Sensatio aeternitatis

Author(s): Lorenzo Vinciguerra

Source: Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly / 50 ‫ כרך‬,‫ רבעון פילוסופי‬:‫עיון‬
July 2001 pp. 273-283
Published by: S.H. Bergman Center for Philosophical Studies / ‫ ברגמן לעיון פילוסופי‬.‫ ה‬.‫מרכז ש‬
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 Lorenzo Vinciguerra

Sensatio aeternitatis

Sentire sive percipere (EIIp49s) or sentire et percipere (EIIax5): both of

these expressions state that sensatio is always attached to a perceptio,

meaning that sensation belongs to mental reality. In order to avoid a possible

misunderstanding, it must be said that the body does not feel. The body, in
fact, is able or unable to do anything, it affects or is affected; therefore, not

the body, but the mind feels. This is the reason Spinoza comes to say — in
TIE §78 — that an idea, considered in itself, is nothing but a certain sensation
(tantum talis sensatio).
This does not mean, of course, that the body is simply matter to be felt,

just as the mind is not only the principle of animation of the body. If
sensation is to be considered part of mental phenomena, it does not mean

however that the body is not concerned at all.

The firstoccurrence of sensation is in TIE §21. It introduces us to one of

the principal aspects of Spinoza's thought: the problem of the mind-body

union, which is only a first, but necessary, step towards the comprehension

of another union that Spinoza wants to reach in TIE §13, i.e., cognitio
unionis, quam mens cum tota Natura habet. Why be surprised then, when in

the Ethics Spinoza speaks of a summus Mentis conatus, and when, in the

famous EVp23s, he again uses the terminology of sensation to say that

sentimus experimurque nos aeternos esse? Adequate or inadequate,

sensation seems to be rooted in Spinoza's conception of union, because,
under certain conditions, sensation is the union itself nam per illam unionem
nihil intelligimus praeter sensationem ipsam.
When sensatio appears in TIE §21, Spinoza is explaining the third kind
of knowledge. It consists of an inference, where the essence of something is
deduced from something else, or when we infer an effect's cause with no

other consideration of what is included in the effect itself: postquam clare

percipimus, nos tale corpus sentire, et nullum aliud, inde, inquam, clare

273
© lyyun The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 50 (July 2001): 273-283

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274 Lorenzo Vinciguerra

concludimus animam unitam esse corpori, quae unio est causa talis

sensationis. So, the clarity of sensation is not sufficient to produce an

adequate inference about the nature of what, in any case, is involved in the

sensation itself, i.e., the mind-body union.'

So, by this kind of inference, the nature of sensation itself as well as the
nature of the mind-body union are not conceived in an adequate way. In other

words, I do not have an adequate idea of the idea I have of a body that affects

me, just as I do not have an adequate idea of the idea of the body I am.
In any case, it seems that the conditions of the possibility of sensation are
set within this relationship between the idea I am and the idea I have, because
what I feel is never simply one or the other of these ideas, but always one and

the other, one with the other of these ideas: we should say they go together,
in the sense that sensation is precisely the effect of their difference. On the

other hand, the idea I have and the idea I am are given without the adequate

idea of what they both are: quaenam sit ilia sensatio, et unio, non absolute

inde possumus intelligere (TIE §21). In other words, the idea of the body I
am is always perceived by the idea of the body I have (what we call
sensation). That is why this kind of knowledge infers the nature of the union,
involved in the sensation, from an imaginative model of sensation itself. In

fact, according to Spinoza, Descartes himself makes this mistake, when he

imagines a mutual action between the two substances composing the

substantial unity. Note h (too often wrongly considered as obscure)2 explains

the reasons leading to this way of thinking: to the things we perceive in an

abstract way, that is to say, which we consider as separate when they are

united, we give names already used to indicate more familiar things.

Consequently, we imagine these things according to the manner we habitually

imagine those things firstnamed. No example is given to illustrate this, but it

is not so difficultto read here an argument against Descartes' dualism, that is
to say, the cartesian union of thoughts and small portions of extension.

The confusion (or abstraction) concerns the nature of the idea according
to Descartes, who imagined it like a painting on the wall differentfrom the

1 can be considered certain (certa), but

This is why note h says that the conclusion
not sure enough (non tamen satis tuta), because of the kind of perception, which
does not assure distinctness to the inference. So one clearly sees the implication but
cannot distinguish the nature of what one conceives.
2 H. Joachim believes in his Spinoza's TIE: A Commentary
As, for instance, Harold

(1940) (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1993), p. 30, n. 1.

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 Sensatio aeternitatis 275

positive and affirmative act of the will. Then, it is possible to read Spinoza's
explanation of Descartes' theory in the following terms: by the association
of the word 'idea' with the common and familiar image of a painting, the
nature of the idea is then confused with what does not belong to its nature,

separating it from what it really is, that is, an affirmation. So, in the end, it
is the confusion of extension and thought that leads Descartes (but not only

him) to conceive a radical separation between mind and body, with the
consequent impossibility of understanding the real essence of their union,
of which sensation is nonetheless a key. How could the mind feel, if it were
not united with the body? But, how could the mind be united with the body
by a union which is imagined as a physical union? In this sense, what
happens to Descartes is what Spinoza says (in §58 note z) happens to those
who recall the word anima while they are thinking about a corporeal image;
as these two objects are represented together at the same time, it is easy to

believe that the soul is a physical thing, because the name has not been

distinguished from the thing itself. That is why confusing the general name
and the common image leads to misunderstanding the real nature of the idea,

in other words, to producing a fiction about its essence, and, generally

speaking, to confusing imagination and intelligence.

In spite of this, the question still remains of understanding the nature of
sensation itself, considered as the act of sentire.
In TIE §35, the terminology of sentire appears again when Spinoza writes

about the feeling of truth: certitudo. Certitudo nihil est praeter ipsam
essentiam objectivam: id est, modus quo sentimus essentiam formalem, est

ipsa certitudo. This means that the feeling of truth depends on the nature of

the idea itself. Certitudo, then, is the sensation given by the true idea we have,

also called the objective essence. Therefore, when Spinoza says that "certainty

is none other than the way we feel the formal essence," by 'formal essence'

we must understand first of all (prius) the formal essence of the thing (which
is the object of the idea) felt in the objective essence (or idea of that object),
and not the formal essence of the idea of the thing. Under this condition it is
possible to understand that truth does not need any other sign than the true

idea itself. In other words, the certaintyof having a true idea of the circle does
not reside in the idea of the idea of the circle (as Bernard Rousset thinks),3but

3
See Spinoza, Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, edited, translated and
commented by Bernard Rousset (Paris: Vrin, 1992), p. 234, point 1. Cf. also A.

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276 Lorenzo Vinciguerra

directly in the idea of the circle. In fact, the sensation of being certain belongs
to the true idea; otherwise, if we allow that certaintyconsists in the idea of the
idea of the circle, it would imply that sensation is something more than the
true idea of the circle. So, if we have a true idea without feeling the certainty
it involves, this will depend on what Alexandre Matheron has called "the

imaginative context" of the idea, which is like an obstacle to the feeling of

certitude.

This point leads us to the consideration of another problem: the

relationship between consciousness and sensation. There is, in fact, another

way of translating and understanding sensatio and sentire: "to be conscious

of." There is no doubt that Spinoza often repeats that men are conscious of

their appetites, but ignorant of their causes, with the consequence that they

are no longer conscious of themselves, of God, or of the things. When

Spinoza talks about being conscious (esse conscius) and self-conscious

(conscius sui), it seems that we must distinguish between being conscious

of a certain body (sentire corpus quoddam) through the idea of the affection
of the body (EIIp 19) and being conscious of the Mind through the idea of
the idea of the affections of the body (EIIp23). As we know, this difference
is important, because it justifies Spinoza's definition of desire as "appetite

together with consciousness of the appetite" (EIIIp9s). On the other hand,

the appetite, that is, the essence of man considered as his mind-body union
— let us remember that appetite is related both to Mind and — can be
Body4
understood as a desire without consciousness. We could call it then a blind

desire, a pure determination to realize one's utility with no consideration for

the objects of desire, which all need a modification of the essence to be

encountered. We are talking about a desire without a precise object, as well

as a desire without a precise subject, as the subject who desires is himself

decided by his objects of desire. In this sense, the appetite, as a desire
without consciousness, constitutes something like the primum of the essence

of man. It is possible to consider the same distinction and the same distance
between appetitus and cupiditas as between the primum of the essence of

Matheron, Idee de l'ide'e et certitude, in Methode et metaphysique, Travaux et

documents du Groupe de Recherche Spinoziste, n° 2 (Paris: Presses de l'Universite
de la Sorbonne, 1989), pp. 93-104.
4 & Corpus simul vocatur
Hie conatus [...], cum ad Mentem, refertur, Appetitus
(EIIIp9s).

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 Sensatio aeternitatis 277

the human Mind taught by EIIpl 1 and what happens (contingit) to the object
that constitutes the human Mind (I am referring to EIIpl2). The purpose,
here, is less to suggest the hypothesis of the existence of "unconscious

ideas," in order to give a psychoanalytical reading of spinozism, than to try

specifying the distinction between what Spinoza means by sentire &
sensatio and consciousness. Sensatio, in fact, is at once that which manifests
the union itself, and that which distinguishes the individual according to the
two aspects of his being. On the one hand, then, sensation is like a signal (an
index) of the mind-body union, but on the other, at the same time, it permits
the distinction of mind and body. The union goes with sensation, but its
correct conception does not necessarily follow it. Descartes himself could

only imagine such a difference, with no adequate conception of it.

Spinoza writes: Corpus humanum existitprout ipsum sentimus (EIIpl3c).
Edwin Curley translates: "the human body exists, as we are aware of it."5

We would say: our body exists within the limits of the feeling we have of it.
However, this does not mean that the body only exists within the limits of
the consciousness we have of it. It is true that we must keep in mind this

distinction to which Spinoza is deeply attached. Desire is always an affected

or modified essence, but not bare essence itself. What is the essence of man

"before" its modification? What is it, when we know that it is constituted by

certain modifications of God's attributes? The plurality of modifications
does not exclude the singularity of the essence, which is itself an affection

expressing God's nature in a precise and determined way. Singularity does

not imply simplicity: the essence of man is not simple, it is complex, but this
does not mean it is not a singular thing.

Therefore, it is perhaps time to consider this profound link between what

Spinoza calls the primum of the essence of the human Mind (the idea of a
finite thing actually existing, that is, the body —EIIpl 1) and what happens
(contingit) in it (EIIpl2). The experience of feeling is determined at this
particular point of the connection between essence and existence, where the

latter touches or affects the former, contributing to their unification and, at

the same time, to their distinction (the essence of modes does not involve
existence). There is no doubt that here the condition of being finite (limited,
bounded) plays an important role: in fact, the primum of the essence of the

5
The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. Edwin Curley (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1985), 1: 457.

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278 Lorenzo Vinciguerra

human Mind is "nothing but the idea of a singular thing which actually
exists" (EIIpl 1).
So, we can understand in two different ways the phenomena related to

what we call consciousness. First of all, in the lower kind of knowledge:

there is a being conscious of, which is immediate and non-reflexive, given

with the idea of the affection. It is exactly what EIIax4 says: "We feel that a
particular body is affected in many ways" (Nos corpus quoddam multis
modis affici sentimus). Man thinks (homo cogitat) and a particular body is
affected. Nevertheless we could ask, why do we feel one particular body

(corpus quoddam) instead of many: why do we not feel as many bodies as

we do affections? The question is far from being absurd if we consider that

axiom 4 leaves us with an anonymous body. Spinoza does not say that the

body we feel is ours. Moreover, it is not said either how all these sensations

are related to this particular body. We have just seen that the essence of the

human Mind is not simple, but composed by a great number of ideas; now

the problem is to understand how this plurality is felt as concerning only one

body. Spinoza does not give any explanation. He seems to suppose that there

is a synesthetic sense included in all the acts of feeling, that concerns the

body in its singularity and qualifies it as the sensitive pole of a multiplicity

of affections (sight, taste, smell, touch, hearing). The body is hence felt as a

plural singularity, that is, a synthetic relation of a sensitive multiplicity. In

order to further clarify this point, it is perhaps worth remembering that "the

parts composing the human Body pertain to the essence of the Body itself

only insofar as they communicate their motions to one another in a certain

fixed manner" (EIIp24d). Hence, if the differentsensations of the body are

felt as belonging to it, according to what we could call a passive synthesis
of the body, this means that, with these sensations, we also have to feel in

some manner their constitutive relationship, which supports the singular

essence of the affected body, otherwise we could not feel and know that we

are a conatus. So, the isolation and the analysis of any specific sensation,

that is, the hypotheses of TIE §21, is possible only if there is an affective
background expressed by the essence of the body.

That is not all. There is also a consciousness of one's own Mind, given
with the reflected idea of the Mind, with no relation to the object. It follows

that it is not possible to have an idea of an idea "before" having the idea of
the body. This priorityis logical, phenomenological, as well as chronological.
Logical, first of all, because man consists of a Mind and a Body;

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 Sensatio aeternitatis 279

phenomenological, because the Mind exists and knows it exists only through
its existential union with the body; finally, chronological, because, although
there are things affirmed by the mind without its being conscious of it, the
mind knows it affirmsthem only if firstit has affirmedthem.
Now it is easy to understand that the consciousness of what we can call with

Spinoza a subjectum belongs only to the firstkind of knowledge. Therefore,

only in the first kind of knowledge do we believe in the liberty of
consciousness. The use of the term subjectum is rare in the Ethics, and in the

few places it occurs (EIIIp5 and EVaxl) Spinoza uses it to mean

incompatibility and contradiction in someone. This is not surprising since for
Spinoza the subject is not simple, but plural, complex: if it were simple it could
not feel itself as a subject. So, subjectivity is firstof all the feeling of being in
conflict, in difficulty,limited by something thatmakes me feel my being finite.
Above all we are aware of ourselves through the experience of failure, of pain,

when something becomes an obstacle for our striving, and we are placed in a

contradictory position. In this sense we can say that the subject is always in
itself ambiguous, doubtful. It is contrarietyitself,opposition, antagonism, in a
word, vacillation (fluctuatio). In a way, we are inclined to forget ourselves

when we are joyful, whereas we are thrown back upon our finite nature as soon

as we feel something as a problem. Indeed the Proemium of the TIE represents

this experience that Spinoza had to go through in such a dramatic way.
The fact, then, that Spinoza no longer uses the terminology of

consciousness and subjectivity when he talks about the second kind of

knowledge is significant. The true idea is reflexive in itself, not because the
consciousness of the mind reflects upon it. To employ an expression of the

TTP, when someone has savoured the certitude of a true idea, what he

discovers is not his consciousness but a power (potentia) of understanding.

Therefore, as long as we understand, and the more we keep on understanding

in the second kind of knowledge, the illusion to possess ourselves in the

dream we call consciousness dissipates. But there is another reason that can

be given: the common notions, as we know, do not constitute the essence of

any singular thing; that is the reason our singularity cannot be perceived as

long as we employ the second kind of knowledge.

So, when Spinoza, in the EV, comes to talk about a Mens conscia sui, Dei,

et rerum, it is in a different sense that he can say that. He no longer means that

mental refuge of ignorance that is the liberty of consciousness of an imaginative

self-consistent subject, typical of the first kind of knowledge; he no longer

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280 Lorenzo Vinciguerra

means the consciousness lost or forgotten in the impersonal truth of the common

notions either; he means a regenerated consciousness given by the third kind of

knowledge, based on the knowledge of the union with its divine cause.
Still—we feel that we are eternal. Spinoza's expression is not far from

the terminology typical of the first kind of knowledge, whereas we know

that the firstkind of knowledge deals only with duration. The sensation of
eternity is rooted in the eternity of our mind-body union, which expresses
our being involved in the attributes of God. To realize our eternity does not
mean, of course, to make it happen. Rather, it is to gain a new birth, to savour

a new life, to be regenerated by the eternity of eternal objects.

When the reader of the Ethics comes to EVp23, he already knows that God

is not only the cause of things beginning to exist (ut res incipiant existere,
i.e., causa rerum secundum fieri), but also the cause of their persevering in
being (causa essendi, i.e., causa rerum secundum esse). In the first sense of

the divine causation, the essence of modes does not involve existence, and

the existence of a finite mode is caused by the existence of another finite

mode according to what Spinoza calls generation. In the second sense of the

divine causation, the existence of another mode cannot be the cause of the

essence of another, because nothing but God can be the cause of the essence.

The generated existence of the mode consists only in the beginning of the

present affirmation of its body in duration, but it does not consist in the

essence of the mode. The present affirmation of the body is determined by

an affection, that is to say, according to EIIp 12, by whatever happens

(contingit) in the body. What remains to be seen, then, is the cause of the

essence of the body and the mind, not as they affirm their present existence

through some idea of affection happening in them, but as they are necessarily
contained in God's attributes. To feel that we are eternal is to feel our body
under a certain kind of eternityrelated to an infinitecause: in this sense, it is
possible to say thatour eternityfollows from the definition of an eternal thing,
because we are an effect of it. This infinitecause must, absolutely speaking,
constitute the essence of the human Mind. Under this condition, our eternity
belongs to the essence of our mind; we cannot act as though we do not have

an idea of it. In other words, we feel it (even if this idea is so often translated
into the imaginative belief in the immortalityof the soul).
Still the feeling of eternity expresses the mind-body union; that is why,
here again, Spinoza uses the terminology of sentire, which occurs whenever

there is a question of the mind-body union. The idea of the essence of the

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 Sensatio aeternitatis 281

body belongs to the essence of the human Mind, as they are one and the same

thing in God. The eternity felt of the essential union of mind and body is
followed by another feeling of union: our being united in God with God. The
intellectual love of God is developed in the feeling of this double union:
indeed, we are in God and we are joined to God by this love, as "God's love
of men and the Mind's intellectual love of God are one and the same."6
So, if it is the case (contingit) that the mind begins or finishes affirming
the presence of the body through its affections related to a precise time and

space, caused by another idea that puts it into or out of existence, it cannot

be the case that it keeps its essence from one of these external beginnings.

And, of course, for the same reason, it cannot be that it loses it either. In the

end, there must be some part of the mind, which is not determined by what

happens to its object (the body), which is nonetheless directly linked with
its essential union with this object. This part of the mind does not die when
the present affirmation of its existence ceases. We cannot imagine the cause,

but we can feel it before conceiving it adequately. It is thus that through our
desiring nature, which involves both our body and mind, we experience our

eternity.The Mind is sensitive to the thing it conceives as well as the things

it imagines. That is why demonstrations make the mind sensitive to what
imagination alone is not able to respond to. Demonstrations help the mind
to have a correct comprehension of this idea or feeling, which imagination
converts into other images (for instance, the immortality of the soul).

This then with a kind of consciousness —

feeling goes regenerated

acquiescentia in se ipso—which is actually triple: self consciousness,

consciousness of God, consciousness of things. It has to do neither with the

private consciousness related to an imaginative subject, nor with a

conflicting subject.
According to EIIp45s and EVp29s we know there are two ways of

understanding existence and actuality: in the first, existence and actuality

6
EVp36c. Actually it would be possible to talk about a third union, which makes for
God's glory as well as ours. I mean the union of the human minds. The intellectual love

among men 1 call friendship (amicitia). Amicitia, which we know to be the fundamenta
civitatis (EIVp37sl), is certainly very rare, but nevertheless is the expression of God's
love among men: we could call it the community of wise men, or the eternal church of
the minds. This reminds me of the translation given by Paolo Cristofolini of the adage
homo homini Deus in his book La scienza intuitiva (Napoli: Morano, 1987), p. 191: he
does not understand it as man is a God for man, but as man is God for man.

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282 Lorenzo Vinciguerra

are taken in relation to a certain time and space in duration; in the second,

existence and actuality of things are conceived sub specie aeternitatis as we

conceive them to be contained in God and follow from the necessity of the

divine nature. These two ways of understanding actuality and existence

allow us to have a double comprehension of the above propositions (EIIpl 1

and pi3) without any change of the terminology they use.

I have just said that according to the first kind of knowledge, to feel the
body means to feel what happens (contingit) in it, i.e., an affection. So
concerning the imagination, I am inclined to read proposition 11 in terms of

proposition 12. Yet, I must add, we could not have any sensation of our body

if we had not also an idea of the body, which understands them as the affection

of these affections which are its affections. Otherwise, how could we know

that all the sensations belong to one and the same body which we feel and

which we say to be ours? That is why propositions 11 and 12 go together: they

need each other. Therefore, the Idea of the Body which actually exists, and

which constitutes the primum of the essence of the human Mind, involves

necessarily two things, or rather a double aspect of one and the same thing:
the existence and the essence of the body. The existence of bodies without the

essence of a body would reduce Spinoza to a vanishing sensualism, where all

impressions would disappear in the vacuum of substance as soon as they

appeared. We would then fall into Hegel's acosmism. The act that decides

that an essence comes to exist involves a double resonance. It is as if the

essence trembled to feel itself existing. This could be the answer to Hegel: the

idea of a singular thing actually existing must involve the existence and the

essence of the thing, otherwise everything would appear and disappear with

no desire to persevere in its being. But this cannot be true, because we cannot

actually exist without feeling (even if in a confused way, but no less

powerfully for that) that our power of desiring cannot die, keeping us beyond

whatever limits it. Spinoza and Kierkegaard share the same idea, according
to which we feel our eternityfirstof all in our feeling that it is impossible for
us to die, what they both call the mortal illness.

We have just seen the double sense of proposition EIIp 11. It contemplates

the two senses of its terms: 'existence' and 'act'. One term still has to be

considered: the singularity of the thing affirmed by the idea constituting the

primum of the essence of the human Mind. It can be observed that Spinoza

says 'singular' and not 'finite'. Of course, the demonstration specifies that it

cannot be the idea of an infinite thing. The essence of the object of the idea

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 Sensatio aeternitatis 283

that gives us the feeling of our eternity is singular and therefore finite,
but — and this is the point — it is not finite in the sense that it can be finished
or limited by the existence of something else, because we are not talking

about the kind of existence that refers to presence and duration; we are

talking about the existence whose singularity is contained in the infinityof

its cause as one of its properties or eternal truths. So between the singular

thing (res singularis) and "that thing said to be finite" (ea res diciturfinita)
we can see the following difference: the finite thing is, according to EIdef2,
that thing which can be limited (terminari potest) by another of the same
kind; the singular thing is this same finite thing, but considered as it cannot
be limited by another of the same kind.
In other words, what constitutes the primum of the essence of the human

Mind is an internal resonance in the idea of the body between a finite

affection — considered as an effect of a finite thing — and a finite
affection — considered as an effect of an infinite thing, the latter supporting
the former. This difference inside the idea of the body causes a sensation.
Now we are able to understand what the TIE — sensation is the
says why
union itself (the eternal essence of the Mind as an affection of the

substance) and also why sensation is the effect of the union in its experience

of existing (the affection of the body).

The mind-body union is conceivable only by the affections. But affection
works on two levels: it touches both existence and essence, affecting the

perseverance of the mind-body union. The primum contemplates both. It

does it as a singular thing. The principal reason for this lies in the fact that
not only the infinite, but also the finite is actual. It is an act. The experience
of eternity, the sensation we have of our eternity, is due to this duel inside

our dual singularity. The act of being singular receives its being from an

infinite cause. But we have a sensation of it only when our singular essence

is touched or moved by the affection which limits it.7 The feeling of our
eternityis the feeling that there is something infinite in the act of being finite.

University of Grenoble

7
There is no doubt, then, that, as Pierre-Francois Moreau has written, "the feeling
of finitude is the condition of the feeling of our eternity," but I cannot agree with
him that "finitude itself is the feeling of eternity"; see P.-F. Moreau, Spinoza:
Experience et eternite (Paris: PUF, 1994), p. 544.

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