misp_214 4..25Spinoza on the Human MindLILLI ALANENThis paper grew out of a longer essay on Mind in the seventeenth century. As itis now, it starts in media res, and I need to add some context.Mind or reason was, since Antiquity, the highest human capacitythe powerofmoraldeliberationconstitutingtheultimateconditionforresponsibleaction,andtherebyforautonomousagency. Itwasalso, bothinthePlatonistandtheAristotelian tradition, the source and instrument of the highest kind ofperfectionunderstandingthat came with the highest kind of bliss or happiness.My concern is the transformation undergone by the traditional conceptionof reasoninthesenseof apower for practical deliberationandintellectualunderstandingpower whosegoodexercisewas seenas thehighest possiblehuman perfection. While philosophy of nature underwent radical changes duringthe seventeenth century, this is not obviously the case for philosophy of mind ormoral psychology. Yet the mechanistic worldviewchallengedphilosophers torevise, or, as the case may be, break loose from inherited conceptions of mind andits relation to the world that did not really t in with it. Descartes, who was the rsttomeet this challenge, prettymuchcreatedtheconceptual frameworkwithinwhich subsequent discussions of mind and nature were conducted. The continuitiesbetweenhis philosophy of mindandscholastic philosophical psychology aregreater than his terminological innovations may seem toand certainly have beentaken tosuggest. None has shown this more thoroughly than John Carriero in hisBetween Two Worlds. Spinoza, who by and large rejected the compromises Des-cartes made to save traditional intuitions about mind and its powers, developed avery different way of adjusting the ancient ideal of reason with an innite physicalMIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHYMidwestStudiesinPhilosophy, XXXV(2011) 2011 Copyright the Authors. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.4plenum in motion, or, in the Cartesian terminology he uses, the world of mind orthinking intellect with that of extended nature. In the process, the very concepts ofmind and agency are thoroughly transformedbut what exactly the picture of thehuman mind that comes out of Spinozas Ethics, or indeed, if there is such a thing,is a matter of debate.What I will do here is to look closely at Spinozas account of mind and reasonin the second part of the Ethics, and discuss some of the bewildering consequencesthat have been imputed to Spinoza.1. MIND IN NATUREUsing the famous example with the worm in the blood, Spinoza explains, in Letter32 (to Oldenburg), how the human body is part of and dependent on the rest ofnature. The rst quote is from this letter:As regards (1) the human mind, I maintain that it, too, is a part of Nature;for I hold that (2) in nature there also exists an innite power of thinking(3) which, in so far as it is innite, contains within itself the whole of Natureobjectively, and whose thoughts proceed in the same manner as does Nature,which is in fact the object of its thought.Further, I maintain that (4) the human mind is that same power of think-ing, not in so far as that power is innite and apprehends [percipientem] thewhole of Nature, but (4.1) in so far as it is nite, apprehending [percipit] thehuman body only. (5) The human mind, I maintain, is in this way part of aninnite intellect. (Shirley, Letters 19495 [cf. Ethics E2p14p22])These startling claims deserve careful examination. The humanminddened in E2p11 as the idea of the actually existing human bodyis part of theinnite intellect or God, that is of Nature considered under the attribute of thought.Howshould this be understood?The innite intellect, being perfect and omniscient,has true or adequate ideas of all things, and so there must be an idea of this or thathuman that is adequate in Gods eternal thinking. For to say that the divine powerof thinking contains within itself the whole of nature objectively is to say that itcontains ideas of all things there are and that these ideas represent objectively thevery same reality that the things represented contain actually or formally. There isa perfect match between each idea and what it representsindeed, they are theverysamethingandtheyfollowthesameorder of causes consideredunderdifferentattributes(2p7). Thehumanmind,however,doesnotknowthebodywhose idea it is adequately, nor does it have any adequate idea of itself or its placein the innite order of ideas (deductions) in the innite intellect (2p252p27). Tohave adequate ideas of things requires knowing their causes adequately (by Ia4),but the nite mind has no access to the innite chain of causes acting on the bodywhose idea it is. The human body is constantly interacting with and acted on byother nite bodies, and the changes caused in it by external bodiesSpinoza callsthem affections or imagesare at best registered as inadequate or confusedideas in the mind.They are confused because they represent the things causing themSpinozaontheHumanMind 5onlypartially, astheyaffectthebodyandnotastheyareinthemselves.1Theseconfused ideas are the basis of the rst and imperfect kind of cognition that Spinozacalls imagination or opinion, also random experience.2Yet the fact that the human mind, as the idea of the human body, is part ofGods innite intellect, gives it, as we will see, surprising resources: it instantiates,within its own limits, Gods power of thinking, so whatever obscure and truncatedthoughts that are found within its limited horizon, it also has the means, if not tofully understand them, at least to make them clearer by comparing and arrangingthem in an orderly fashion, connecting them with other ideas (in Gods mind thatit is part of) corresponding to the true (and necessary) order of causes in nature.3The rest of the paper seeks to clarify the original view expressed in claims 45in the second part of the passage quoted near the beginning of this section. Thehuman mind seems to have a double identity as, on the one hand, the idea of thisor that actually existing nite body, apprehending this body only, and on the otherhand, as part of Gods eternal intellect and innite power of thinking where thissame body is instantiated as an adequate and complete idea. I will briey touch onthe ensuing view of ideas and cognition, and the role of adequate knowledge inSpinozas ethical project. I will end by reecting on some more mundane aspects ofthe radical view of mind that emerge from this doctrine, with its new account ofideas or beliefs foreshadowing that of Hume.2. THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUATION AND SINGULARITYAccordingto2a5, singularthingsthatcanbeobjectsofhumanperceptionareeither bodies or modes of thought. Neither has any substantial unity of its own butdepend both for their being and their being understood on the substance whosemodestheyareandofwhoseinnitepowertheyaredeniteanddeterminatetemporal expressions (1p25c).41. For Spinozas notion of representation, see Michael Della Rocca, Representation and theMind-BodyProbleminSpinoza(Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress, 1996), 5764; DonGarrett,Representation and Misrepresentation in Spinozas Philosophy of Mind, in Oxford Handbookof Spinoza, ed. Michael Della Rocca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).2. Itisrandombecauseitiswhollydeterminedbyfortuitousencountersaccordingtothecommonorderofnature (2p40s). Yetitisofgreatimportance. Itisonlythrough randomexperience that we know the existence of contingent things, including our own body: The humanbody, as we feel it, exists (Hinc sequitur.Corpus humanum, prout ipsum sentimus, existere; 2p13c).3. I will get back to this below in Section 8, although discussing Spinozas theory of knowl-edge and its many obscurities is beyond the scope of this essayit is considered here only for whatit tells us about his original conception of mind and its nature as part of Gods innite intellect.4. So in Spinozas ontology, singular things, including those perceived by the human mind, likethis or that particular bodythe barking dog, the steaming bath, your impatient mood, or his ideaof a triangleare but different modes or affections of the attributes of God (1p14c2). Attributesare dened in 1d4 as what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence. Godconsists of innite attributes, each of which express an innite essence (1p11) and each of whichmustbeunderstoodthroughitself(1p10). Oftheseinniteattributes, thehumanmindknowsonly two, thought and extension. This yields Spinozas so-called parallelism, which, because theattributes are conceptually independent, comes with strict explanatory dualism. Cf. notes 18 and 24later.6 LilliAlanenInexplicatingthenatureandoriginofthehumanmindtheideaofthehumanbodySpinozadevotesalongdigressiononphysicsfollowing2p13toelucidating the nature and condition of the nite human body that is its object. Thishas led many commentators to think that Spinoza simply joins those who individu-ate the human mind through the human body. I do not think this is a very fruitfuloptionat least unless one also thinks there is some unproblematic nonambiguousway of individuating the body. The individuation of the human body is, for Spinoza,at least as problematic as that of the mind since he treats both as modes so cannotrely, in either case, on the traditional notion of nite substantial being. Finitude, forSpinoza, is tied to temporality and contingency. By singular thing (res singulares),5he means a nite thing with a determinate temporal existence and a denite degreeofcausal force. Theconceptofsingularityatworkhereisrelativeanddenedthrough the effects that many things concur in bringing about: if several indivi-duals(individua) act together incausingsimultaneouslyoneeffect, theyareconsidered, according to 2def7, all to that extent a singular thing.6Think of theconstituent parts of a body or engine causing its movement, or what goes into there producing the heat. Or think of singular things under the attribute of thought,that is, particular ideas: causality here must be understood in terms of explanatorypower. Themoreadequateideas are, themoreeffects or consequences theyaccountfor. Strictlyspeaking, sincethereisonlyoneinnitesubstance, thereisonly one genuine cause of all things, the innite power of God or Nature (1p3436)so the individuality and causal power of nite modes is relative and a matterof more or less. Let us consider Spinozas terminology for mental modes beforegetting back to the question of individuation and the role played by the modes ofextension in this context.3. PERCEPTION, IDEAS, AND OTHER MODES OF THINKINGSpinozas use of the termthinking (cogitatio) follows Descartess in that it is notwell dened and covers all sorts of psychological acts and states, from concepts andideas toperceptionandsensations (affections), andemotions (activeandpassive affects), including desires or strivings. Yet perception or sensation havean even wider general use in Spinoza, as when he asserts (2p12) that nothing canhappen in the human body that is not necessarily perceived by the human mind.The complex idea constituting the mind includes perceptions of whatever goes onin its object, and this holds generally for all things in nature. One consequence ofthis thought extension parallelism seems to be not only that there are ideas of allsingular things in nature, but also that all things are animate, and sense or perceivealbeit in different degrees (2p13s). I will not dwell on this extraordinary thesis or5. ItakeindividualandsingulartobelargelyoverlappingforSpinoza. SeeGarrett,Representation and Misrepresentation. note 5. Contingency, again, for Spinoza, is tied to tem-porality and lack of necessary, self-caused existence: any nite thing depending on other externalnite and determinate causes the totality of which are not adequately known, would in this sensebe contingent.6. ForaclarifyingdiscussionofSpinozasviewofbodilyandmentalindividuality, anditsproblems, see Della Rocca, Representation and the Mind-Body Problem, 2643.SpinozaontheHumanMind 7its interpretation here.7At least Spinoza does not claim, to my knowledge, that allthings including oysters and rocks think. On the contrary, he seems to single outthinkingasacharacteristicofhumanbeing, anditisthinking, inthisnarrowersense, that interests me here. What does Spinoza understand by thinking and whatprecisely is the human mindthe idea of the human bodyqua thinking thing?We have to look closely at some of the denitions and axioms of Part Two whereSpinoza proceeds to explain the things following from Gods essence that will leadus to know the human mind and its highest blessedness (p. 446).Axioms 1 and 2 inform us, rst, that human nature does not involve necessaryexistence (2a1), and second, that Man thinks (cogitat) (2a2).8Some take think-inghere in a broad allegedly Cartesian sense of consciousness, but I will not followthatroute(cf. note8earlier). Thinking, presumably, mustinvolveatleastsomedegree of understanding, which for Spinoza presupposes the capacity of formingadequate ideas and inferring other adequate ideas from them (cf. also TdIE II/389). I here rely on the denition 2d3 of idea as a concept of the Mind that the Mindforms because it is a thinking thing (res cogitans).The termconcept is said to bemore suitable here thanperception because it seems to express an action (actio)of the mind. Perception to the contrary indicates that the mind is acted on by theobject so passive. Let me note in passing that throughout Ethics Parts 3 and 4,Spinoza uses idea for the mental counterpart of affections too, and these ideasare, by denition, inadequate, passive perceptions. So he seems to use idea in twosenses: idea-concepts and idea-perceptions. The human mind, in forming ideas inthe sense of concepts is active, whereas its perceptual ideas, that is ideas of sensoryimpressions or images are, or at least seem to be, passively received.ActivityoractionisdenedinPart3intermsofadequatecausationandunderstanding(3d2). Theactivitythatcomeswiththeconceptualcapacitymustinvolve the ability to recognize true adequate ideas, and hence to distinguish truthfrom falsity. An idea is said in 2d4 to be adequate when it is intrinsically true, that7. See, for example, Don Garrett, Representation and Consciousness in Spinozas Natural-istic TheoryoftheImagination, inInterpretingSpinoza, ed. CharlesHuenemann(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2008), 425. I have problems though with Garretts identication ofpower of thinking with degrees of consciousness and his account of the generality of representa-tion in terms of degrees of consciousness but think it should be understood in terms of the identityof God and Nature. From the point of view of nature as an innite whole, whatever happens in itsminutest parts affects its thinking, so is perceived in some sense. The difference between divinethinking and human then is precisely this: the rst perceives everything at once, the other onlywhataffectsthenitebodyconstitutingitsobject, withoutperceivinghowitssuccessivelocalperceptions are connected with the rest. Any physical affection comes with a perception of it, butallperceptionsarenotdistinctlyorevenclearlyavailabletothehumanmind. SoSpinozalikeLeibniz seems committed to the idea of a continuum of perception and awareness. I am indebtedto Peter Myrdal for helpful discussions of this last point. For an original and interesting reading,seeUrsulaRenz, TheDenitionoftheHumanMindandtheNumericalDifferenceBetweenSubjects (2P112P135),inSpinozas Ethics.ACollectiveCommentary, eds. Michael Hampe,Ursula Renz, and Robert Schnepf (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 99118.8. So human beings are nite instantiations of Gods innite thinking nature (God consideredunder the attribute of thought), that is, they are ideas constrained by the nite bodies constitutingtheir object.8 LilliAlanenis, when it is such that considered in itself without relation to its object9it has allthe characteristics of truth (2def4 and 2def4expl). Ideas, as we learn later in 2p49,come with afrmations of their own (2p49), as opposed to being passively receivedmute tablets in the mind, and conceiving as Spinoza stresses is more than merelyreceiving and contemplating ideas (2p49s). Afrmation, according to this doctrine,belongs to the essence of a (true) idea. Ideas then are not merely had or enter-tained; rather, they seem formed so as to be akin to what Descartes calls judgments,although they do not, as Spinoza argues in explicit opposition to Descartes, dependon any separate act of the will. Will and intellect for Spinoza are one and the same,thatistheyarenothingbutsingularvolitionsorideas, andsingularvolitionsorideas are the same (2p49cd). So insofar as thinking involves forming and afrmingideas, thinking, one might conclude, is essentially for Spinoza judging or believing.This, it seems to me, is also supported by the axioms that follow where other aspectsor modes of thinking are introduced.Having asserted in 2a2 that man thinks, 2a3 suggests that ideas are basic tothinking since there are no other modes of thought without ideas:Therearenomodesofthinking(modi cogitandi), suchaslove, desireorwhatever the name affects of mind can designate, unless there is in the sameindividual the idea of the thing loved, desired and so on. But the idea can begiven without any other mode of thought. (2a3)Thinkingisarepresentativeaffair10: therearenomodesof thoughtnocurrent acts of thinkingwithout an idea which is of and afrms something of itsobject; for instance, if I am thinking of Cephalus, my idea of Cephalus afrms thatthis horse has wings. No mode or act of thinking comes without an idea, but, asSpinoza explains, an idea can be given without any other mode of thinking (2a3).Afrmation, as we saw, is not a separable mode but an essential part of the idea, sothis suggests that the mode of thought that an idea primarily instantiates (i.e., ajudgment or rather belief) can be given in an individual mind without any othermode of thinking such as those listed in 2a3, namely affects like love, desire, etc.One wonders: Does some individual in 2a3 mean some given mode (act) ofthought or perception (my occurrent idea of Cephalus), or does it refer to me, tothe agent or mind (the complex idea of my body) in which it is formed and whosemode of thought it is?119. This could be understood in terms of the notion of idea of idea, taking the idea of the ideato be the same as the idea but considered merely under the attribute of thought, without regard toits (extended) object, as what Spinoza (following Descartes here?) calls the form of thought, thatis, the actual thinking or cognition of the idea, which comes with reexive awareness. I do not thinkthis is the right way to go though. Rather, the point is that an adequate idea is self-evident andcomes with the mark of its truth in itself.10. I agree with Della Rocca that all ideas represent but not that representation is the essenceof mind. See Michael Della Rocca, Spinoza (NewYork: Routledge, 2008), 90. As we have just seen,there is more to ideas than mere representation.11. The question arises because of the relative nature of individuality and the ambiguities ofthe term idea as Spinoza uses it. An interesting reading of 2p11c is defended by Ursula Renz, TheDenitionoftheHumanMind, whochallengesusualinterpretationsbyarguingthatmensisSpinozaontheHumanMind 9In the next two axioms, the subject of sentience and perception is referred towith a personal pronoun:(i) We feel (sentimus) a certainbody tobe affectedinmany ways(2a4); and(ii) We do not feel or perceive any other singular things except bodies andmodes of thinking (2a5).This is the rst time a subject of thinking is introduced, and it is natural tothink of we here as referring to the mind considered as the patient subject toexternally caused sensory perceptions. If the human mind is the idea of the humanbody, this idea, or rather the collection of ideas constituting it at any given moment,isshapedbytheaffectionsofthebodywhoseideaitis. AssubjecttopassionsorpassiveaffectsthatareasubclassofaffectionsSpinozastermforsenseimpressionsweareconditionedbyexternalcausesactingonourbodyanditssensory organs. The account given of the passive affects in Part Three ends with thisvivid picture of our predicament: we are driven about in many ways by externalcauses, and like waves on the sea, driven by contrary winds, we toss about, notknowing our outcome and fate (3p59s).Is this to say that weour mindsare personal subjects primarily qua sen-tient and passionate, when most dependent on external circumstances? Are wenot also epistemic subjects striving to form distinct ideas of the objects or causes oftheaffectionsandpassionstossingusabout?Spinozassalvationprojectclearlyrequires this: that we, who are subject to our passive affects, also have the powerto as it were rise above them to think and reason about their causes and the lawsgoverning them.All affections of the body are represented as ideas in the mind, but they arenot all strong enough to be distinctly perceived within that mind, that is, their ideasarenotstrongorclearenoughtobeindividuallyperceivedbythemindthatisaffectedbythem. Theideasofaffections,moreover,involveideasthatarenotimmediately attended to. For instance, they involve what Spinoza calls commonnotions (2 p40s1) that are always adequate and serve as the tools of reason thatalone can set us free from the bondage of passions. Qua common these notions areequally in the part and the whole, so are as it were at hand at all times in the humanmind too, without, however, being the objects of the thoughts currently occupyingit. Thepointof2a3maythenbethattheindividual mindcontainsmanyideasthat are not objects of its current thoughts or attention. But if they are not attendedmostly used by Spinoza with reference to the human mind, and that the idea of the human bodythat constitutes the human mind is, for Spinoza, the individual singular subject rather than an ideainGodsintellect.Itseemstomethat menscanbeusedbySpinozaforanyideaofanitedeterminate thing insofar as it perceives (or is perceived by God). He often does not distinguishbetween reason and intellect when talking of the human mind (e.g., 5pref), but clearly, the humanmind, insofar as it understands, that is, uses the intellect, is part of Gods innite intellect (see e.g.5p39s40c). In 5p40c, Spinoza states that the intellect is the eternal part of the (human) mind andthat it is through the intellect alone that we are said to be active, and 5p40s that our mind, in sofarasitunderstands,isaneternal modeofthinkingdeterminedbyanothereternal modeofthinking, and this again by another, and so on ad innitum, with the result that they all togetherconstitute the eternal and innite intellect of God.10 LilliAlanentoo (actually thought of), in what sense would they be given? Given to Godsintellect of which the idea constituting the human mind is a part perhaps?Part of the difculty here has to do with the lack of clarity concerning thesubject of representation: who is doing the thinking, afrming, judging or believ-ing? The complex idea of the human body and of whatever it contains is at all timesrepresented in Gods intellect together with the innitely many other ideas formedby the innite power of thinking. But are we not supposed to think of this idea ofthe human body as being also an individual subject representing to itself at leastsomeoftheideasthatconstituteitasubjectofwhompsychological actsarepredicated and who is, moreover, an agent cause of its actions? What does Spinozamean by individual in stating in the explanation of 2a3 that an idea can be givenwithout there being in the same individual any other modes of thought?Spinozasterm modeofthinking coversbothwhatDescartescalledtheact or operation of thought and the object of thinking; however, this distinctionbetween idea in the sense of mode or psychological act and idea in the sense of theobject or logical content of the act (made by Descartes inAT 7 8 andAT 7 37) doeslittle work for Spinoza (e.g., 2p11d). As modes, ideas are modications of Godsthinking nature and any singular thoughts, that is, your thought of the upcomingbreak and my idea of a winged horse are modes expressing the nature of God indenite and determinate ways (2p1d). So even if Idea in 2a3 and 2 p11d mayecho Descartess idea in the strict sensewhat Descartes also calls idea takenobjectively2a3 makes it clear that thoughts for Spinoza of whatever kind alwaysinvolve ideas taken objectively. 2p11d argues that the idea is prior in nature, sothat when it is given, the other modes (to which the idea is prior in nature) mustbe given in the same individual. As I understand it, idea as object of thought andidea as act, form one individual or indivisible mode together.12Yet they can bedistinguishedbyadistinctionofreasonorformaldistinction: theycan, thus, beconceived separately, although they cannot actually exist apart.For an idea to be given then, I surmise, is for it to be the object of an actualthought-act. WhenSpinozain2a3saysthatanideacanbegivenwithouttherebeing any other mode of thought, all he means, since he also holds that ideas alwayscome with afrmations, is that itthe ideacan occur (affect a mind) without anyothermodesofthinking, andthattheseothermodes, forexample, love, desire,sensing, or perceiving, whatever else they do, presuppose an idea afrming some-thing about the thing thought of (loved, desired, sensed). Because ideas in them-selves involve afrmations, no further act or mode of thought is required for anidea to be given in Gods intellect or in the human mind.13This leads us over to the12. The Dutch translation, Curley notes, reads: the other modes [ . . . ] must constitute oneandthesamethingwiththeidea (EdwinCurley, ed., TheCollected WorksofSpinoza, vol. 1[Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1985],456n27).Foradifferentreadingofthis,seeUrsula Renz, The Denition of the Human Mind.13. In 2p43s, Spinoza says explicitly that ideas are not dumb things like pictures on a tabletbut modes of thinking, for example, in the case of a true idea, the very act of understanding. Sinceall ideas, qua representations, already come with afrmations of their ownthere does not seemto be any room for considering ideas apart from the activity of conceiving, that is, afrmingor asthe case may be, denying them. Descartess version of the act-object distinction, therefore, does noSpinozaontheHumanMind 11question of the reality or being of ideas and Spinozas use of another distinctionand pair of scholastic terms that he inherits from Descartes: formal and objectivebeing or reality.4. THE FORMAL REALITY OF THINKINGReality or being and perfection, as Spinoza denes these terms, are the same thing(2d6). Themorethingsamindcanthinkabout, themorerealityorperfectionweconceiveittohave(2p1s), whichItaketomeanthemoreofGodsinniteattributes or essences the mind thereby instantiates. Gods power is unlimited: Godcanthink innitethingsininnitewaysGod canformtheideaofhisownessence and of everything that necessarily follows from it. Gods power of think-ing, moreover, is the same as his power of making: Gods ideas and their objectscome together.14Modern philosophers tend to regard extended material nature as ontologi-cally and explanatorily primary with respect to its idea or to the ideas of any thingswhatsoever. But this is not so for Spinoza. The nature of the mind, as the idea of thebody, cannot be explained through the nature of the body whose idea it is, and thisholdsgenerallyforallideas(see2p32p8). Farfrombeingsupervenientonthephysical, the mental is a self-contained expression of the whole of nature which canbeunderstoodonlythroughitself, forexample, throughotherideasthatcanbeconceived only through the attribute of thought. The mental is nature consideredunder the attribute of thoughtnot an aspect of nature, and thoughts are individu-ated holistically by their place within the pattern or network of ideas where theywork for Spinoza. I nd Margaret Wilsons comment on 2p5 misleading here: the formal being ofan idea is not really distinct from its objective being. See Margaret Wilson, Spinozas Theory ofKnowledge, in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1996), 96. Consider also 4p8s (and 2p22) where Spinoza talks of the cognition ofgood and evil as identical to the idea of pleasure or pain by which we are affected insofar as we areconscious of it. The idea of some thing affecting me with, say pleasure, is not really distinct from thepleasure, but is said to be united with it in the same way as the mind is with the body. My idea ofsome thing as good is merely rationally distinct from the emotion by which it affects me.If Spinozas account of ideas is to be understood in this way, a puzzle arises concerning theproject of curing the passions by transforming passive affects into active ones. 5p3 tells us that apassive emotionceases tobe a passive emotionas soonas we forma clear anddistinct idea of it,and5p3d that the clear and distinct idea of the emotion so formed is distinguishable only in conceptfrom the emotion is so far as the latter is related only to the mind. 2p21s is invoked here. There,Spinoza introduces the idea of the mind, that is,the idea of the idea,whichis one andthe same withthe idea, just as the idea is identical to the body but conceived under the attribute of thought. Hewrites: For in fact the idea of the mindthat is, the idea of an ideais nothing other than the form(forma) of the idea in so far as the idea is considered as a mode of thinking without relation to itsobject(2p21s). Presumably, the adequate knowledge of the idea of the affect (its causes), having theidea of the affectthat is, the affect considered as a mode of mind, as its object, differs from it onlyconceptually or by a distinction of reason. The adequate idea replaces the inadequate one, and withit transforms the earlier passive affect intoanactive one. But this leaves us witha mystery concerningthe identity of the idea of the original affect, whichseemedtobe contingent onits confusionas a stateof mind. Rather than being transformed into activity, the passive affect has ceased to be.14. See the explication in 2p7s about the formal reality of the idea of this circle and its beingqua mode of extension.12 LilliAlanenactually occur, through the other ideas that cause them and that they cause. Thevery being of the mind, and thereby also its individuality, depends on the context ofother ideas or modes of thinking within which it is given or apprehended. Its beingis being perceived or understood, and it cannot be perceived or understood apartfromperceiving/understandingalso(atleastsomeof)itscausesandeffects, forexample, the ideas from which it follows and that it in its turn generates.Nature considered under the attribute of extension is likewise a self-contained explanatory whole. The physical does not supervene on the mental anymorethanthementalonthephysical. Bothmentalaswellasextendedmodessupervene, if one wishes to use this term, on the innite substance whose attributesthey are modication of and that constitute their being or reality.Spinozas brand of power-monism or identity theory is, thus, very differentfrom more recent (twentieth-century) identity theories.15What he offers is theideaof onesubstanceexpressedindifferent ways,inmodesthat comeintwoirreducible kinds, without any independent access to the being or essence of thesubstance they express apart from the two attributes under which we can conceiveit (1def3 and 4).16So, although any given mode of thought expresses the very samerealityasitscorrespondingmodeextension, becauseitisexpresseddifferentlynothing of what goes on in the one, say a human mind, can be apprehended, or afortiori explained by what goes on in the other, the human body.17This has very15. The formal being of ideas is the same being as that of the things whose ideas they are,though conceived in a different way, through distinct and independent attributes (2p56). I differhere from Margaret Wilson who seems to take the formal being of ideas mentioned in 2p5 in thesense of mode of thought without relation to its objective content (Wilson, Spinozas Theory ofKnowledge, 96). I do not see what it would be to consider ideas as mere modes or acts of thoughtindependently of their object, that is, what it would be to consider their formal reality in that way.Formal and objective beings for Spinoza are identical, distinct merely through reason. Cf. note 4and 14 earlier.16. These attributes, moreover, have nothing in common apart from expressing, in differentandindependent ways, oneandthesamesubstance(1p2). Eachof themmust beconceivedthrough itself, as must the order and connections of their modes (1p10d).17. Spinoza summarizes the consequence of this doctrine as follows: Hence, so long as thingsare considered as modes of thinking, we must explain the order of the whole of nature, or theconnection of causes, through the attribute of Thought alone. And insofar as they are consideredas modes of Extension, the order of the whole of nature must be explained through the attributeof Extension alone (E2p7scol 2 gp. 90, 452).Objective reality or being, as I understandSpinozas use of it, is the being of the thing qua objectof thought. See, for example, 1p30d, 2p7d and TEI, 3334, Curley, 17; Short Treatise, Appendix 2,Curley 153. Cf. also Spinozas explication of Descartess use of the term in DPP, Part 1, A4, Curley,243 and A9 Curley, 2435, and Appendix Containing Metaphysical Thoughts, chap. 2, Curley, 304.Any actually existing (formally real) singular idea or mode of thought is caused by God as athinking thing not insofar as he is innite or absolutely, but by another singular idea (inGods innitemind), that is, by Godin so far as he is considered as affected by another denite mode of thinking,which in its turn is caused by another and so on ad innitum (2p9d). But there are real difcultieshere. Spinoza speaks of ideas of things or their individual essences following necessarily from theidea of Gods essence, and also describes the order and connection of ideas as the same as the orderand connection of things (2p7). Suppose we knew the laws of nature and the orderof causes connecting natural things, andfurthermore that these causes couldbe modeled,for example, on the notion of the impact of one body on another governed by universal laws ofmotion. If the connections between ideas could, analogously, be thought of in terms of logical orSpinozaontheHumanMind 13interesting consequences for the question of the nature (5) and individuation ofthe human mind (6).5. THE VERY BEING OF THE HUMAN MINDTheessenceof ahumanbeingaccordingto2p10cis constitutedbydenitemodicationsoftheattributesofGod. Since, torecapitulate, theintellectcon-ceives two attributes, each of which constitutes the essence of a substance (1def4),there are these two distinct and independent ways that the essence of a particularhumanbeingcanbeexpressed(orconceived)throughthinkingandthroughextension. Theyaremutuallyindependentmanifestationsorexpressionsofthesame being or power, and in this sense they are identical. The mind as the idea ofthe body is inseparable from it logically or semantically, as well as metaphysicallyand actually, yet, since the mind qua thinking and the body qua extended belong toseparate conceptual categories, the modes of mind cannot be explained throughmodes of extension or vice versa.Theimportant 2p11referredtoearlier tells us thattherst thingthatconstitutestheactual being(actualeesse)of thehumanmindistheideaofa singular thing which actually exists (2p11). The demonstration argues that theessence of man consists of modes of certain attributes of God, more precisely,referring to 2a2, by modes of thinking. Of these modes of thinking, the idea, by 2a3,is prior in nature. So the idea of this or that actually existing nite singular thingis the rst thing that constitutes the actual being of a human mind (2p11dem).Thehumanmindisessentiallyanidea, aninstanceofactual ongoingthinking.Ideas are individuated holistically, so the very being or esse of this idea depends onwhatever other ideas or modes of thinking it is caused by and causes (cf. 2p7s).Note that Spinoza is not concerned here with the eternal, formal essence ofthe human mindso not with an adequate idea of the human body as an object ofGods eternal thinking. An adequate idea of the human body would have to besome kind of complete notion involving the innite chain of causes acting on it andeffects that it causes. The idea constituting the actual being of this or that humanmind is not an adequate idea, even though Spinoza in 2p11c goes on to infer fromthe demonstration of 2p11 that the human mind is part of the innite intellect ofGod. Theactual beingofthehumanmindmay, presumably, bethoughtofbyGods innite intellect eternally, so is, in this sense, part of Gods eternal essencewho knows [ . . . ]. Yet even so, it is nothing over and above this changing collectionof contingent ideas of affectionsideas afrming the existence of their particularobjects, perceived more or less inadequately, in more or less partial ways. Spinozawrites: when we say that the human mind perceives this or that, we are saying[ . . . ] that God [ . . . ] in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mindmathematical deductions, it would be tempting to conclude that the order of mechanical causesis simply convertible intothat of logical deductions of ideas.Yet Spinoza gives noclues as tohowthatcould be or how such a conversion could be worked out, nor I gather, is it important, if one wants torespect his explanatory or conceptual dualism. See also Lilli Alanen, The Metaphysics of Affects:The Unbearable Reality of Confusion, in The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza, ed. Michael DellaRocca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).14 LilliAlanenhas this or that idea (2p11c). God qua thinking constitutes the being or essenceof the human mindnotqua thinking absolutely and adequately butqua beingaffected by the particular confused ideas of the denite and determinate currentaffectionsof thehumanbody,perceivedwiththeirpartial causes,that is,theircauses as apprehended from its limited point of view. Spinoza himself asks at theend of 2p11s the reader to proceed slowly and postpone judgment until they haveread to the end. I am not sure it becomes much clearer in the end. It is good toremember though that all talk of the human mind, what it does or what it suffers,henceforth refers to God not only in so far as he has the idea of the human mind,but also considered as affected by the idea of the object, that is, has ideas of theaffections of the human body (2p12d). It is only through these inadequate ideas ofthelocalaffectionsofthehumanbodythatGodhastheideaof(cognizes)theactual being of the human mind and constitutes its essence. What God cognizes inthis way is said to be cognized or perceived by the human mind (2p12d).Should one conclude then that the human mind really has no being or powerof its ownthat whatever power or activity it instantiates in thinking belongs nottothisminditselfbuttotheinniteintellectinsofarasithasthisidea, thatis,insofar as it is considered from the restricted perspective of the ideas of the currentaffections of the body whose idea it is? This, indeed, seems to follow, but it need notmeanthattheactuallyexistinghumanmindiswithoutpowerithastheverypower that Gods cognition of its actual being and affections involves. God can beconsideredintwoways: ontheonehand, Godor naturecanbeconsideredselectively from a determinate point of view, as cognizing or having the idea ofthis particular actually existing human mind together with certain other ideas ofnite things affecting it (2p11c). On the other hand, God can be regarded from theperspective of eternity, and here, the idea of the human body is an integral part ofthe innite order of adequate ideas in Gods intellect. The human mindthat is,the idea of the human body with its affectionsseems to have no actual being ofits own in this wider perspective.18As I understand this, it would therefore be misleading to say that the humanmind as such is a part of Gods eternal intellect, taking Gods intellect to be aninnitepowerofunderstanding. Thehumanmindisacollectionofinadequateideas, which as such do not belong to the divine understanding except insofar asthis understanding is limited to a contingent selection of obscure, inadequate andpartial ideas of the passing and constantly changing affections of the human body(cf. earlier note 12).One of the problems I have always had with this passage is to understandhow the singular mind as a mere mode could move from the limited perspective setbyits naturetotheabsoluteperspectiveof theinnitesubstanceinthewayacquiring the view from eternity presuppose. This kind of move seems required bythe salvation project of Part 5, and it would be tantamount to moving from what is18. One could speculate that Gods idea of the human mind considered this way with (some)of the external causes of its affections is here, in 2p11, opposed to Gods idea of the nature of thehuman mind as it is in itself, understanding all its changes internally as it were, as changes in its orits bodys own power qua individual (formal) essence owing from Gods innite nature. See 1p16and E5p29s, and 2p45s and 2p24c.SpinozaontheHumanMind 15not a real subject or agent of thinking to what is one. The move is from a niteand fairly limited set of ideas to an innite set. Such a move seems to take placewhenever the nite mind entrapped within its limited horizon succeeds in formingadequate ideas and, through them, to transcend its own limits. Part 5 of the Ethicsfamouslyholdsout thepromisefornitemindstoseethingsfromthislargerperspectivethat of eternity or innitude. The promise is grounded in their being,quamodesorideas,partsofthatinniteintellect,sharingmanythingswithitthrough which they can reach as it were beyond themselves, beyond the perspec-tive of the nite body whose ideas they are. The human mind, in understanding orthinking adequately, becomes an active part of the divine intellect (5p40,s,c). Thedifculty vanishes when considering that there is only this one power or subject ofthought, God, consideredas perceiving fromtwodifferent perspectives. Theeternal intellect takes on the limited temporal perspective conditioned by the ideasof the affections of this or that actually existing body. This may solve the problemon a theoretical level, but it leaves us with a counterintuitive and pretty obscureidea of what kinds of beings human minds are. Once the perspective changes fromthe human mind to that of Gods own essence, it seems that whatever identity thehuman mind had as a nite being is dissolved into the whole of which it is a part.What is the role played by the body whose idea it is here? Does it have any identityof its own, and how does that matter for the mind?6. THE BODY AND ITS IDENTITYAs the idea of an actual human body, which is a complex thing, the human mind isa collection of more and less inadequate ideas of all the changing parts of the body,their transient states and their causes. Ideas, as we already saw, are said to differamongthemselvesasdotheirobjects: themoreperfectionorrealitythebodycontains, the more perfection or reality does its idea possess (E2p13s). Bodies arehere individuated by the quantity of motion, and the rest and the speed of theirmotions, which depend on the motions of other individual bodies acting on them(2p13lem1and3)andtheinnitechainof causesproducingthem. Compositebodies like the human body are distinguished through some certain ratio of motionand rest among their parts, which constitutes their form (forma) or nature. Theirnatureispreservedaslongasthisproportionofmotionandrestispreserved(2p13lem47).19When this proportion changes, as Spinoza explains in 4p39s, thebody can be said to die, even when its external appearance and movements mayremain the same. The Spanish poet who through an accident lost his memory andbecameunabletorecognizehisworkashisown, wasasgoodasdeadonthiscriterion: his personality had been destroyed by the change in the proportion ofmotion and rest in his body (and brain) that determined its essential dynamic orfunctional organization. Not only had he lost the creative power of his mind that19. I agreewithMartinLinthat theratioinquestioncannot beanysimplenumericalproportion and should be understood more like a general plan or pattern of dynamic organiza-tion of the individual body persisting over time. That plan can still have a mathematical expres-sion. See Martin Lin, Memory and Personal Identity in Spinoza, Canadian Journal of Philosophy35 (2005): 24368.16 LilliAlanenhadenabledhimtoinventthestoriesandtragedieshewrote, buthecouldnolonger believe that he was their author. The collection of ideas that constituted hismindandtheirinterrelationshadbeenalteredby, orratherintandemwiththedamage caused by the accident to his body, thus impairing his power of thinkingand acting.7. STRIVING TO PERSIST IN ONES BEINGThisbringsusnallytoacrucial thesisinSpinozasaccount of identity: eachthingeach singular modehas its characteristic or essential power or striving topersist in its own being (quantum potest et in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur)(3p6d). This power by which it perseveres, conatus, is said to be the actual essenceof the thing itself (3p67d).But the same question can be raised again: whose power, what power are wetalking about? Qua part of the innite intellect, the human mind partakes in itsinnite power of thinking that it expresses in nite and determinate ways (cf. 3p6d).The divine power of thinking or reasoning as expressed in the nite mind, however,is limited. It is limited to the set of ideas it nds in itselfthat is, to ideas of its bodyand its affections. The divine intellect is innite as is the nature that constitutes itsobject: itspowerof thinkingcorrespondstotheinnitepowerof nature. Theunbounded power of Gods intellect expresses the unbounded power of the innitenature considered through the attribute of thought, and it is characterized by theorderandadequacyofitsideaswhichreecttheobjective20modalstructureofnature. The power of thinking in a nite human mind, correspondingly, reects thelimited power of persevering of the nite actually existing body whose idea it is andwhose being it expresses. The more things a nite body can dothat is, the moreeffects it contributes to produce whenever external things concur with its strivingthe greater is the power of its mind. This power, as the example with the Spanishpoet indicates, can express itself in various, more or less creative and subtle ways.Some complex bodies (or minds) produce poems, cupcakes, works of art, space-ships, or destructive explosions; others, for example, windmills, stones, or tornadoes,cause motions or resistance tomotion. The power of thinking or reasoning,however, cannotitselfbemeasuredinquantitativeterms. Whatiscrucial here,presumably, is the deductive order and connection of the ideas in a mind, the waysthey entail each other and hook up with the innite system of adequate ideas inGods mind. This means that the power of thinking of the human mind, which, aswe will see, is its power of activity, can only be measured by the order and adequacyof its ideas, the degree to which these ideas correspond to or express the objectiveorder of things.Spinoza does speak of action, agency, and freedom in referring to the humanmind, but since action in the strict sense is tied to adequate causation and under-standing, the notions of action and agency must be understood in terms different20. I use objective here in the sense Spinoza uses it, where objective and formal coincide, soit turns out to be not unrelated to modern uses of the term.SpinozaontheHumanMind 17from the usual, which presupposes ends and nal causes. Indeed, these terms areredened: What is called nal cause is nothing but human appetite in so far as itis considered as the origin or rst cause of some thing,21and likewise by the endfor the sake of which we do something, Spinoza means the same appetite (4def7).What we desire or strive for depends on our own power to persist and how it isaffected by external things. Human power (potentia), which is the same as virtue(virtus), is mans very essence or nature in so far as he has the power to bringaboutthatwhichcanbeunderstoodthroughhisownnature (4def8and3p7).Sincethehumanmindisdependentontheexternalcausessustainingthebodywhose idea it is, whatever power to act it has on its own must be very limited.22Inthestrongorabsolutesenseofaction, weareactiveonlyinadequatereasoningandunderstanding(intellectus)(4p52d, 5p40c,s). Butonemayasktowhat extentwe can be active in that sense? For if acting is dened as adequateunderstanding, andthisdependsonadequateideasinthesingularminds, whatreason is there to think that the power of producing or conceiving them depends onthatminditselfandnotonGodsinnitepowerwhoseimperfectinstantiationsthey are?8. THE GRADES OF COGNITION AND THE ORDEROF THE INTELLECTSpinoza explains in a letter (to G. H. Schuller) that the human mind can acquireknowledgeonlyof thosethings whichtheideaof theactuallyexistingbodyinvolves, or which can be inferred from this idea.2321. Causa autem, quae nalis dicitur, nihil est praeter ipsum humanam appetitum, quatenus isalicujus rei veluti principium seu causa primaria consideratur (4pref).22. Wearesaidto actwhensomethinghappens, inusoroutsideus, whereofwearetheadequate cause, and, conversely, we are passive or acted on when something happens in us, orsomething follows from our nature, of which we are only a partial cause (E3Def 2). There is, itseems, nothing we do as parts of nature that can be conceived independently of other parts (4p2d),so whatever we do, we are merely partial causes of our actions.Spinoza, it is true, also seems to useactionin a relative and weaker sense (e.g., in writing thatwe are dreamers in thinking that we are free causes of our action). Although we can cause moreeffects in extended nature than oysters or tornadoes dowe can, it seems, destroy all life on theplanet if we so wishour activity is at best partial and relativea matter of more or less, andalways dependent on the external causes concurring with our power. For discussion of this, see LilliAlanen, Spinoza on Passions and Self-Knowledge: The Case of Pride, in Emotion and Reason inMedieval and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Lisa Shapiro and Martin Pickav (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, forthcoming), sect. 1, and the literature there referred to.23. He summarizes the argument as follows:For the potency (power) of a thing is dened solely by its essence (Prop. 7 Part III, Ethics);however, theessenceofmind(Prop. 13, II)consistssolelyinitsbeingtheideaofanactuallyexisting body, and therefore the minds potency of understanding extends only as far as that whichthis idea of the body contains within itself, or which follows therefrom [ . . . ]. Now, this idea of thebody involves and expresses no other attributes of God than Extension and Thought [ . . . ] Now(by Prop.10, I) no other attribute of God can be inferred or conceived from these two attributes,or from their affections. So I conclude that the human mind can attain knowledge of no otherattribute of God that these two, which was the point at issue (Letter 64, Shirleys translation ofEthics, 252). Compare the obscure remarks from TdEI7273:18 LilliAlanenThe actually existing human body is the primary object of perception of thehuman mind. It is not easy to understand this claim, if one takes perception in anyordinary sense of representation, for the body and the mind are the same thingconceived under distinct attributes. Whatever thought occurs in the human mind is,by the identity thesis, some affection of the human body. But does it then followthatwhateverthehumanmindthinksofissomethinginitsbody? Thisseemsimplausible, when I think of a minaret in some distant mid-eastern town, or Platosargument for immortality, or the hens in my neighbors backyard, or your injury,these thoughts are not representing or of states of my body, not even of states ofmy body representing these things. One way of understanding it perhaps is thatwhateverwecanthinkofisbywayofideasofimpressionsinthebodywhosesensory organs are affected, directly or indirectly by association, by the externalthing represented.24In his account of cognition offered at the end of Part 2, Spinoza explains thatthere are certain things common to all things and that are equally in the parts inthewhole. Theyaregeneral, thatis, theydonotconstitutetheessenceofanysingular thing, since they pertain to all things equally (2p37). Moreover, they canonly be conceived adequately (e2p38c). Since they are instantiated in the humanbody too, their ideas or notions are in the human mind. These common notions,whicharealwaysadequateandfromwhichonlyadequateideascanfollow, areSpinozas version of the ancient idea of sparks of reason: they are the basis ofour reasoning processes (2p40s). Examples of these are ideas of properties sharedby all extended bodies like extension, motion, rest, and what follows from these(2p37 and 2lemma).Anyideaof affections of thehumanbody, whichareexternallycausedimages or congurations imprinted in the uid parts of the extended body, involvethese notions. Spinoza contrasts them to other, inadequate and confused, generalideasorso-calleduniversals, whichareformedonthebasisofimagesthataredifferent and vary with our individual sensory experience, and how our body hasbeenaffectedinits(asit were)randomencounterswithotherthings.25Sense(73) It only remains, then, to ask by what power our mind can formthese [simple ideas] and howfar this power extends. For once this is discovered, we shall easily see the highest knowledge wecan reach. It is certain that this power does not extend to innity. For when we afrm of a thingsomething not contained in the concept we form of it, that indicates a defect of our perception,or that we have thoughts, or ideas, which are, as it were, mutilated and maimed. For we saw thatthe motion of a semicircle is false when it is in the mind in isolation, but true if it is joined to theconcept of a sphere, or to the concept of some cause determining such a motion. But if it isasit seems at rstof the nature of a thinking being to form true, or adequate, thoughts, it is certainthat inadequate ideas arise in us only fromthe fact that we are a part of a thinking being, of whichsome thoughts wholly constitute our mind, while others do so only in part. (my italics; TdEI73)Here, as in the following passage, truth is related to simplicity (cf. the second part of the rst quoteto Oldenburg).24. But see Della Rocca, Representation and the Mind-Body Problem.25. Nothing happens randomly in Spinozas universe but that sensory ideas appear to occurrandomly in the singular mind that has no access to all their causes. He writes inTdEI: (84) In thisway, then, we have distinguished between a true idea and other perceptions, and shown that thectitious, thefalse, andtheother ideas havetheir originintheimagination, i.e., incertainSpinozaontheHumanMind 19experience is always of singular things acting on the senses, and no two sensoryimpressions are ever exactly the same since they depend on the (constantly chang-ing) condition of the body itself as much as that of the things that happen to affectit. While the common notions originate from the mind itself, that is, from its clearand distinct ideas of properties that all invariably bodies share, ideas of affectionsdependonmanydifferent successivecauses that arenot distinctlyperceivedorgrasped. Theideasofthethingsaffectingusare, therefore, unavoidablycon-fused, subjective and partial, and so are any general ideas formed on their basis(2p40 s1).26The rst of Spinozas three main kinds of cognition27is the lowest or mostimperfect and is called cognition through casual experience (experientiavaga).28It is the ordinary sensory experience we rely on in our daily affairs and use as astartingpointforanyknowledgeofsingularthings, includingscienceofnature.As dened in the Ethics, it operates with the inadequate universal notionsderivedfromindividual objectspresentedtousthroughthesensesinafrag-mentaryandconfusedmannerwithoutanyintellectual order(persensusmuti-late, confuse, et sine ordine ad intellectum repraesentatis). Perceptions here followone another according to what 2p29c refers to as the common order of nature,where the mind is being determined externallynamely by the fortuitous run ofcircumstancesto regard this or that (2p29s). Not only are the ideas, thus, per-ceived inadequate and confused; their occurrence depends also on habitual asso-ciations between ideas or images and signs, and so is contingent on our individualhistories andexperience(2p18s). Theorder inwhichideas arelinkedonthislevelthe common order of natureis a matter of brute or random encountersand associations, so it varies fromone person to another. When the mindperceives things in this way, it typically perceives themwithout perceivingtheircauses. Itsaffections, Spinozasays, arelikeconclusionswithout premises(2p28s) and cannot be explained by or derived from the ideas they happen to belinkedto.Rational cognition to the contrary is that by which the mind perceives thingsthrough their rst causes, and which is the same in all men (e2p18s). It is (or alignswith) the order of the intellectNatures true objective order. Here, the mind isdetermined internally, through its regarding several things at the same time, tounderstand their agreement, their differences and their oppositions. For wheneversensations that are fortuitous, and (as it were) disconnected; since they do not arise from the verypower of the mind, but from external causes, as the body (whether waking or dreaming) receivesvarious motions.26. Examples of universals or abstract notions formed in this way are man,being,thing(E2p40s1). Elsewhere, hementionsthoseof good, bad, order, confusion, hot, cold,beauty, ugliness, right, and wrong as formed in similar ways, based on what happens toplease or be useful to us. See 1App.27. I here ignore the distinction between two different sorts of knowledge from experiencesee TdIE 19 812 and Ep40.28. PossiblywithreferencetoBacons notionof randomexperience, althoughthetermvagus was used by other authors in the peripatetic tradition known by Spinoza in connectionwith the knowledge of singular things and universals. SeeAlan Gabbey, Spinozas Natural Scienceand Methodology, in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Garrett, 14291, 172 ff.20 LilliAlanenit is conditioned internally in this or another way, then it sees things clearly anddistinctly [ . . . ] (2p29s).29Spinozas remarks onthetwokinds of adequatecognition, obtainedbyreasonthroughcommonnotions or byintuitionof formal essences, areverysummary. Adequate ideas are true and that they are true is evident: one cannot,asserts Spinoza, have a true idea without, at the same time, knowing that it is true(2p43. cf. TdIE 35). The second and third kind of cognition both yield truth andteach us to distinguish truth from falsity.30How then do they differ? The way hecontraststhemsuggeststhatreasonisdiscursiveandconcernsgeneralcommonproperties of things, while intuition is some kind of immediate intellectual graspthrough which singular essences are seen as they are and in their relation to Godsor Natures formal essence of which they are part (cf. Wilson, Spinozas Theory ofKnowledge, 118).The rst kind of cognitionopinion or imaginationis the origin of falsityand confusion, yet it is noteworthy that it also contains some (partial) truth, andeven in some cases certainty. For instance, that we will die is something we learnonly through experience, yet there is no doubt about it. Experience is of things intemporal duration, and opinion, that is, beliefs formed on the basis of experience,is after all what we live our daily lives by.31The perspective that really matters forSpinozassalvationprojectintheEthics,however,isthatofeternityitistheperspective of true and adequate cognition of unchanging and eternal things. Trueideas give insight in their objects, which gives joy, and causes love32of the highestkind: self-loveorself-contentment. Theselfhereistheonethatinsightinournature as nite parts of Gods thinking nature reveals to us: so self-love is reallylove of the innite nature of which one is an integral part.The mind that uses the right method starts from its disorderly and confusedsensory cognition of singular things, which reason then reorders and straightens29. Spinoza refers to the cognition of the rst kind also as opinion or imagination, andtothesecond, whichproceedsfrom commonnotionsandadequateideasofthepropertiesofthings, as knowledge of the second kind or reason (2p40s2). The third kind of cognition isreferred to as intuition and is said to proceed from the adequate idea of the formal essence ofcertainattributesofGodtoanadequateknowledgeoftheessenceofthings (2p40s2). Thisisillustrated in TDEI as follows: a thing is perceived through its essence alone when, from the factthat I know something, I know what it is to know something, or from the fact that I know theessence of the soul, I know that it is united to the body. By the same kind of knowledge, we knowthat two and three are ve, and that if two lines are parallel to a third line, they are also parallelto each other, etc. Spinoza adds, But the things I have so far been able to know by this kind ofknowledge have been very few.30. Cf. Wilson, Spinozas Theory of Knowledge, 89141, 119, and her subsequent discussionof Spinozas hardline conception of truth and its consequences, pp. 11921.31. Although Spinoza does not seem to give much for the rst kind of cognition, in the Ethicsit is indispensable. In the TEI 20, Spinoza illustrates it with the following examples: I know onlyfrom report my date of birth, and who my parents were, and similar things, which I have neverdoubted. By random experience I know that I shall die, for I afrm this because I have seen otherslike me die, even though they had not all lived the same length of time and did not all die of thesame illness. Again, I also know by random experience that oil is capable of feeding re, and thatwater is capable of putting it out. I know also that the dog is a barking animal, and man a rationalone. And in this way I know almost all the things that are useful in life (TdIE 19).32. Love, as Spinoza denes it, is joy accompanied by the idea of its object.SpinozaontheHumanMind 21up in the light of its common notions, and, presumably, the necessary general lawsof nature derived from these notions. The end point is the intellectual intuition orvision of the formal essencethe true being of God or Natureand the essencesof singular things. Spinoza, as Margaret Wilsonremarks, says toolittleaboutessence for one to know what exactly all this is supposed to mean or how the ascentfrom common notions to intuitive cognition of essences is supposed to work, butclearly Spinoza thinks of rational knowledge through common notions as a neces-sary condition for intuitive science, which is the highest kind of cognition.33Therearealsoindicationsthathethinksoftherational scienceofextendedmaterialnatureinterms of amathematical mechanisticscience, andthat heenvisagessomethinganalogousforthinkingminds. HewritesinDeemendationethathetakes true science to proceed from cause to effect like the ancients but that no oneelse before him has conceived the soul as acting according to certain laws, like aspiritual automaton. I understand this metaphor to hold for the divine intellect orsoul (TdIE 85).I am not concerned here with the relation between the two higher kinds ofcognitionasmuchaswiththatbetweentherst,imagination,andthesecond,reason. Consider the two ways in which ideas making up our minds may be linked.One is subjective and accidental, and follows the fortuitous or random order of theaffections of the nite and contingent, actually enduring body whose idea our mindis. The other is the eternal order of the intellect, which is the same for all minds andadequately reects Natures true, objective order. How can a singular mind caughtupinitsaffectionsasmuchasbegintohookupwiththelatter?Supposedly,throughcommonnotions, whichareinvolvedinall ideasofaffectionssinceallaffections are impressions in the extended body. The common notions must includemore than merely extension, shape, motion and rest, and their quantitative expres-sions. The attribute of thought is common as well and gives us some access to Godsthinkingnatureandwhateternalintellectunderstands(seequoteatthebegin-ning). Thought is the vehicle of reason and intuitive cognition of eternal essencesand their relation to God. The idea perhaps is that each singular mind in thinkingadequately experiences a glimpse of the very power by which God (Natura natur-ans) produces the innite created nature (natura naturans).Spinozagiveslittlehelp, however, forunderstandinghowthenitemindcaptured in its temporal struggle can as much as begin, by any activity of its own,to cut loose from its affections, transcend temporality, and enjoy the contemplationof the eternal essences and the blessings this procures. At some point, the perspec-tive changes: God ceases to constitute this or that mind regarding things from theirtruncatedperspectives. Atsomepoint, wendthatwhateverpowerofmindorreason we manage to exercise merges with that of the eternal intellect of which itwas, all along, but a nite and imperfect expression.Spinozas obscure account of kinds of cognition deserves a discussion of itsown and has been considered here only for what it may tell us about his originalconception of mind and its nature as apart of Gods innite intellect. His project ofsalvation through intellectual intuition, where the mind nally becomes one with33. See Wilsons illuminating paper, Spinozas Theory of Knowledge, 89141.22 LilliAlanenits object, is where he comes closest too or perhaps even goes beyond the mostradical of ancient rationalist ethics. It is also the part of his doctrine that seems tobe the most difcult for us to understand. Other strands like his account of imagi-nation or the rst kind of knowledge and of ideas as afrmations or striving forcesare hard to t with this rationalist project, and seem to point forward to subsequentradicalempiricism. Thelastsectionofthispaperlooksbrieyattheaccountofideas and afrmations.9. IDEAS AS AFFIRMATIONS2p49 asserts: In the mind there is no volition, or afrmation and negation, exceptthat which the idea involves insofar as it is an idea. I follow Michael Della Roccainreadingthisnotmerelyasclaimingthatafrmationandwill alwaysrequireobjects, but as the stronger claim that an afrmation or volition is simply a matterof having a certain idea, so is due to the nature of the idea and nothing else.34What2p49d says is straightforward: volitions are nothing but ideas. Conversely, ideas, asDella Rocca explains, are live psychic forces (212). They compete as it werewhich each other on the basis of the relative strength of the force with which theyafrm themselves, so that this force in the end depends on the content of the ideaandtheforceof thecollectionof otheractual ideasamongwhichtheyafrmthemselves. However, the force with which the idea is afrmed should be distin-guished from the striving or desire that it generates in the mind whose power ofthinking it is an expression of.Here, I differ from Della Rocca, who contends that it is because all ideas are[ . . . ] bound up with an agents striving that [Spinoza] sees all ideas as afrmationsand invokes 2def3 and the notion of ideas as actions in order to clarify 2p49. Thisreading makes ideas too much like desires causing our actions. It is true that ideascanbeseenasexpressingthesamepowerorconatuswithwhicheachthingendeavors to persist in its own being and is nothing but the actual essence ofthethingitself (3p7). Thus, likeanyothersingularthings, ideas, inadequateoradequate, each have their own essence or conatus by which they persist in whateverbeing and whatever determinate duration they have. The obscure perception of apassing feeling of pain or the confused sensory image of the sun as approximatelyof the size of a football, presumably afrms itself with less force than the distinctideasinvolvedinthedemonstrationsofitstruesizeanddistancefromtheper-ceiver. Yet all ideas alike, considered in themselves, strive to persevereor rather,the mind of which they are constituent parts strives to persevere with whateveradequate and inadequate ideas it happens to have at a given moment (3p9p). I amhaunted by the memory of the delicious taste and smell of the chocolate meltingin my mouth: the idea of how good and desirable it is afrms itself more vividlythan that of the indigestion that might follow from eating more. What ideas striveforistheafrmationof theirobject ortheaspect underwhichthat object isrepresentedtheir force or tendency is to keep it present in mind, and they do this34. Michael Della Rocca, The Power of an Idea: Spinozas Critique of Pure Will, Nos 37,no. 2 (2003): 20031, 203.SpinozaontheHumanMind 23as longas other contraryideasideas whosecontents areincompatiblewiththeirsdo not exclude them. The question of what desires, and through these, whatactions or events in the world the ideas or beliefs thus afrming themselves maycause, is a different matter that should, it seems to me, be considered separatelyfrom that of their force to as it were maintain themselves on the mental screen.35Whether they will continue to afrm themselves depends not only on their speciccontent but also on the extent to which they agree with other ideas occupying thatverysamescreen. Ideasarecausedbyandprimarilycauseotherideasbytheirspecic power to persist, which in its turn depends on that of the ideas that causeand concur with them.36Ideas derived from the adequate idea of a triangle havemore power in themselves than those caused by the eeting sensation of pain, butthe reason for why the sensation of pain is weaker has to do with the power of theexternal cause of the affection of the body whose idea it is, perhaps indigestionfrom too much chocolate or the sting of some insect. The obscure ideas of pain, onthe other hand, may also surpass in strength that of any other ideas in your mind,but this is not because of its own power of afrming itself but rather a consequenceof the damage inicted to ones body thwarting its power of action, and thereby theminds power tothink. Whatever power themindhas togenerateadequatethoughtsisthen,itseems,simplyinhibited. Theunbearablepainsufferedbyavictim of torture overwhelms her to the point of wiping out all other ideas from hermind, causing her to give in to the charge or, if she manages to resist that tempta-tion, topassout. Butthestrengthofthepain, whichsoobscuresherpowerofthinking, is not a function of the content of the obscure idea of the pain itselfitis due, rather, to the force of external causes (as compared with that of her ownbody) to affect the state of her body, and through the ideas of these affections, hermind, destroying, in the end, both her bodys power to persist and the power ofthinking of her mind whose object that body is.As I understand it, the cause that is relevant for dening the power of a thingis that which depends on its very essence and not on that of any other simulta-neously concurring causes. The idea of a hoped for increase of your income mayafrm itself with obsessing force in your mind, but that is not because of the powerof this idea in itself as much as that of concurring ideas and desires of increasedpower and ensuing benets.37The cause that matters when speaking of ideas aretheantecedent ideasfromwhichtheycanbedistinctlyderived, andthemoredistinct they are, the greater, presumably, their mental force: the more adequateideas they cause. Like any other things, ideas have strivings of their own, and whatideas are striving for qua ideas is nothing other than to maintain or increase theirownpowertoafrmthemselves, andsincethatforcedependsontheircontentalone, one may speculate that they always, in the end, strive for greater adequacyor perfection through more connections with other distinct ideas that can support35. But see Della Rocca, The Power of an Idea, 20812.36. Thepowerofaneffectisdenedbythepowerofitscause,insofarasitsessenceisexplained or dened by the essence of its cause. 5ax2, Curley, 597.37. I discuss Spinozas account of the interplay between ideas, passive affects, and desires inAlanen, Spinoza on Pride and Self-Knowledge.24 LilliAlanenthem. But this smacks of teleology that Spinoza abhors, and may t a Leibnizian,account better than his own.What Spinoza leaves us with seems to be minds as collections of ideas withstrivings and forces of their own. In this way, Spinozas account of mind and ideascan be said effectively to contribute to the deconstruction of the last remnants ofthescholasticarchitectureofthemind. Wheretheysawhierarchicallyorderedfaculties, with reason or intellect at the top, Spinoza presents us with a power-eldof ideasaspsychicforcesleavinglittleforustoworkwithwhenit comestounderstanding the unity of the complex ideas that the human mind constitutes andits agencywhether it has any.10. CONCLUSIONAllthingswhethersingularmodesorcompositeindividualshaveapoweroftheir own by which they strive, we are told, to persist in their being. Taking onesclue from the axioms of Part Two, thinking is essential to the being of human minds,and thinking consists in afrming ideasor ideas afrming themselvesthus com-peting with but also, as the case may be, joining forces with other ideas to maintainthemselves in existence. Spinoza avoids the anarchy of a wild state of confusion, orwar where ideas of varying strength ght each other, only by his unwavering faithin reasonthe power to use adequate ideas that the human minds have becausetheysharein(areparts of) Gods inniteunderstanding. Adequateideas arecaused by and generate only adequate ideas, so once a particular mind is able toform them, they will, by their own impetus, tend to multiply and increase. If reason(orintellect)thepowertogenerateadequateideasisweakinsingularindi-vidual minds, whereit isconstantlyopposedandthreatenedbyoverpoweringconfused affects, it is, after all, common to all human minds. Moreover, it is the onlygood thing that there is an innite supply of; instead of diminishing, as other humangoods tend to do, it grows and increases in power by being shared by many. HenceSpinozasdeeplyoriginal ethical project,38whereself-preservationdictatesthatmenandwomenjoinforcesinpeacefulexistence, cultivatingtheirreasontobenet fromthiscommongood, andwheretheanalysisof passionsandtheirmechanisms teaches us howtocontrol themtomakethat commonendeavorpossible. This common good that does not diminish but grows by being shared iswhat Spinoza calls Acquiescentia in se ipsoand is the highest kind of contentmentthat understanding oneself as part of nature alone can bring.38. John Carriero gives an insightful account of Spinozas ethical goal and its similarities withtraditional rationalist ethics that see understanding as our highest good in The Highest Good andPerfection in Spinoza,in Oxford Handbook of Spinoza, ed. Michael Della Rocca (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, forthcoming). See also Olli Koistinen, Spinoza on Action, in The CambridgeCompaniontoSpinozas Ethics, ed. Olli Koistinen(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,2009), 16787. I try to understand, in my The Metaphysics of Affects or the Unbearable RealityofConfusion, howthisambitiousethicalprojectaimingatunderstandingrelatestoSpinozasmore down-to-earth political project. See also Michael A. Rosenthal, Tolerance as a Virtue inSpinozas Ethics, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 39 (2001): 53557.SpinozaontheHumanMind 25Copyright of Midwest Studies In Philosophy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not becopied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express writtenpermission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.