind."] By definition, the
judgments of "experience" are of the universal; by experience I know the particular Fido
I perceive is a dog, i.e. that Fido has in himself the form of "Dogness" which is not
particular to him but universal to all dogs, that which they all share in common and in

16
virtue of which they are dogs and known as dogs; it is the "essential nature" of what-it-is-
to-be-a-dog. In a particular sensation I am aware of the sensory particular labeled "Fido,"
but my knowledge that he is a "dog" is not given by the senses but by the mental act of
judging the particular sensations by which I am aware of Fido to be sensations of a dog, a
judgment which is made possible only by "experience" of what is common, i.e. universal,
in the memory's records of its sensations of many particular dogs. The "organ" that
apprehends the universal in experience is not the senses, but nous, i.e., "mind,"
specifically that "faculty" of the mind which comes to be called "rational intuition"
signifying what is "given directly" to the mind.

The judgments which form the foundations of all scientific knowledge, the basic truths,
are propositions expressing the nature of the form which is known only through
experience. Thus Aristotle seems like a modern empiricist in holding that through
experience, we come to know the basic truths of each particular science (and then
deduction takes over from there), but those basic truths take as their objects the forms or
essences which are apprehended by the mind, not the particular sensations of the senses.
The process of knowledge acquisition begins in sensation of the particular, but arrives at
its goal only with the mind's grasp of the commensurate universal. Thus while Aristotle's
epistemology certainly has greater respect for experience than does Plato's, it is not an
empiricism of the sort associated with modern philosophers who sought to make the
sensory perceptions themselves the foundations of knowledge.

The division of primary substances follows the pattern of a genus-species hierarchy, in a

way already made familiar in Plato's methodology, and very probably "invented" by the
historical Socrates. At the bottom are the lowest level species (these are called "infimae
species") which are classes of certain "natural kinds" whose members are many primary
substances, all sharing a common form or essence. But each lowest level form is what it
is because of the higher forms which participate in it, in the fashion of a pyramidal
hierarchy already familiar in biology. Fido has in him the form of dogness, but dogness

17
includes the higher essential natures of mammal, animal, living thing, etc. Thus
knowledge of the forms of the infimae species leads to knowledge of more general forms,
on up, until we arrive at the apprehension of the basic truths about all being, i.e.
metaphysics. These most basic of all truths in turn make primary substances what they
are; they are the justifiers. All judgements which express those properties which are
predicate of a substance essentially are the "basic truths" appropriate to the knowledge of
the "science" which concerns substances of that form. While the process of knowledge
acquisition (ordo cognescendi) moves from sensation to the mind's grasp of the form, in
the order of being (ordo essendi) truths about the highest level forms justify the lower
level. Thus Aristotle's whole epistemology turns on his metaphysics of primary
substances which are what they are because of the forms or natural essences they
embody.

Aristotle's theory of forms is also tied up with his view that we have scientific knowledge
of a primary substance only when we know what are usually called its "causes." The
Greek word, aitia, which is translated as "causes" is probably better rendered as "that
which explains." What this means is that what we know is known only if we are able to
explain why our judgment is true, in our epistemological vocabulary, to "justify" it. Thus
if the essence of being a dog includes being a quadruped, we are able to explain Fido's
four legs by appeal to the form of dogness which is in him. So knowledge of the form or
essence is in effect knowledge of the thing's causes, of what explains why it is what it is.
In this way Aristotle's theory of knowledge is integrated with his metaphysics.

A full account of the Aristotelian account of the "causes" of a primary substance would
require a complete tour through Aristotelian metaphysics, which is beyond present
purposes. For epistemological purposes we need only note that the usual listing of the
causes as of four different kinds does not conflict with what has been said about the
Aristotelian theory of forms or essential natures as the objects of knowledge. Scholars are
very far from agreement over Aristotle's view of the "causes", but the usual

18
categorization which came down through history is the formal cause (i.e. the form in the
substance), the agent or "efficient" cause (i.e. the being which brought this being into
existence, the "creator" from which it comes), the final or teleological cause (i.e. the goal
or purpose (telos) towards which it "moves"), and the material cause (i.e. that which
"individuates" this particular substance from the other substances which are members of
this infimae species).

In the development of his metaphysics on the one hand Aristotle's conception of the
forms as "entelechies" ultimately identifies both the agent cause and the final cause with
the form in the substance. The material cause as that which is purely particular and
exhibits no form whatsoever, totally unformed matter or "prime matter" becomes entirely
unknowable.

Thus the conclusion of Aristotle's metaphysics is that -as a necessary and sufficient
condition for "knowledge"- we have knowledge of the basic truths of a "science"
concerned with the primary substances of a certain natural kind if and only if the mind
(from experience of memories provided by sensation) grasps the universal form common
to all substances of that natural kind.

2.2.2 Plato Theory of Knowledge

Plato believed that there are truths to be discovered; that knowledge is possible.
Moreover, he held that truth is not, as the Sophists thought, relative. Instead, it is
objective; it is that which our reason, used rightly, apprehends. Through his systematic
philosophy, he developed a formidable rejection of skepticism, the view that we lack
knowledge in some fundamental way.

Believing and Knowing

For Plato, there is a distinction between believing and knowing. Since there are objective
truths to be known, we may believe X, but belief alone does not guarantee we are correct.

19
There are three necessary and sufficient conditions, according to Plato, for one to have
knowledge: (1) the proposition must be believed; (2) the proposition must be true; and (3)
the proposition must be supported by good reasons, which is to say, you must be justified
in believing it. Thus, for Plato, knowledge is justified, true belief.

Reason and the Forms

Since truth is objective, our knowledge of true propositions must be about real things.
According to Plato, these real things are Forms. Their nature is such that the only mode
by which we can know them is rationality. Forms are the eternal and immutable
blueprints or models for everything that is. Consequently, they are more real than their
particulars.

Because the Forms make particulars possible, they explain what is—we can understand
what is by understanding the Forms. We can also extrapolate from particulars to get
closer to contemplating the Forms. This extrapolation process is made possible by the
way that reason works.

Unlike the senses, which can only tell us about this or that sensation, reason can think
both about particulars and general concepts. Since the Forms are the most general things
there are, the only way we can consider them is by way of our rationality. Moreover,
Plato holds that our souls learned about the Forms before we were born, so we already
know them—we have innate knowledge that needs to be elicited through the Socratic
method.

Plato’s Rationalism

Following Parmenides, Plato privileges rationalism over empiricism, or reason over the
senses, as the way we know. Unaided by the senses, reason will come to contemplate the
Forms.

20
 REFERENCES

1
The Concise Oxford Dictionary Ed. by D. Thomson, 9th edn, Oxford University Press,
BCA, St Ives, England, 1998. p.753.
2
Hume, D. Enquiries concerning the Human Understanding and the Principles of Morals,
ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford, 1957..
3
Gibson, J. Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and its Historical Relations, Cambridge,
England, 1968.
4
Yolton, J. W. Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding, Cambridge, 1970.
5
P.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind. Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell, 1990
6
Bennaars, G.A. Ethics, Education and Development. Nairobi: East African Educational
Publishers, 1993.
7
J. Hospers, Philosophical Analysis. London: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
8
Hamilton, C. Understanding Philosophy. London: Nelson Thorns, 2003.
9
Ibid.
10
Russell, B. A History of Western Philosophy, Unwin Hyman, London, 1988.
11
Op. Cit. Gibson
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
Locke, J. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Dent, London.
15
Ibid.
16
Op. Cit. Hospers, 1983, p.67
17
Sajama, S. and Kamppinen, M. A Historical Introduction to Phenomenology, Croom
Helm, New York, 1987.

21
18
Gettier, E. L. Knowledge and Belief, ed. by Phillips Griffiths, Oxford, 1967, pp.144-
146.
19
A Dictionary of Philosophy Ed. by Antony Flew, Pan Reference, Reading, 1983.
CHAPTER THREE

CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION OF SPINOZA'S LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE

3.1 LIFE HISTORY OF SPINOZA

The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) ranks as a major thinker in the
rationalist tradition, and his Ethics is a classic of Western philosophy. In his writings the
crucial issues of metaphysics are exemplified more clearly than in any thinker since
Plato.

Baruch, or Benedict, Spinoza was born on Nov. 24, 1632, in Amsterdam, where his
family had settled after fleeing religious persecution in Portugal. His grandfather,
Abraham, was the acknowledged leader of the Jewish community, and his father was a
successful merchant and active in civic affairs. Michael Spinoza had three children, of
whom the future philosopher was the only son. Spinoza's mother died when he was 6,
and his father and one sister died by the time he was in his early 20s. Little is precisely
known about his early education except that biblical and Talmudic texts were studied at
the synagogue school and that the young Spinoza showed a facility for languages and
eventually mastered Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and German. In
1656 Spinoza was expelled by his congregation on charges of atheism. The edict asked
for God to curse him and warned "that none may speak with him by word of mouth, nor
by writing, nor show any favor to him, nor be under one roof with him."1 The philosopher
responded with calm detachment and Christianized his name to Benedict.

For the next 4 years Spinoza worked as a teacher in a private academy in Amsterdam run
by Francis van den Ende, a former Jesuit, a doctor, and a political activist. His future

22
interests in mathematics, physics, and politics supposedly stem from this period. From
1660 to 1663 he lived near Leiden among a free religious sect who called themselves
Collegiants, and there he wrote Principles of Cartesianism, Short Treatise on God, Man
and His Well-being, and the first book of Ethics.

Spinoza then moved to a suburb of The Hague, where he worked as a lens grinder. The
Ethics was completed between 1670 and 1675. In 1670 he anonymously published his
Theological-Political Treatise. In addition to these not very extensive writings, Spinoza
conducted a large correspondence with various scientists and philosophers. Two of the
most important were Henry Oldenburg, the first secretary of the British Royal Society,
and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, who visited him in 1676. Three years previously
Spinoza had declined a professorship at the University of Heidelberg in order to preserve
his "freedom of philosophizing"2. The same intellectual integrity is seen also in a letter to
a former student who accused Spinoza of intellectual presumption. While acknowledging
that he had not written the best philosophy, he stated "I do know that I think the true
one." Spinoza died in The Hague on Feb. 20, 1677, of consumption aggravated by
inhaling dust while polishing lenses.

Spinoza died peacefully in his rented room in The Hague in 1677. He left no will, but the
manuscripts of his unpublished works the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, the
Ethics, the Hebrew Grammar, and the Political Treatise along with his correspondence—
were found in in his desk. These were immediately shipped to Amsterdam for
publication, and in short order they appeared in print as B.D.S. Opus Posthuma. But even
in death Spinoza could not escape controversy; in 1678, these works were banned
throughout Holland.

3.1.1 Spinoza's Level of Knowledge

With this distinction between adequate and inadequate perception in place, Spinoza
introduces a set of further distinctions. He begins with inadequate perception, which he

23
now calls knowledge of the first kind, and divides it into two parts. The first consists of
knowledge from random experience (experientia vaga). This is knowledge “from singular
things which have been represented to us through the senses in a way which is mutilated,
confused, and without order for the intellect” 3. The second consists of knowledge from
signs (ex signis), “for example, from the fact that, having heard or read certain words, we
recollect things, and form certain ideas of them, like those through which we imagine the
things”4. What links both of these forms of knowledge is that they lack a rational order. It
is obvious that knowledge from random experience follows the order of the affections of
the human body, but so does knowledge from signs. A Roman who hears the word
‘pomum‘, for instance, will think of an apple, not because there is any rational
connection between the word and the object, but only because they have been associated
in his or her experience.

When we reach what Spinoza calls the second kind of knowledge, reason (ratio), we have
ascended from an inadequate to an adequate perception of things. This type of knowledge
is gained “from the fact that we have common notions and adequate ideas of the
properties of things”5. What Spinoza has in mind here is what was just indicated, namely,
the formation of adequate ideas of the common properties of things and the movement by
way of deductive inference to the formation of adequate ideas of other common
properties. Unlike in the case of knowledge of the first kind, this order of ideas is
rational.

We might think that in attaining this second kind of knowledge we have attained all that
is available to us. However, Spinoza adds a third type, which he regards as superior. He
calls this intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) and tells us that it “proceeds from an
adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate
knowledge of the [formal] essence of things” 6. Unfortunately, Spinoza is once again
obscure at a crucial junction, and it is difficult to know what he has in mind here. He
seems to be envisioning a type of knowledge that gives insight into the essence of some

24
singular thing together with an understanding of how that essence follows of necessity
from the essence of God. Furthermore, the characterization of this kind of knowledge as
intuitive indicates that the connection between the individual essence and the essence of
God is grasped in a single act of apprehension and is not arrived at by any kind of
deductive process. How this is possible is never explained.

Problems of obscurity aside, we can still see something of the ideal at which Spinoza is
aiming. Inadequate ideas are incomplete. Through them we perceive things without
perceiving the causes that determine them to be, and it is for this reason that we imagine
them to be contingent. What Spinoza is offering with the third kind of knowledge is a
way of correcting this. It is important to note, however, that he is not proposing that we
can have this knowledge with respect to the durational existence of any particular item.
As we have already seen, this would require having ideas of all of the temporal causes of
a thing, which are infinite. Rather, he is proposing that we can have it with respect to the
essence of a singular thing as it follows from the essence of God. To have this kind of
knowledge is to understand the thing as necessary rather than contingent. It is, to use
Spinoza’s famous phrase, to regard it sub quadam specie aeternitatis, under a certain
aspect of eternity.

3.2 THE FIRST KIND OF KNOWLEDGE

Spinoza defines the first kind of knowledge as the lowest or most inadequate kind. It is
also the natural way humans have knowledge. The first kind of knowledge is humanity’s
perspective on reality. Spinoza, echoing Parmenides’ distinction between aletheia, or
truth, and doxa, calls it opinion. The first kind of knowledge is also the only source of
falsity7.

Imagination

25
For Spinoza, the human being is a singular thing, which means that it has a finite and
determined existence8. From one perspective, the human is a mind or thinking thing. The
human mind both has ideas and is itself an idea. From another perspective, the human is
also an extended thing, or a finite and determined body. The human body is both
composed of a great many bodies and is affected by a great many other bodies. The
human mind and all its thoughts think nothing but the human body, the bodies that go to
compose it, and the bodies that affect it 9. The human mind is the idea of the human body
and it involves and expresses through all of its ideas all the bodies that compose its body
and all the bodies that cause, affect, and determine it. The mind, in its naturally
determined singularity, thinks nothing but its body’s affections. Affections are the states
or conditions of a body’s reaction to another body’s affecting it. They are the ways both
how our body reacts to being affected and how our mind thinks such reactions. From the
perspective of the body, affections are usually expressions of receptivity, reactivity,
passivity, and weakening on the part of the affected body. Affections are also feelings.
Spinoza defines affections in terms of the physical affects, which are the ways the body
becomes either stronger or weaker, or more joyful or sad 10. Usually, one’s affections
enslave one to a passive existence defined by a diminishing of one’s drive to persevere
through forming greater and stronger compositions with other stronger bodies. From the
perspective of the mind, affections are images of its affected body (and its increase or
decrease in active power or freedom) and the bodies that affect it. Even though affections
are things reactively received, they are also those thoughts through which the mind can
posit as present the actual existence of its own affected body and all the bodies that affect
it. As images, affections are still, even while passively received, essentially positive.
Spinoza writes, “the affections of the human body whose ideas present external bodies as
present to us, we shall call images of things…and when the mind regards bodies in this
way, we shall say that it imagines”11.

26
Now, for Spinoza, the human mind has knowledge of the singular existence of anybody
insofar as it imagines it. The problem, however, is that any knowledge based on passive
affections, or images, is a partial, confused, mutilated (or fragmented), and inadequate
knowledge. “Insofar as the human mind imagines an external body, it does not have an
adequate knowledge of it”12. Any idea, which is itself also an image, of an affection that
is an image of an affected or affecting body inadequately expresses the true nature of
such bodies. An image is inadequate, an inadequate idea, because it expresses only a
confused and mutilated understanding of how a body affects another and what a body
essentially is as a self-causal and affecting entity. For a body to imagine other bodies as
actively, affectively, and causally determining the form of its existence is for a body to
betray its own very minimal ability to be active, affective, and causal itself. Imagination
is, therefore, submission to external determination. Through the imagination, a singular
mind and body is defined solely by how other bodies determine its existence. The
inadequacy of imagining is an expression of mental and physical weakness, for it is only
a partial explanation of how bodies are essentially active and self-causally striving for an
enhanced perseverance13. An inadequate knowledge a knowledge that merely posits as
presently existing externally affective bodies and one’s own passively affected body is a
weak knowledge and, for Spinoza, is thus the very definition of falsity.

As long as I am merely receiving my affections and passively imagining the bodies that
affect me, I express an inadequate and false knowledge of things. As long as I merely
imagine bodies, I am not internally self-determining and explicitly expressive of the truly
self-causal and active essence of all things and myself. Images are like the scars or traces
bodies leave on me as they batter me because of my mental and physical sadness and
weakness. Images are “like conclusions without premises”14. By merely imagining
bodies, I am enslaved to the common order of Nature, with its incessantly active,
functioning, and self-causally moving bodies. By being so enslaved I understand
Nature’s common order not in its inherently intellectual rationality, but rather as the

27
fortuitous run of circumstance one endures through casual, vague, and random
experiences. It is important to emphasize, however, that the positivity implicit in false
ideas cannot be the cause of their falsity, and that falsity does not involve a total privation
of knowledge. Images are not non-beings devoid of all expressive content. Falsity is still
an expression of the fact that all singular things exist; it is just that it is the weakest way
of knowing this fact. In other words, inadequacy is the lowest degree of actual and active
knowing and existing for Spinoza. Falsity is the poorest way of knowing God or Nature,
that is, the poorest way it knows itself.

Spinoza defines a few other characteristics of the falsity of the first kind of knowledge.
Affections, or images, are the sensations through which singular beings think and feel
their externally determined bodies. Knowledge that stems entirely from sense perception
is inadequate and false. Sense perception also defines a kind of knowing that forms only
fictitious ideas of things15. These fictions are uncertain ideas of what constitutes the
essential and necessary existence of things. Knowledge of the first kind is also
knowledge based on signs and hearsay. Signs and hearsay, along with all knowledge
based on memory, give us knowledge of “almost everything that is of practical use in
life”16. The good and common sense that makes every day experiences and relations
possible involve neither the clarity and distinctness nor the internal and self-causal
adequacy that the truth requires. Instead, an everyday human existence is defined by a
collective opining on the part of a multitude of singular beings that do not have the
rational strength to overcome their enslavement to partially expressing through
fragmented and confused ideas their passivity and externally determined existence.

Prejudice and Superstition

One of Spinoza’s favorite examples of falsity is the illusion of free will that is so often
propagated by the mutilated imagination of human beings. It is a natural prejudice of
humans to assume they have liberty. Spinoza writes, “men are deceived in that they think

28
themselves free [i.e., they think that, of their own free will, they can either do a thing or
forbear doing it], an opinion which consists only in this, that they are conscious of their
actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined”17. Humans imagine they
get to make choices because their knowledge is an inadequate expression of what
actually determines them to do everything they do, which includes them imagining they
have free will. Spinoza is a thinker of determinism and necessitarianism. Humans are
necessarily determined to be prejudicial and not know why or how. It is natural law, for
Spinoza, that “men are born ignorant of the causes of things”. Spinoza next notes that
humans often turn their prejudicial assumption of free will into the dogma of divine
choice. Humans take their imaginary freedom based on contingency and possibility and
apply it to a transcendent creator of the entire universe. The human image of God is of a
being with an omnipotent reservoir of choices. Because humans find such an image
staggering they are terrified they may choose something (namely, a form of worship) that
God either has not himself chosen or that he has deemed to be morally reprehensible.
Humans thus allow their prejudicial free will to congeal into a superstitious obsession
with the impenetrable and inexhaustible free will of God. All of this is grossly inadequate
and false, for Spinoza, for it merely doubles the error of free will and enslaves singular
beings to an almost complete irrationality.

Miracles, Prophecy, and Revelation

Another example of falsity that Spinoza gives is an extension of prejudice and

superstition. It is the religious instinct to believe in the miraculous and prophetic, both of
which depend upon the imagined reception of the revelation of God’s free choices. In the
case of miracles, the necessity of natural laws is broken by an ultimately unknowable
divine decision. Once again, humans explain away their ignorance of the causes that
determine them by imagining a substantial interruption in the natural order of things.
While a miracle is imagined to provide humans with what they perceive to be an
advantage, an omen is the negative counterpart to a miracle, but it still expresses the

29
same falsity. Certain types of humans take advantage, for political purposes, of the
inadequacy of the prejudicial and superstitious nature of those who are susceptible to
believing in miracles and omens that is, the multitude by declaring their own ability to
receive directly the revelation of the immediate results of God’s choices and commands.
These beings are prophets and priests, and prophecy for Spinoza is nothing but a clever
way of exploiting and disciplining the multitude through the use of an agile and vivid
imagination. For Spinoza, “revelation has occurred through images alone”, which means
that all religions based on revelation are essentially false. Revelation is an utterly
inadequate and inappropriate way of understanding God.

3.3 THE SECOND KIND OF KNOWLEDGE

In light of the passive and inadequate state of our everyday knowledge and existence,
beset as we are by an external determination of our singular existence by all the bodies
we confusedly imagine as affecting us, Spinoza aims to establish the ways in which we
can overcome our falsity and weakness and come to have an adequate and active
knowledge. The first step to becoming adequate for Spinoza is for one to actively and
reflexively shift one’s perspective away from the imagination to that of the rational
powers inherent to the intellect. This self-activation of the intellect occurs through the
formation of common notions, which are concepts that express the universal properties of
all things.

Intellection

Spinoza never supplied a clear-cut definition of the intellect. He appears to offer three
different kinds of intellects. One is simply our finite mind. Another is the immediately
caused and infinite in kind modal intellect that is common to and shared by all finite
intellects. And there is a third kind of intellect that is God’s absolutely infinite and
indivisibly self-causal thinking of himself, or the attribute of thought itself that goes to
define God’s essential existence. These three intellects are implicit in each other as they

30
are taken from their own explicit perspectives. From the explicit perspective of the finite
intellect, for example, the imagination constitutes the vast majority of one’s thoughts,
even though, Spinoza argues, implicit to a finite thinking is the infinite in kind thinking
of which it is a part and the indivisibly infinite thinking it truly and essentially is. In order
to emend our finite intellect so that it is no longer enslaved to imagining, but instead
conceives what is implicit to its thinking, Spinoza shows us how to reflect upon the very
nature of our minds and find what it is about it that we know with a fair degree of
certainty. By reflecting upon our imagination we cannot but notice that imagining is the
way we necessarily think in our usual condition and that we, even prior to noting that we
are necessarily imagining beings, also notice that we are necessarily things that think. It
is through this reflection upon the natural necessity of the inadequacy of our thinking that
we begin to affirm with a certain clarity and distinctness something essential about
ourselves as thinking things and so shift our perspective away from only explicitly
imagining. For Spinoza, it follows from the necessity of the order of Nature that human
beings inadequately imagine all that affects them and thus also imagine all of what they
think18. But it is this very thought of the necessity of our being singular entities that
inadequately imagine that activates the powers of our intellect. By intellectually
affirming the natural necessity that we as imagining beings are determined from without
and follow a natural order, we can thereby come to know and internally affirm our own
essential necessity in light of this order. The activation of the finite intellect is also the
self-ordering of the affections or images that usually constitute a finite mind. To
intellectually order one’s affections in the way they are necessarily and naturally
determined is to begin to know both the conditions for their being caused and what in fact
causes them as so many modes that follow and flow from an infinite mode of God.

An active finite intellect is a mind that knows that it falsely imagines the bodies that
affect it. But to know one’s falsity truly for Spinoza is for one to know the truth because
the truth is the standard both of itself and falsity 19. By reflecting on such a slight

31
enhancement of knowledge, a finite intellect can increase its activity even more by
beginning to understand the necessity and natural order it now knows it follows, and now
orders its affection in accordance with, as being something of which it is a part and mode.
For a mind, as it begins to actively conceive of its nature as a way Nature necessarily
functions and follows from itself, it can begin to use its intellective capacities to know the
essence of the infinite thinking that must be common to it and that it must be a way or
mode of in order to be a thinking thing at all. For a body, as it begins to actively affect
and determine the bodies that were formerly affecting and determining it, it can begin to
compose greater composites of other bodies with these bodies it now determines and so
strengthen its own essential activity and joy. In order for both the mind and the body to
do this, what is common to all singular beings must be adequately known and conceived.

Common Notions

Spinoza argues that what is common to all singular things cannot constitute the essence
merely of one or an indefinite amount of particular things, but rather must be “equally in
the part and the whole” of all singular things. This is because “those things which are
common to all, and which are equally in the part and in the whole, can only be conceived
adequately”20. The question is then, what is common to all singular things? If the intellect
is activated through an affirmation of the necessity of the natural order of determinations
it is a part of, it becomes even more active if it can conceive what all intellects must
constitute as the entire or whole order of thinking itself. What is common to all finite
intellects is an infinite intellect of which they are all modes and parts. For a finite
intellect to conceive of the whole infinite intellect that it goes to compose, and thus is a
way that it modifies itself, is for it to render its thinking adequate. The adequacy of
conceiving what is common to all finite thinking is an expression of truth, or clarity and
distinctness, for Spinoza.

32
All singularly thinking things agree in certain respects. One way they all agree is that
they are all determined to imagine affections. Another is the simple fact that they all
think. And another is that they all modify both an infinite in kind thinking, which is the
inherent unity of all thinking as it is immediately caused by God, and also an indivisibly
infinite thinking, which is God’s absolute thought of himself. All intellects are modes of
an infinite intellect conceivable both as an immediately caused unity of finite intellects
and an indivisible identity of all intellectual activity as being one absolutely infinite and
eternally self-causal thinking. Spinoza argues that the common notion of the infinite
intellect from both its infinite in kind, immediately caused and indivisibly infinite, self-
causal perspectives is “common to all men”, which also means that it is inherent to the
finite intellects of all singular beings. Every thinking thing cannot but implicitly think
what is common to it, what it shares with other thinking things, what it is a part of, what
it is essentially a unity of, and what it essentially is as a way God thinks himself. The
process whereby a finite intellect thinks its inherent common notions is the active
becoming of its explicit expression of the truth of all thinking things. The common notion
the finite intellect adequately expresses as it becomes increasing active and self-
determined is the clear and distinct idea of the immediate and infinite in kind intellect it
modifies by being a part of it and the attribute of thought it modifies as an indivisible
way God modifies itself.

There is another common notion implicit to an activated and adequate finite intellect, and
it is a conception of what is common to all singular bodies. Insofar as all thoughts are
actually the bodies and affections they think because of Spinoza’s doctrine of the parallel
identity of thoughts and bodies, the common notions of the infinite intellect and the
attribute of thought are also clear and distinct conceptions of the immediate and infinite
in kind mode of extension and extension itself. It is of the nature of bodies first of all to
be extended things. Secondly, it is of the nature of all extended things to indefinitely
compose with and decompose each other. All bodies agree in that they are all each both

33
parts of a larger whole and themselves wholes with parts. The fact that all bodies are
alive for Spinoza leads this compositional structure of all bodies to be constantly in flux.
Therefore, what is also common to all bodies, along with being extended composites, is
the fact that they are all moving at different speeds. To be a singular body is to be an
indefinitely composing and decomposing extended composite that speeds up or slows
down. Spinoza calls the immediate and infinite in kind mode of extension “motion and
rest.” Motion and rest is the whole or unity of all bodies conceived as one individual
body that is all the degrees of compositional movement. All singular bodies are modes of
motion and rest, which is itself the immediate and infinite in kind mode of the indivisibly
infinite and absolutely self-modifying attribute of extension, or what Spinoza calls Nature
naturing (natura naturans). Motion and rest parallels the infinite in kind intellect, and
both are in essence the attributes they immediately modify and follow from, which is
God’s indivisibly self-causal essence.

Reason

Spinoza next needs to show us how we can conceive of these common notions through
our affections. For Spinoza, we are very affected. The more we are affected the more we
think, but usually imagine, what affects us. But now we know how to adequately
conceive of the true nature, the essential properties, of all singular things. Through
common notions we can open ourselves up to a plethora of affections without becoming
enslaved to them because of our reflexive and perspectival ability to know the necessity
and intellectual order of all things, that is, to know all things either as ways an infinite
intellect thinks or as ways the whole of Nature compositionally moves. To be active and
affirmative toward one’s affections is to use reason to understand how they determine
one to exist. But reason is not merely a calm reception of affections. Through an
adequate conception and utilization of the reasoning power of the common notions one
can become the active cause of all of what one is affected by. The power to be affectively
causal in one’s own right is reason’s ability to make us truly free. True freedom, for

34
Spinoza, is the affirmative following of divine or natural necessity. By being rational one
can control and order all of one’s affections by conceiving what it truly common to what
one is affected by and thus thinks. To open oneself up to an indefinite amount of
affections, and yet still rationally control one’s reactions to them, is to actually compose
with all such bodies by forming a greater, stronger, and more joyful whole. Through a
rational use of the implicit truth and power of the common notions inherent to the
intellect one can become the very means through which the unity, and even more the
absolute indivisibility, of God or Nature can be intuitively affirmed and embodied
through one’s own essential existence.

3.4 THE THIRD KIND OF KNOWLEDGE

If the truth and adequacy of the common notions activate our intellectual capacity to
rationally control our emotions and causally determine the bodies around us to enter into
greater and stronger compositions, thereby liberating us into the absolute necessity of
God’s natural and lawful order, then it is the intuition, the intuitive knowledge and
embodiment, of this truth that will make us eternally wise and blessed. Blessedness
consists in loving God with the love whereby he loves himself, and to intellectually love
God not only gives us a blessed existence, it also gives us eternal joy. With the third kind
of knowledge, knowledge is solely sub specie aeternitatis21.

Intuition

Spinoza defines the third kind of knowledge as a “kind of knowing that proceeds from an
adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate
knowledge of the [formal] essence of things”23. The second kind of knowledge supplies
us with the adequate idea that all singular things must be unified into something
immediately caused by God (the infinite in kind and immediate modes) and that all
singular things are modes of certain attributes of God (thought and extension). With the
third kind of knowledge we can know an attribute not merely through a common notion,

35
but as the essential existence itself of God’s indivisible infinity and eternal necessity. The
third kind of knowledge is the knowledge that knows the essence of each and every thing
as a way that God causes himself to exist. Knowing a singular thing without the explicit
mediation of knowing what it composes into or is as a part of an immediate causal order
and connection, is to know it intuitively as simply being a way God eternally and
infinitely exists. Intuition is intellectual knowledge taken beyond the immediacy of the
infinite in kind. Intuition is more immediate than immediacy; it is affirmative
identification, the absolutely self-reflexive identification and knowledge of God and his
modes through oneself. Intuition is the absolute affirmation of the natural and necessary
eternity of God’s attributes as essentially being the singular things he expresses of
himself. Intuition is the knowledge that all things are one thing that God is, that all his
attributes are the modes with which he modifies himself. We can know through the
essence of singular things that the certain attributes they modify are also the indivisibility
of all of God’s attributes, insofar as “no attribute of substance can be truly conceived
from which it follows that substance can be divided” 24. Intuition is what allows us to
know not merely the attributes we modify, but to know both ourselves as the attributes
we modify and all the attributes themselves as being the essential existence of all things
that is God. In other words, intuition allows us to know all the attributes as the ways God
is one indivisible and absolutely immanent entity. Through an intuition of God’s essence
one can know the infinity and eternity of one’s own mind and body. To shift one’s
perspective to that of God’s is to conceive of the eternal aspect of all things and to
intuitively see oneself through God’s absolute perfection and power.

Love and Blessedness

For Spinoza, to intuit God is to love God. The intuition of God is the intellectual love of
his essential existence, with love being that power of intuition that makes intellection (the
exercise of the intellect) more immediate than the immediacy known through the
common notions of the second kind of knowledge. Love is defined, on the one hand, as

36
“joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause”, but, on the other hand, with the
intellectual love of God the idea of the cause of such joy is more an internal cause than an
external one because through the third kind of knowledge one knows absolutely that God
constitutes one’s own essential existence25. In a finite sense, joy is an increase in
perfection, but the joy involved in the intellectual love of God is almost an identification
of one’s love with God’s very absolute perfection, or infinite self-love. God’s absolute
self-love is his indivisibly infinite and eternal self-causal power to essentially exist as all
things. The third kind of knowledge, intuitive knowledge, loves this self-love in the way
that it loves itself. The intellectual love of God is the absolute knowledge of all the ways
one can know God and all the ways God knows himself as an infinity of ways he
conceives and loves his own truth for all eternity. It is with the aid of the affective power
of reason that our liberation into true necessity is affirmed even more intensely as we
come to embody the freedom to conceive of the universe from its own eternally living
and infinitely natural perspective of absolute perfection, power, and reality.

The third kind of knowledge endows us with a kind of immortality. It is not that we exist
in our perceived or imagined finite form for all eternity, because all finite bodies and the
ideas and affections of them decompose, but that we exist eternally by shifting our
perspective and our knowledge to that of the infinity and eternity of God’s indivisibly
physical self-conception and self-knowledge. Spinoza writes, “Insofar as our mind knows
itself and the body under a species of eternity, it necessarily has knowledge of God, and
knows that it is in God and is conceived through God” 26. To intuit God through an
intellectual love of his essential existence, and thereby conceive all things from his
eternal perspective, is to render our adequate knowledge and rational freedom truly
divine. Blessedness is the virtue, rarity, excellence, and power of our absolute knowledge
of God’s absolute knowledge. Absolute knowledge is thus divine wisdom.

37
 REFERENCES

1
Magnusson, M. (ed.), Spinoza Baruch, Chambers Biographical Dictionary, Chambers
1990.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Curley, Edwin, “Experience in Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge” in Spinoza: A
Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene, (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday/Anchor Press, 1973), 25-59.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
Floistad, Guttorm, “Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge in the Ethics” in Spinoza: A
Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene, (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday/Anchor Press, 1973), 101-127.
8
Parkinson, G. H. R., Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954).
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Curley, Edwin, Filippo Magnini, and W. N. A Klever (eds). Spinoza’s Epistemology,
vol.2 of Studia Spinozana. (Hanover: Walther & Walther Verlag, 1986).
14
De Dijn, Herman. Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom. (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue
University Press, 1996).
15
Lloyd, Genevieve, Part of Nature: Self-Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics. (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1994).
16
Garrett, Don, “Representation and Consciousness in Spinoza’s Naturalistic Theory of
the Imagination” in Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays, ed. Charlie Huenemann,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 4.
17
Op. Cit. Curley, p.28

38
18
Garret, Don, “Spinoza,” in A Companion to Epistemology, ed. Ernest Sosa and Jonathan
Dancy, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), 488-490.
19
Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. (San Francisco: City Lights Books,
1988).
20
Wilson, Margaret D., “Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion
to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 89.
21
Huenemann, Charlie, “Epistemic Autonomy in Spinoza,” in Interpreting Spinoza:
Critical Essays, ed. Charlie Huenemann, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 94-110.
22
Mark, Thomas Carson. Spinoza’s Theory of Truth. (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1972).
23
Parkinson, G. H. R., “Language and Knowledge in Spinoza” in Spinoza: A Collection
of Critical Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday/Anchor Press,
1973), 73-100.
24
Op. Cit. Wilson, p.90
25
Ibid

39
 CHAPTER FOUR

EXPOSITION OF SPINOZA'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

4.1 SPINOZA’S THEORY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

In order to comprehend Spinoza’s account of human knowledge, one has to understand

how Spinoza distinguishes between adequate and inadequate ideas. But even more
fundamentally, what is an idea for Spinoza? Spinoza defines ‘idea’ as “a concept of the
mind, which the mind forms because it is a thinking thing” 1, explaining that he
intentionally uses the word ‘concept’ rather than ‘perception’ since the former “seems to
express an action of the mind” rather than a mind that is acted on by the object, as seems
to be the case with perception. For Spinoza, having knowledge or having ideas involves
some sort of mental activity, and even though Spinoza seems to use several terms as
equivalent to ‘idea’ throughout Part II—including ‘perception’—he never departs from
the notion that having ideas involves some sort of mental activity 2.
The reason why every idea involves mental activity is because every idea involves some
kind of affirmation or negation. Spinoza makes this point clear where he speaks of those
who “think that ideas consist in images which are formed in us from encounters with
external bodies,” saying that “they look on ideas…as mute pictures on a panel. And
preoccupied with this prejudice, do not see that an idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves
an affirmation or negation”3. As this passage shows us, what is unacceptable for Spinoza
is the notion that ideas are like “pictures,” dead and inert mental objects that are there for
the mind to apprehend. For Spinoza “an idea consists neither in the image of anything,
nor in words”, it is not “something mute, like a picture on a tablet” 4. Thus there are no
inactive ideas for Spinoza. Yet there are inadequate ideas on which the passions of the
mind depend, as opposed to adequate ideas, from which the actions of the mind arise. So
passivity of the mind does not mean having inactive ideas. In contrast, it implies a mental
activity that is not complete or adequate. In what follows, I present Spinoza’s distinction

40
between adequate and inadequate ideas by adverting to the concept of Infinite Intellect. I
will show that the essential contrast between inadequate and adequate knowledge can be
characterized as a contrast between perceiving “according to the common order of
nature” and understanding “following the order of the intellect.” I will conclude the
section by showing how reason and intuitive knowledge qua adequate knowledge are
closer to one another than either is to knowledge of the first kind.

4.1.1 Adequate versus Inadequate Ideas

Descartes classified ideas into two groups: “clear and distinct” ideas (belonging primarily
to intellect or reason), and ideas that are “obscure and confused” (associated primarily
with imagination and sense)5. Although in some places Spinoza still uses the Cartesian
distinction, he introduces a new distinction among ideas: adequate ideas versus
inadequate ideas. Spinoza defines an adequate idea as “an idea which, insofar as it is
considered in itself, without relation to an object, has all the properties, or intrinsic
denominations of a true idea.” With implicit reference back to EIA6, Spinoza goes on to
explain what he means by ‘intrinsic’, stating that he says “intrinsic to exclude what is
extrinsic, namely the agreement of the idea with its object.” Although, as Wilson points
out, Spinoza does not give a thorough explanation of what these intrinsic denominations
are and how they relate to the extrinsic “agreement,” at least we can say that for Spinoza,
truth and adequacy are reciprocal notions. All true ideas are adequate and vice versa. In
Letter LX he makes a similar point in response to Tschirnhaus’s question concerning the
relationship between truth and adequacy, where he writes:

I recognize no other difference between a true and

an adequate idea than that the word true refers only
to the agreement of the idea with its ideatum, while
the word adequate refers to the nature of the idea in
itself; so that there is really no difference between a
true and adequate idea except this extrinsic relation6.

41
Thus, the truth of an idea is an extrinsic relationship in which the idea stands to its object,
whereas the adequacy of an idea implies its completeness in the sense that from it all the
properties of its ideatum (object) can be deduced. An idea is adequate, then, when it
includes a perfect and complete knowledge of its object, which is intimately associated
with a causal understanding. We know from that “The knowledge of an effect depends
on, and involves, the knowledge of its cause.” Hence to know a thing is to know its
causes and to see how it follows necessarily from its cause. Spinoza expresses the
relation between causal understanding, adequacy and deduction of properties in the same
Letter to Tschirnhaus:

…in order that I may know which out of many ideas

of a thing will enable all the properties of the object
to be deduced, I follow this one rule, that the idea or
definition of the thing should express its efficient
cause7.

Only when an idea of a thing gives the relevant causal information from which all
properties of an object can be deduced can that idea be said to be adequate. The adequate
idea of a circle, for example, involves the efficient cause of a circle namely, “that a circle
is the space described by a line of which one point is fixed and the other movable”
enabling one to deduce from it all the properties of a circle 8. Inadequate ideas, by
contrast, are like “conclusions without premises”. They are “mutilated and confused” and
do not allow one to attain a sufficient and complete causal understanding of a thing. Just
as all true ideas are also adequate ideas, and vice versa, so all false ideas are inadequate
ideas, and vice versa. The difference between a true and a false idea lies in whether or not
the idea agrees with its object namely, in this “extrinsic denomination” not in the nature
or inner characteristic of the idea itself. It is in the latter, i.e. in the intrinsic features of
ideas, on the other hand, where the difference between adequate and inadequate ideas can
be found. Having presented the basic terminology, I will now elaborate on Spinoza’s

42
account of adequacy and truth in relation to a central concept of Spinoza’s system:
Infinite Intellect.

4.1.2 Common Order of Nature vs. Order of the Intellect

In order to understand the nature of inadequacy better, we should remember Spinoza’s

construal of human mind as the idea of an actually existing human body. An actually
existing human body provides the focal point from and through which alone the human
mind can perceive its world9. As noted earlier, according to Spinoza the human body is
extremely complex, and this gives it the capacity to affect other bodies and to be affected
by other bodies in a wide variety of ways. So each human body is a complex yet finite
mode of extension that is determined by its network of relations with external bodies; and
the mind qua the idea of the body, following the parallelism doctrine, reflects in the
realm of thought everything that occurs in the world of extension.

Even though God possesses all ideas adequately, ideas that we have are not immediately
adequate as they are in God. This is because the only ideas that we have under natural
conditions of perception are the ideas that represent what happens to our body10. Our
initial stage of cognition is through these ideas of the affections of the body that represent
the effect of another body on ours. As Spinoza states, the mind perceives its own body,
external bodies and itself only through the very ideas themselves of the affections of the
body. So not only does the mind’s knowledge of its body depend on the ideas of the
affections of the body, but so too is its knowledge of bodies other than its own in sense
perception, its imagination of things, its memory of the past and finally its knowledge of
itself11.

As Spinoza states, we feel that our body is affected in many ways. But can we know
adequately, or have adequate ideas of, the affections of our body? What are the chances
that the human mind can know the affections of its body in an adequate way? In other
words, what are the chances that sense-perception, self-perception (self-awareness),

43
imagination, or memory, can provide us with adequate knowledge? The answer is: None.
Why none? The main problem is that the ideas of the affections of the body represent not
only what happens to our body but also a mixing of the natures of both bodies—that is,
our body coupled with the affecting body. In Spinoza’s words, “all modes by which a
body is affected by another body follow both from the nature of the body affected and at
the same time from the nature of the affecting body”12. Hence, the principle that “the idea
of any mode in which the human body is affected by external bodies must involve the
nature of the human body and at the same time the nature of the external body” 13. From
EIIP16 follows two very important corollaries: 1) The human mind perceives the nature
of a great many bodies together with the nature of its own body, which is composed of a
great many individuals of different natures, each of which is highly composite, and 2)
The ideas, which we have of external bodies indicate the condition of our own body more
than the nature of external bodies.

The second corollary is especially important in order to understand how ideas can be
inadequate and confused insofar they are related to the singular mind of someone. What
does it mean to say that our ideas of external bodies indicate the condition of our own
body more than the nature of external bodies? It means that since the perceptual
awareness of external bodies is a function of one’s sensory apparatus, this awareness
provides information about how a body appears, and this, strictly speaking, is a fact more
about the constitution of one’s own body than about the nature of the external body. This
is precisely the principle underlying the account of error. Now, consider the following
example:

When we look at the sun, we imagine it as about two

hundred feet away from us, an error which does not
consist simply in this imagining, but in the fact that
while we imagine it in this way, we are ignorant of
its true distance and of the cause of this imagining.
For even if we later come to know that it is more

44
 than six hundred diameters of the earth away from
us, we nevertheless imagine it as near. For we
imagine the sun so near not because we do not know
its true distance, but because an affection of our
body involves the essence of the sun insofar as our
body is affected by the sun14.

This example is one of the two examples that Spinoza gives in order to explain fully how
error consists in the privation of knowledge. Our imaginative idea that the sun is located
about two hundred feet away from us is an accurate description of how the sun actually
appears under certain conditions, or how it is perceived by virtue of its affection of the
body. The error does not lie in how the sun appears to us per se, but in the fact that this
imaginative idea involves a confusion between how the sun appears and how the sun
really is. All the perceptual ideas that we have in this manner reflect the condition of the
body in its interplay with the environment rather than the true nature of the connection of
things. Confusing the former with the latter leads the mind to fall into error.

Unlike inadequate ideas, adequate ideas provide a causal understanding of things

according to the order of the intellect that is, sub specie aetertinatis (SSA). The phrase
sub specie aetertinatis, indicates a way of knowing singular things by conceiving of them
“under the aspect of eternity” or “from the point of view of eternity,” i.e., “without any
relation to time.”15 As Spinoza defines it, “To conceive things [SSA] is…to conceive
things insofar as they are conceived through God’s essence, as real beings, or insofar as
through God’s essence they involve existence”16. Only when we consider things SSA can
we be said to attain an adequate causal understanding, since only then do we comprehend
things in connection to the infinite and eternal essence of their cause i.e., God. Spinoza
states, “As long as the human mind perceives things from the common order of Nature
that is insofar as the mind perceives things through the ideas of the affections of the body
it does not have an adequate, but only a confused and mutilated knowledge of itself, of its
own body, and of external bodies”16. If this is the case, what do we do in order to get rid

45
of this mutilated and confused state of mind, which is the main cause of our errors? How
then can a human mind, as a finite mode, apprehend the world and itself according to the
“order of the intellect”? How can it perceive things in the manner of the infinite intellect?
In other words, how can the mind have an adequate knowledge of itself, its own body and
of external bodies? The following passage contains a condensed answer to this question:

I say expressly that the mind has, not an adequate, but only
a confused [NS: mutilated] knowledge, of itself, of its own
body, and of external bodies, so long as it perceives things
from the common order of Nature, that is so long as it is
determined externally, from fortuitous encounters with
things, to regard this or that, and not so long as it is
determined internally, from the fact that it regards a
number of things at once, to understand their agreements,
differences, and oppositions. For so often as it is disposed
internally, in this or another way, then it regards things
clearly and distinctly, as I shall show below17.

This passage tells us that the mind has adequate knowledge of itself, its own body and of
external bodies only so long as it is determined internally. We will see in detail what
internal determination of the mind entails in Chapters 2 and 3. For the time being, notice
that this passage tells us not only that the mind is determined either (1) externally, from
fortuitous encounters with things, or (2) internally but also that the mind is disposed
internally in two ways: either (2a) from the fact that it regards a number of things at once,
to understand their agreements, differences, and oppositions, or (2b) in another way,
which is not stated here by Spinoza but which, in my view, corresponds to the intuitive
knowledge. Hence, here, Spinoza is presenting us with three ways in which the mind is
determined, namely, (1), (2a) and (2b), anticipating his account of three kinds of
knowledge in EIIP40S2.

46
4.2 THREE KINDS OF COGNITION

In the Ethics, Spinoza distinguishes three kinds of cognition [cognitio]: opinion or

imagination [opinio vel imaginatio], knowledge of the first kind; reason [ratio],
knowledge of the second kind; and intuitive knowledge [scientia intuitiva], knowledge of
the third kind18. Whereas knowledge of the first kind, which includes cognition due to
random experience and imagination, is the only cause of falsity and inadequacy,
knowledge of the second and third kinds are necessarily true and adequate.

Knowledge of the second kind arises “from the fact that we have common notions, and
adequate ideas of the properties of things.” Combining this with EIIP29S, we see that as
long as one knows things through knowledge of the second kind, one’s mind is
determined internally from the fact that “it regards a number of things at once, to
understand their agreements, differences, and oppositions.” Common notions are said to
be the foundations of reasoning, and Spinoza calls this second kind of knowledge
‘reason’ (ratio). Knowledge of the third kind, i.e. intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva),
is “another way” that the mind can be internally determined. It is a “knowing that
proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the
adequate knowledge of the essence of things”19. As we will see later, the highest form of
understanding and the ultimate source of blessedness is comprised of the love of God
arising from the third kind of knowledge.

Knowledge of the first kind can be broadly understood as the initial cognitive stage in
which we find ourselves as human beings. It expresses the natural conditions of our
existence insofar as we do not start with adequate ideas. In EIIP40S2 Spinoza presents
knowledge of the first kind as coming from two main sources: 1) from a mutilated and
confused perception of singular things that have been represented to us through the
senses, which Spinoza also calls knowledge from random experience (experience vaga),
and 2) from signs, such as from the fact that we recollect things through our memory or

47
imagination. As shown earlier, neither memory, imagination or sense perception can
provide us with an understanding “following the order of the intellect.” They are all
sources of error and inadequate ideas, which are signs in that they indicate our actual
state and our incapacity to rid ourselves of a trace. So long as our mind is “determined
externally, from fortuitous encounters with things,” that is, insofar as it has inadequate
ideas, it is passive. Insofar as our mind has “adequate ideas, it necessarily does certain
things, and insofar as it has inadequate ideas, it necessarily undergoes other things. So
whereas knowledge of the first kind, or imaginative cognition, implies passivity of the
mind, reason and intuitive knowledge imply the activity that is, internal determination of
the mind. It is important to see that there is almost a break between the first and the
second kinds since adequate ideas and mind’s activity begin with the second 20. In other
words, one manages to have adequate ideas through the production of common notions,
which represents a breaking point from our initial, natural condition (which determines
that we have only inadequate ideas). The distinction between knowledge of the first kind
and other types of knowledge is clear once one appreciates Spinoza’s distinction between
inadequacy and adequacy. And once one understands the adequate/inadequate
distinction, one can explain the respective distinctions between truth and falsity, activity
and passivity, internal and external determination of the mind, completeness and
incompleteness of an idea, and finally understanding things SSA, i.e. according to the
Order of the Intellect and perceiving things durationally following the Common Order of
Nature.
Whereas inadequate ideas pertain to “knowledge of the first kind” in Spinoza’s taxonomy
of knowledge, adequate ideas concern what he calls “knowledge of the second kind or
reason” (rationem) and “knowledge of the third kind, or intuitive knowledge” (scientia
intuitiva). Reason and intuitive knowledge are thus two kinds of knowledge through
which we can understand things SSA. To the extent that we get to know things by way of
these two adequate kinds of cognition, rather than being “determined externally by
fortuitous encounters,” our mind is “determined internally” according to the order of the

48
intellect. As what we have said so far clearly suggests, reason and intuitive knowledge
are closer to one another than either is to the first kind.

4.2.1. The Methodology of Intuitive Knowledge: How Do We Attain Intuitive

Knowledge?
Recall that in the mathematical example, Spinoza likens the experience of intuitive
knowledge to an immediate grasp of the truth “in one glance” 21. Although the term
‘intuitiva’ suggests a style of cognition that is direct and immediate, in its official
definition he describes this superior form of cognition as an inferential process, wherein
we can distinguish between discrete cognitive steps. To be more specific, according to its
definition, intuitive knowledge “proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of
certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things” 22. Intuitive
knowledge is attained once the adequate knowledge of the essence of things is inferred
from an adequate knowledge of the essence of one of God’s attributes. After its
definition, Spinoza does not really give an elaborate account of the inferential process
through which we attain this superior knowledge. Despite his notoriously parsimonious
account, I believe that it is possible to get a sense of this process once we determine the
conditions for the possibility of this knowledge.

4.2.2 Conditions for the Possibility of Intuitive Knowledge

Although Spinoza starts his account of intuitive knowledge in Part II, it is only in Part V
of the Ethics that one gets a complete picture of intuitive knowledge. As we reach the end
of the Ethics we see that three conditions are required in order for our mind to have
access to knowledge of the third kind: that each idea of each singular thing involves the
essence of God and adequate knowledge of this essence, that the human mind has ideas
that involve the adequate idea of the essence of God, that the human mind “conceives the
body’s essence under a species of eternity”.

49
In order to understand what the first two conditions amount to, let us take a look at the
Propositions 45-47 of Part II of the Ethics, where Spinoza establishes that the adequate
idea of God that is, the foundation of intuitive knowledge is necessarily present in all
human minds:
Each idea of each body, or of each singular thing
which actually exists, necessarily involves an eternal
and infinite essence of God. The knowledge of
God’s eternal and infinite essence, which each idea
involves, is adequate and perfect. The human mind
has an adequate knowledge of God’s eternal and
infinite essence23.

The first thing to notice here is the existence of two stages: (1) Propositions 45 and 46
consider the idea of a singular thing in itself and show that it involves (involvit) adequate
knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God. (2) Proposition 47 states that the
human mind has those ideas and deduces from them the possibility of intuitive
knowledge in the Scholium to this proposition. In order to see how Spinoza moves from
stage 1 to the stage 2 let us start with the demonstration of EIIP45:

The idea of a singular thing, which actually exists

necessarily involves both the essence of the thing
and its existence (by P8C87). But singular things
(by IP15) cannot be conceived without God–on the
contrary, because (by P688) they have God for a
cause insofar as he is considered under the attribute
of which the things are modes, their ideas must
involve the concept of their attribute (by IA489),
that is (by ID690), must involve an eternal and
infinite essence of God, q.e.d.

Simply put, this demonstration shows that since singular things can neither exist nor be
conceived without God, their ideas necessarily involve the eternal and infinite essence of
God. In other words, Spinoza derives from the way things are on the ontological plane

50
how their ideas are on the epistemological plane. The key to understanding this
derivation is the famous fourth axiom of the Part I of the Ethics: “The knowledge of an
effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of its cause.” Via this axiom, as a
function of the necessary dependence of the effect on the cause, Spinoza establishes a
dynamic and intrinsic relation that holds between not only the singular things and God,
but also between the ideas of these singular things and the idea of God. As the first
sentence of the demonstration states, the idea of a singular thing, which actually exists
necessarily, involves both the essence of the thing and its existence. But both essence and
existence of things are the effects and their knowledge depends on and involves the
knowledge of their cause—that is, the knowledge of God.

Importantly, though, singular things have God for a cause not insofar as he is the
absolutely infinite substance, but insofar as he is considered under the attribute of which
the things are modes. Hence, the ideas of singular things necessarily involve the idea of
the attribute: the idea of the eternal and infinite essence of God. Since involving the idea
of the eternal and infinite essence of God is, for the idea of every singular thing, to
involve the essence itself, “each idea of each body, or of each singular thing which
actually exists, necessarily involves an eternal and infinite essence of God”24.

After showing in EIIP46 that “the knowledge of God’s eternal and infinite essence which
each idea involves is adequate…” (my italics), Spinoza moves from the first stage to the
second stage by stating that “The human mind has an adequate knowledge of God’s
eternal and infinite essence”. The demonstration of this proposition is as follows:

The human mind has ideas from which it perceives

itself, its own body, and external bodies as actually
existing. And so it has an adequate knowledge of
God’s eternal and infinite essence, q.e.d.25

According to EIIP47D, the human mind has this adequate knowledge of God, since it has
ideas through which it perceives itself, its own body, and external bodies as actually

51
existing. But how can Spinoza deduce from the fact that the human mind has ideas
through which it perceives itself, its own body, and external bodies as actually existing,
that the mind has an adequate knowledge of God’s eternal and infinite essence? As we
saw earlier, these ideas would necessarily be inadequate if by ‘actual existence’ Spinoza
meant the durational existence of things, which depends on the common order of nature.

However, Spinoza makes it clear that by existence he does not understand determinate
duration, but rather “the very nature of existence”—or, the actual essences of singular
things. We will see what the “very nature of existence” means and how it relates to
intuitive knowledge in the next chapter. For the time being, suffice it to say that
according to Spinoza, the relevant ideas—i.e., those involving the eternal and infinite
essence of God are not the ideas of the determinate durational existence of singular
things.

Having demonstrated that the human mind has adequate knowledge of God’s eternal and
infinite essence, in EIIP47S Spinoza establishes for the first time the possibility of
attaining intuitive knowledge:
From this we see that God’s infinite essence and
his eternity are known to all.And since all things
are in God and are conceived through God, it
follows that we can deduce from this knowledge a
great many things which we know adequately, and
so can form that third kind of knowledge of which
we spoke in P40S2 and of whose excellence and
utility we shall speak in Part V26.

It is hard not to be struck by the unbridled optimism with which Spinoza describes our
cognitive powers. But does the fact that “God’s infinite essence and his eternity are
known to all” (or that “the human mind has an adequate knowledge of God’s eternal and
infinite essence”) mean that everyone will be able to attain knowledge of the third kind?

52
Previously, I argued that even though common notions are the foundations of reason and
intrinsic to all human minds, this does not suggest that every mind will succeed in
attaining knowledge of the second kind.92 Similarly, the fact that the idea of God is the
foundation of intuitive knowledge, and that it is known by everyone, does not suggest
that everyone will be able to reach knowledge of the third kind.93 This is because the
idea of God is, albeit necessary, not sufficient to attain knowledge of the third kind.
Intuitive knowledge consists in actively using this foundation by deducing “from this
knowledge a great many things which we know adequately”—that is, deducing adequate
knowledge of the essences of singular things from adequate knowledge of God’s essence.
Hence the definition of intuitive knowledge: “…this kind of knowing proceeds from an
adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate
knowledge of the essence of things”27.

4.2.3. Idea of God and Common Notions

Having described the inferential process entailed by intuitive knowledge, I will now
clarify an important point regarding the idea of God that will later bear on our discussion
of the distinction between reason and intuitive knowledge. In EIIP46D Spinoza states
that “…what gives knowledge of an eternal and infinite essence of God is common to all
and is equally in the part and in the whole. And so (by P38) this knowledge will be
adequate” (my italics). Due to Spinoza’s wording, one might be tempted to interpret the
idea of God as a common notion.94 Nevertheless, the following Scholium suggests that
the idea of God is not a common notion:
But that men do not have so clear a
knowledge of God as they do of the
common notions comes from the fact that
they cannot imagine God, as they can
bodies, and that they have conjoined the
name God to the images of things which
they are used to seeing, Men can hardly

53
 avoid this, because they are continually
affected by external bodies28.

We can derive the following interrelated points from this passage: (a) The fact that we
can imagine bodies helps to enhance the clarity of our knowledge of common notions. (b)
The idea of God is not a common notion, since we cannot imagine God like we imagine
bodies. (c) Applying the name God to images of things results necessarily in error by
taking us farther away from the true knowledge of God. Each of these points requires
further elaboration.

(a) As stated in the previous section, there is a distinction between imaginative ideas and
common notions in that while the former is the confused idea of a singular thing existing
in duration, the latter is the clear and distinct notion of an eternal property shared by
some or all bodies. Accordingly, whereas imagination provides a durational perception of
things, reason supplies knowledge of things SSA. Despite this distinction, common
notions represent properties of actually existing bodies, which we not only adequately
cognize but also can vividly imagine. Hence imagination can sometimes facilitate rather
than obstruct common notions by adding to their intellectual evidence some sensible
evidence. In other words, common notions can be made clearer (at least at times) by
imagination.

(b) ‘The knowledge of God’ is not a common notion since it comprehends the essence of
God, which, unlike common notions, cannot be imagined in any way. The idea of God
cannot be a common notion since God is not a property of things. So despite Spinoza’s
wording in EIIP46D, which has led some scholars to interpret the idea of God or “the
knowledge of God” as a common notion, it is clear that the foundation of intuitive
knowledge—unlike that of reason—is not a common notion.

(c) By thus distinguishing the idea of God from the common notions, Spinoza also marks
a distinction between those things that can be imagined, like the common notions, and

54
those that can never be imagined, like God. In a famous letter to Lodewijk Meyer (Letter
XII), Spinoza makes a similar distinction as he warns against the failure to distinguish
between “that which we can apprehend only by the intellect and not by the imagination,”
and “that which can also be apprehended by imagination.” As Spinoza states, “…there
are many things which we cannot at all grasp by the imagination, but only by the intellect
(such as Substance, God, Eternity, etc.).” If someone tries to explain things like God by
way of imagination, “he will accomplish nothing more than if he takes pains to go mad
with his imagination.” Accordingly, and returning to the passage I quoted earlier,
“conjoin[ing] the name God to the images of things which they are used to seeing,” and
thinking that God can be apprehended by imagination, are mistakes that give rise to a
confused state of mind and produce severe errors.

To sum up, intuitive knowledge has its foundation in the idea of God that is beyond and
outside the imagination, and thus cannot be grasped except by the intellect.98 As we
ascend to the level of intuitive knowledge, the ties to imagination are cut and our mind is
determined wholly internally—not “from the fact that it regards a number of things at
once to understand their agreements, differences and oppositions” as it would be the case
with reason, but in “another way”. At the highest level of internal determination,
imagination cannot function even as a support. This is the level wherein the human mind
“conceives the body’s essence under a species of eternity”. This brings us to the last
condition of intuitive knowledge, which will be discussed. As we will see, the mind’s
conceiving of its body’s essence SSA is nothing but its conceiving of its “very existence
…insofar as [it is] in God”.

55
 REFERENCES
1
Allison, Henry. (1987), Benedict de Spinoza: An Introduction, Yale University Press:
New Haven and London.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
5
Barbone, Steven “Virtue and Sociality in Spinoza,” in Iyyun, (The Jerusalem
Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 42, 1993). 383.
6
Steinberg, Diane. (1981), “Spinoza’s Theory of the Eternity of the Human Mind,”
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11, 155.
7
Carr, Spencer. (1978), “Spinoza’s Distinction between Rational and Intuitive
Knowledge” Philosophical Review 87: 241-52.
8
Op. Cit. Steinberg, p. 168
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Op. Cit. Allison
12
Deleuze, Gilles. (1988), Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, City Lights Books: San
Fransisco.
13
Ibid.
14
Yovel, Yirmiyahu. (1989), “The Third Kind of Knowledge as Alternative Salvation,” in
Spinoza and Other Heretics, Vol. I: The Marrano of Reason, 153-171, Princeton
University Press: Princeton.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Spinoza, Benedictus. (1985), The Collected Works of Spinoza, Vol.1, ed. and trans.
Edwin Curley, Princeton University Press: Princeton.
18
Op. Cit. Carr
19
Ibid.
20
Op. Cit. Yovel

56
 CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

5.1 SUMMARY

Chapter one serves as an introductory part of the work. It examine the statement of the
problem. It browse through the theory of Spinoza. This chapter also pointed out the
purpose of this work which is to critically examine Spinoza's theory of knowledge. And
also, it pointed out the thesis, methodology, scope and limitations.

Chapter two examine the concept of knowledge. It examine different scholars view on
knowledge such as Plato who believed that there are truths to be discovered; that
knowledge is possible. And also it examine Aristotle view on knowledge, who agrees
with Plato that knowledge is of what is true and that this truth must be justified in a way
which shows that it must be true, it is necessarily true.

Chapter three explores the role and function of knowledge in Spinoza’s philosophy as a
whole and the methodology he uses to know things and to know knowledge. Chapter
three closely follows Spinoza’s threefold division of the different types of knowledge as
presented in his Ethics. This threefold division is constituted by the distinctions among
imagination, intuition, and the exercise of the intellect.

Chapter four critically examine the theory of Spinoza. It examine Spinoza's kind of
cognition. Spinoza distinguishes three kinds of cognition [cognitio]: opinion or
imagination [opinio vel imaginatio], knowledge of the first kind; reason [ratio],
knowledge of the second kind; and intuitive knowledge [scientia intuitiva], knowledge of
the third kind. This chapter also examine the methodology of intuitive knowledge.

57
5.2 CONCLUSION

In this project, I have explicated the young Spinoza’s method of discerning the truth and
falsity of ideas. That method represents, I believe, one of the most significant
contributions to early modern epistemology, a contribution greatly influenced by
Descartes, but nevertheless one that succeeds, to my mind, in providing a further
developed rationalistic account of the nature of ideas that combines analysis and
synthesis in an ingenious manner. Given this account and the view of corporeal things it
offers, Spinoza does have a sophisticated answer to the sceptic; if his discussion of
scepticism appears at times laconic, impatient, and even derogatory, this is obviously
because he is so convinced of the method he offers.

Spinoza’s philosophical project rests emancipation upon the attainment of self-

knowledge through the conscious, disciplined reflection on hitherto repressed or
recalcitrant desires. Feuer thus locates Spinoza within the mainstream of liberal-
Enlightenment thought. Thus, ‘when we know the causes of our irrational behaviour, the
irrational motives themselves lose their force, and we can then act rationally in
accordance with our desires as we now clearly apprehend them’ (Feuer, p221).

Spinoza conceives mind and body to be two distinct ‘attributes’ of a unitary phenomenon
whose capacity for ‘active’ or ‘passive’ existence varies according to its possession of
more or less ‘adequate’ ideas. It follows that Spinoza cannot privilege – in Cartesian or
epistemological terms - consciousness as a source of ‘clear and distinct ideas’ that could
somehow transcend the evidence of bodily experience. Feuer draws the analogy between
Spinoza and Freud as thinkers concerned with ‘reclaiming’ instinctual energies and drives
and elevating them to the level of ‘adequate ideas’ in the service of a better, more
enlightened social order.

Spinoza distinguishes between consciousness and knowledge so as to argue – as against

Descartes – that the only measure of ‘adequate’ ideas is their capacity to transform

58
passive into active knowledge, enabling individuals to grasp the determinate conditions
of their existence, and thus diminishing the degree of their enslavement to causes beyond
their powers of active comprehension. Spinoza thus belongs squarely to the tradition of
rational freedom – from Plato and Aristotle to Habermas - which defines emancipation,
freedom and happiness with the overcoming of error through the attainment of self-
knowledge. Spinoza insists that such knowledge is the ultimate good in that its benefits
extend beyond the individual to the government of the well-ordered commonwealth.
Further, the exercise of the rational capacity induces the ‘active’ use of those faculties
that have hitherto been subordinated to the forces of natural causality.

The influence of Spinoza’s philosophy can be seen in Hegel’s system. Hegel critically
appropriated and transformed the key principles of the Ethics. Spinoza’s God or Nature
as the single unique substance becomes Hegel’s Absolute Idea – the single entity which
is realized in and through the attributes of nature, spirit, art and history. Hegel has his
own version of the theory of adequate ideas in writing of the progress of consciousness
to freedom to achieve an ‘absolute’ conception of the world. Spinoza’s theory of conatus
finds its parallel in Hegel’s doctrine of ‘self-realisation’ which is achieved through the
successive ‘objectifications’ of the spirit; the achievement of a political order in Spinoza
becomes Hegel’s conception of the state as an ethical agency, as the realisation of
freedom. What is original in Hegel is his recovery of a role for subjectivity and the self,
consciousness.

59
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