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1. theory of knowledge an extension and refinement of the Cartesian theory of clear and
distinct perception. For every idea there is an ideatum and an object conceived under the
attribute of extension which exactly corresponds to the idea in the system of the world.
Every idea is ‘of’ its ideatum, and therefore every idea possesses what Spinoza calls the
‘extrinsic’ mark of truth(which is) the namely an exact and necessary correspondence to
its ideatum. Error is possible, however, since many ideas fail to possess the ‘intrinsic’
mark of truth, which is present only in ‘adequate’ ideas. Although the term ‘adequate’
comes from Descartes, it effectively replaces the notion of a ‘clear and distinct
perception’, as Descartes had discussed this.
Every adequate idea is self-proof to the one who conceive it, and ‘falsity consists in privation of
knowledge, resulting from inadequate idea.
and confused ideas’. A prime example of this inadequacy is sensory perception. My image of the
sun, for example, is of a small red disc resting on the horizon: and if I trusted sense-perception
alone, I should be led into false conceptions, believing that the sun itself is the ideatum of this
image, when in fact its ideatum is a process in me— something going on in my eye or brain.
Every idea is a mental glimpse of a physical process, and conversely every physical process is no
more than an extended embodiment of an idea. It follows that ‘the order and connection of ideas
is the same as the order and connection of things’. This proposition encapsulates a thoroughgoing
rationalism. The relation between ideas, when considered purely from the aspect of thought, is a
relation of logic: one idea follows from or provides a logical ground for another. And the only
way in which an idea can give a satisfactory explanation of another idea is through such logical
relations. We can explain the conclusion of a proof only by showing its logical relation to the
premises. And that relation is one of necessity.
Likewise the order of things is an order which allows for explanation. In Spinoza’s view
everything that happens, since it stems from the same ineluctable nature of the single divine
substance, happens not by chance but by necessity. So the order of things must exhibit that
necessity. We show why one event happens in nature by showing it to be a necessary
consequence of all that preceded it. And the necessity here, which compels the sequence of
nature, is exactly the same as the necessity explored in a mathematical proof. Indeed, if we saw
all na
Knowledge gained through sense-perception is assigned, in the Ethics, to the lowest of three
levels of cognition: the level that Spinoza calls imagination or opinion. Such cognition can never
reach adequacy, since the ideas of imagination do not come to us in their intrinsic logical order,
but in the order of our bodily processes. By the accumulation of confused ideas we can arrive at
a grasp of what is common to them—a ‘universal notion’, such as we have of man, tree or dog.
But these are not in themselves adequate ideas, even if they constitute the meaning of our
everyday general terms.
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The second level of cognition, exemplified by science and mathematics, comes from the attempt
to gain a full (adequate) conception of essences. This involves adequate ideas and ‘common
notions’, since ‘those things which are common to all and which are equally in a part and in the
whole can only be conceived adequately’. To return to our example: not being part2
of my body, the sun cannot be adequately known through modifications of my body, but only
through the science— astronomy—that aims to provide an adequate idea of the heavenly bodies.
This science will begin from geometry, which is the science of extension; but it will also employ
such common notions as those of ‘motion and rest’.
The third level of cognition is intuition, or scientia intuitiva. ‘This kind of cognition proceeds
from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate
knowledge of the essence of things.’
Spinoza seems to mean by intuition the comprehensive understanding of the truth of a
proposition that is granted to the person who grasps it, together with a valid proof of it from self-
evident premises, in a single mental act.
‘Cognition of the first kind is the only cause of falsity... while cognition of the second and third
kinds is necessarily true.’ From our point of view, therefore, the truth of an idea consists in, and
is understood through, its logical connection to the system of adequate ideas. The advance of
knowledge consists in the replacement of confused and inadequate ideas by adequate
conceptions, until, at the limit, all that we think follows inexorably from a self-evident
conception of the nature of God