Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 The Textual History of Spinoza’s Ethics
- 2 The Geometrical Order in the Ethics
- 3 Spinoza’s Ontology
- 4 Substance Monism and Identity Theory in Spinoza
- 5 Spinoza and the Stoics on Substance Monism
- 6 Spinoza on Necessity
- 7 Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics
- 8 Spinoza on Action
- 9 The Anatomy of the Passions
- 10 Freedom, Slavery, and the Passions
- 11 Spinoza’s Theory of the Good
- 12 The Power of Reason in Spinoza
- 13 Spinoza on the Essence of the Human Body and the Part of the Mind That Is Eternal
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 The Textual History of Spinoza’s Ethics
- 2 The Geometrical Order in the Ethics
- 3 Spinoza’s Ontology
- 4 Substance Monism and Identity Theory in Spinoza
- 5 Spinoza and the Stoics on Substance Monism
- 6 Spinoza on Necessity
- 7 Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics
- 8 Spinoza on Action
- 9 The Anatomy of the Passions
- 10 Freedom, Slavery, and the Passions
- 11 Spinoza’s Theory of the Good
- 12 The Power of Reason in Spinoza
- 13 Spinoza on the Essence of the Human Body and the Part of the Mind That Is Eternal
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In this chapter I discuss how Spinoza deals in the Ethics with some basic issues in the theory of knowledge, including perception and intellectual knowledge, belief, error, justification, and skepticism. I begin in Section 1 with his explanation of the nature of the mind within the context of his broader metaphysics, because this explanation is fundamental to his treatment of these epistemological topics. I then consider his theory of perception, the distinction between adequate and inadequate ideas, and his threefold classification of knowledge into imagination, reason, and intuitive knowledge. In Section 2 I take up his theory of justification and his response to skepticism; and in Section 3 I deal with his theories of belief and error. I conclude Section 3 with some observations regarding the implications of his theory of belief for his views on knowledge. / 1. Mind and cognition / The Human Mind as a Mode of the One Substance / Part 2 of the Ethics opens with a number of propositions that generally continue the account of the relation between God or substance and finite things that begins with Ip15. Thought and extension are attributes of the one substance (2p1, 2p2).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics , pp. 140 - 166Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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