How to Understand

De Intellectus Emendatione'
PAUL D. EISENBERG

THE VERY TITLE of Spinoza's Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (hereinafter

abbreviated as TDIE or referred to simply as "the treatise") poses some difficulty
for the translator or, at least, for the "interpreter" of the treatise. To begin with,
what exactly is the meaning of emendatio (or, in the ablative, emendatione)? The
most obvious, and accordingly the most frequently employed, English translation
is 'improvement'; indeed, even in the Nagelate Schri[ten, 2 emendatio is rendered by
Verbetering: 'improvement' or 'a making better'. But some of the English-speaking
commentators on the Tractatus or some of the translators of it into English have
employed other words to translate emendatio--words which, usually, have not
differed much or at all in basic meaning from 'improvement'. So, for example,
Sir Frederick Pollock in his Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (London, 1880;
2nd ed., 1899) translated emendatio by 'amendment'; and Andrew Boyle in his
translation of the treatise (which first appeared, together with a translation of the
Ethics, in 1910) rendered emendatio by 'correction'. Now, there could be no question about the acceptability of any of these translations were it not for the fact that
throughout the treatise (and in his later writings) Spinoza tends to treat the intellectus ('understanding')--but, as I shall indicate soon, there is a problem also,
although by no means so grave a one, about the proper translation of this term a
1 This article was written before I learned that a Lexicon Spinozanum in two volumes
(prepared by Emilia Gianeotti Boscherini) was soon to be published in the International
Archives o[ the History of Ideas. Since I have not yet had an opportunity to consult that
work or to consult with the lexicographer herself, I do not know to what extent the relevant
entries in that lexicon have anticipated or helped to clarify the problems which are discussed
in this article.
2 The 1677 Dutch translation of Spinoza's Opera Posthuma.
3 Although, as I have said, the very title of Spinoza's TDIE poses some difficulty for
the translator of the work, the difficulty is not fundamentally one of translation, but of
interpretation. That is, the problem does not arise from the alleged fact that, although
Spinoza had available to him in Latin two words, emendatio and intellectus, which are
perfectly apt for conveying his doctrine, there are in English or, for that matter, in other
m o d e m Indo-European languages no terms the denotations and connotations of which are
even roughly those of the original Latin terms. On the contrary, the problem arises from
the fact that Spinoza's "real" doctrine in the treatise itself appears to be that the intellectus
(as distinct, e.g., from the mens humana) is incapable of anything that might rightly be called
an emendatio in the, or in any, ordinary sense of that Latin term itself. W h e n - - o r i f - the translator of the treatise becomes aware of that fact, he finds himself confronted with the

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- - n o t as s o m e t h i n g w h i c h stands in need of i m p r o v e m e n t o r which can be imp r o v e d , b u t as s o m e t h i n g which is perfect in its own right. T h u s again a n d again
in the treatise he speaks of the n e e d for distinguishing between the intellectus a n d
o t h e r things which are o r m a y be "in the m i n d " - - - o f t e n he refers to these o t h e r things
as (so t o speak) collected in the i m a g i n a t i o n (imaginatio), o r as its p r o d u c t s ; a n d
once the i m a g i n a t i o n a n d its c o m p o n e n t s a n d p r o d u c t s are carefully described
a n d so distinguished f r o m the intellectus or, as certain passages in the treatise
suggest, once they are n o t o n l y distinguished from the intellectus but also eliminated f r o m the m i n d , then there will r e m a i n nothing b u t true a n d a d e q u a t e k n o w l e d g e
of things. 4 B u t neither this process o r activity of distinguishing intellectus from
i m a g i n a t i o n o r the process of e l i m i n a t i o n of i m a g i n a t i o c o u l d p r o p e r l y be
c h a r a c t e r i z e d as the ' i m p r o v e m e n t ' , o r as resulting in the ' i m p r o v e m e n t ' , of the
intellectus itself. R a t h e r , those processes w o u l d constitute or result in an imp r o v e m e n t of the m i n d (considered as that which, at least in its u n i m p r o v e d
state, " c o n t a i n s " b o t h the intellectus a n d the imaginatio).
B u t if " i m p r o v e m e n t of the u n d e r s t a n d i n g " is a quite m i s l e a d i n g description of
the process in question, so also is "purification of the i n t e l l e c t " - - w h i c h is the
d e s c r i p t i o n a d o p t e d b y H. H. J o a c h i m , w h o f o u n d n o n e of the p r e v i o u s English
t r a n s l a t i o n s (which I have referred to here) of intellectus emendatio to be acceptable. 5 T o be sure, the d e s c r i p t i o n of the process as one of purification is explicitly
e m p l o y e d b y S p i n o z a in one passage in the treatise a n d is at least suggested by the
w o r d i n g of several o t h e r passages. T h u s at the b e g i n n i n g of w 16 S p i n o z a describes
the t a s k which he has set for himself in the following way: ante omnia excogitandus est modus medendi intellectus, ipsumque, quantum initio licet, expurgandi
( " b e f o r e everything [else] a m e a n s m u s t be devised for i m p r o v i n g the u n d e r s t a n d ing, and, as far as m a y be at the outset, of purifying it . . . . -).6 A l t h o u g h Spinoza
problem of whether he should render literally the title and such later passages as involve
reference to an intellectus emendatio, or whether he should substitute terms which accord
better with Spinoza's other statements and which, therefore, must have meanings very
different from the ordinary meanings of those two Latin words. Of course, I do not know
how many translators of the treatise have actually been aware of that problem. In any case,
the better known translations into, e.g., French and German offer quite literal renderings of
intellectus emendatio. Thus Alexandre KoyrE's translation (Paris, 1937; 3rd ed., 1964) agrees
nerfectly with that of Roland Callois (Paris, 1954) in rendering the Latin by la r~/orme de
l'entendernent; and Carl Gebhardt in his early commentary on the treatise (Heidelberg, 1905)
and in his translation of the treatise itself (Leipzig, 1907) offers die Verbesserung des
Verstandes, thus agreeing perfectly with the spirit, though not quite with the letter, of
Berthold Auerbach's earlier translation, die Berichtigung des Verstandes (in his translation
of Spinoza's complete works, first published at Stuttgart in 1841).
4 The view that, among the various "things" which go to make up the human mind
or soul in its entirety, there is some one especially privileged "part" or "faculty" which is
such that by its very nature it must know or be capable of knowing reality or at least the
intelligible principles which somehow "underlie" reality--indeed, that it must know or be
capable of knowing only, and can never of itself lapse into error or doubt--is, of course, not
original with Spinoza. On the contrary, the view (as represented in Western philosophy) goes
back at least as far as Parmenides and Heraclitus; and certainly Spinoza himself might
have found it in the writings of Plato and Aristotle.
See his Spinoza's "Tractatus de lntellectus Emendatione'" (Oxford, 1940), p. 1, footnote 1.
6 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the TD1E or from any other of
Spinoza's works are my own.

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here describes the task as one of medendi intellectus (which is patently and
completely synonymous with the intellectus emendatio of the title) and also as one
of expurgandi intellectus, it seems altogether reasonable to take the latter phrase
as (at least roughly) equivalent in meaning to the former and, therefore, to offer
'purification' as the translation for emendatio itself. Moreover, at the beginning of
w 18 Spinoza employs the gerundive form of emendare (the verb from which the
noun, emendatio, is derived) in describing his self-appointed task; but in place o/
emendandum at that point the Nagelate Schriften have zuiveren ('purifying');
probably that fact indicates that in the Latin manuscript from which the Dutch
translation was made Spinoza had written expurgandum and that he later changed
it to emendandum: that he replaced the former word with the latter indicates, in
turn, that he saw some difference, if only in connotation, between the two words;
on the other hand, that he originally wrote expurgandum here indicates that
'purification' cannot be an altogether misleading or inappropriate translation for
emendatio. Finally, in at least two passages in the treatise (w 83, note; w 91) Spinoza
refers to certain types of ideas which are (or are not) products of, or do (or do not)
belong to what he calls 'the pure mind' (pura mens); and the contexts of these two
passages make it clear that the pura mens is nothing other than the intellectus.
Accordingly, it might be inferred that the process whereby the ideas which belong
to the pura mens are obtained or those which do not belong to it are sharply
distinguished from it and, perhaps, also eliminated from it might be termed a
'purification'.
Nonetheless, this process cannot be a purification oJ the understanding or intellect (intellectus); for on Spinoza's view the intellectus contains no "impurities"
within itself. It is the mind as a whole which may contain "impurities"--i.e.,
false, suppositional, and doubtful ideas, all of which are among the products of
the imagination. The intellectus can no more become contaminated or defiled (and
subsequently purified) than it can become in some way defective or inefficient
(and subsequently improved). I have been speaking here of the human understanding (i.e., of the understanding of any particular human being); but, of course, what
I have just said applies also to the divine intellectus. Or rather, according to
Spinoza, it is because it is "of the nature of a thinking being"--i.e., of God considered as the res cogitans--"to form true or [i.e.] adequate thoughts" (w 73) and,
further, because any particular human mind is simply a mode of the thinking
thing, that it comes to be true of the human intellectus that it is such as to form
only true thoughts and to possess only knowledge. As Spinoza himself says
in w 31,
the understanding by its native strength makes intellectual tools for itself, by which
it acquires further strength for other intellectual operations, and from these operations
other tools or [i.e.] the power for making further inquiry, and so it proceeds step by
step until it attains the summit of wisdom.
Notice that this process is one which the understanding initiates (and carries
through) "by its native strength." Moreover, throughout the process the intel-

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lectus (according to Spinoza) acts completely in accordance with "certain laws" of

its own, as though it were "some spiritual automaton" (w 85). Since from the
beginning of the process the understanding is strong and since it "acquires further
strength" as it works, there seems to be no time at which the understanding is in
need of purification.
On the other hand, every step which the understanding takes towards "the summit of wisdom" represents, presumably, some kind of 'improvement' relative to the
condition in which it was prior to that step. So it seeems that, afte~ all, there is a
sense in which the understanding is capable of improvement. It is far from clear,
however, that in the treatise Spinoza himself always describes or interprets the
improvement of the understanding in that sense; on the contrary, it is clear that he
sometimes speaks of what I might call a "more radical" type of improvement
(tantamount to a purification of the intellec0--a type of improvement which,
according to other passages, it is impossible for the intellect to need or to undergo.
Thus, e.g., at the beginning of w 16, in a passage part of which I have quoted
already, he says: "... before everything [else] a means must be devised for
improving the understanding, and, as far as may be at the outset, for
purifying it in order that it may understand things successfully [or] without
error and as well as possible." But one would be led to infer from, e.g.,
the passage in w 31 quoted above that the intellectus always and necessarily
understands things "successfully [or] without error"--that, even if it never
attains the summit of wisdom, at least it always moves of its own accord
(or "by its native strength") in that direction, and never in the direction of error, falsehood, or folly. Moreover, if this process is indeed purely
"automatic," then it becomes difficult to see how Spinoza could devise, or could
want to devise, "a m e a n s . . , for improving the understanding": why devise a
means for accomplishing what the understanding will do in any case, vi sua nativa?
Of course, it is possible to interpret Spinoza as meaning that the process of intellection (i.e., of understanding), once begun or "set in motion," continues automatically and along a predetermined course; but that the intellectus is, unfortunately,
not always "in process" so that a means must be devised for starting the process.
But before the process has been started--i.e., before one understands something-it must be impossible to improve the understanding, and once the process has
started or has been started, the understanding "improves" itself.
Again, there seems to be no sense in which this ongoing process could appropriately be described as (or as resulting in) a continuous purification of the intellect; yet before the process has begun, there can be nothing in the intellect which
needs or is capable of purification. Yet we have seen that Spinoza does speak
of purifying the understanding "as far as may be at the outset." And he proceeds
with this (pseudo-) purification principally by distinguishing and separating "a
true idea from other perceptions" and thereby preventing "the mind from confusing false, suppositional, and doubtful with true [ideas]" (w 50). I shall not dwell
here on the problem (which is genuine) of how the mind can confuse any of these
various types of non-true ideas with the true ones; what has to be observed here
is only that the confusion is avoided or removed b y pointing out (or to) the dif-

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ferences between the true ideas and the others, not by a quasi-physical operation
of separating the true ideas from the others as though they were, to begin with,
combined or mixed together (like the proverbial chaff and wheat, or sheep and
goats) in the intellect. What is true, according to Spinoza, is that they are ordinarily
so combined or mixed together in the mind; but the mind is not to be identified
with the intellect.
And yet it seems that throughout the treatise, but especially, perhaps, in its
earlier sections, Spinoza has made precisely that identification. I believe that the
fundamental difficulty in interpreting to an English-speaking student of philosophy
Spinoza's notion of intellectus emendatio does not lie, as Joachim supposed, in the
(alleged) fact that it "seems impossible to find a satisfactory English equivalent
for the L a t i n . . . " - - i . e . , one which will convey to such a student the "exact
implications" (ibid.) of that Latin phrase, for, contra Joachim, 'improvement of
the understanding' is a quite accurate translation of it; rather, that fundamental
difficulty lies in the fact that the phrase, as Spinoza employs it, has no exact
implications. In other words, I submit that Spinoza had a confused conception of
the intellectus, at least during much of the time that he wrote the treatise; nor do
I mean here to be making an unverifiable claim about the author who stands, as
it were, outside and above the text: the claim concerns the text itself, or (if you
will) the author who reveals himself in it.
Spinoza could not speak about an improvement of the understanding of the
"more radical" sort which I have distinguished if he did not, in many passages.
implicitly identify the understanding and the mind or confuse the one with the
other. Thus, on the one hand, he speaks in w 16 (as we have seen) of "improving
the understanding, and, as far as may be at the o u t s e t . . , purifying it in order
that it may understand things without error . . . . " and in w 17 of "endeavoring to
redirect [our] understanding towards the right course"; in the same vein he
speaks in w 50 of distinguishing and separating "a true idea from other perceptions" and thereby preventing "the mind from confusing false, suppositional, and
doubtful with true [ideas]," and in w 38 of showing "how the mind is to be directed
according to the standard of the given true idea." Such passages as these lead
the reader to infer that the mind and the understanding are one, and that it or
they are capable both of going astray and then of being purified and so set forever
on the right course. On the other hand, in w 85 Spinoza says that his conception
of "true science" is the same as that put forward by the "ancients" except that
"'never, so far as I know, did they conceive, as we have here, the mind acting
according to certain laws, and as if [it were] some spiritual automaton," and he
concludes immediately afterward, at the beginning of w 86, by saying, "Hence, so
far as may be at the beginning, we have acquired knowledge of our understanding . . . . " Such passages as these also lead the reader to infer that lhe mind
and the understanding are one, but that it or they are incapable of going astray-that, on the contrary, they proceed infallibly and (it seems) ineluctably to deduce
truth from truth "in an unbreakable chain" (w 61, note).
On first recognizing that, so often in the treatise, Spinoza identifies the intellect with the mind, one might be tempted to see in that identification the sign and

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the e x a m p l e p a r excellence of Spinoza's a r c h r a t i o n a l i s m a n d to c o m p l a i n that, on

S p i n o z a ' s view, m a n ' s soul (anima) o r his m i n d ( a n i m u s , m e n s ) - - i n the treatise
S p i n o z a uses all three L a t i n terms i n t e r c h a n g e a b l y 7 - - h a s (so to speak) " s h r u n k "
to a m e r e u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h a t includes neither feeling n o r will n o r desire. I n fact,
however, while t h a t identification is i n d e e d s y m p t o m a t i c of Spinoza's rationalistic
view of m a n a n d of t h e w o r l d , there c a n b e no g r o u n d for the c o m p l a i n t t h a t
S p i n o z a has d i v o r c e d intellection f r o m o t h e r c o m p o n e n t s o f the " m e n t a l life" or,
still worse, t h a t he has in effect sought to e l i m i n a t e a n y o t h e r c o m p o n e n t s f r o m that
" m e n t a l life." T o be sure, he has next to nothing to say a b o u t (e.g.) e m o t i o n s in
the treatise; a n d w h a t he does say seems o n l y to confirm the i m p r e s s i o n t h a t he
finds t h e m to be (at best) derivatives from a n d (at worst) corrupters of the understanding. T h u s in the brief p e n u l t i m a t e section of the treatise (w 109), he says,
seemingly b y w a y of afterthought,
The remaining things which are referred to thought, such as love, joy, etc., I shall
not tarry over: for they do not pertain to our present purpose, nor indeed can they be
conceived unless the understanding is perceived. F o r if perception is entirely removed
all these things are removed [also].
F r o m this c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of "love, joy, etc." it m a y be inferred that (according
to Spinoza) t h e y are m o d e s of thought, s b u t it c a n n o t b e inferred t h a t he regards
r A striking example is provided in w167
77-78 where, within the space of five lines (in
the standard edition of the Latin text--namely, Gebhardt's), Spinoza, who is discussing
doubt, begins by distinguishing vera dubitatio in mente ('true doubt [which is] in the mind')
from that doubt which a person expresses in words although animus non dubitet ('[his] mind
does not doubt') and then goes on immediately to argue that true doubt is not produced
in any mind (in anima nulla datur) merely by the thing itself which is doubted.
s They are, that is, modes of substance conceived under the attribute of Thought. In the
present passage (w 109) Thought is tacitly identified with Perception and both of them, it
seems, with Understanding: The point of the passage seems to be that these "remaining
things" are merely modes of Thought. Now, according to the definition of 'mode' (for which
see Ethics I, Def. V), modes are "affections of substance, or that which is in another thing
through which also it is conceived." First Spinoza tells us, in w 109, that love, joy, etc. cannot
be conceived unless the understanding is perceived (that is, conceived), from which, of course,
it follows that love, joy, etc., are conceived through the understanding. Next, in saying that
"if perception is entirely removed all these things are removed [also]," Spinoza seems to
mean that the latter things are, ontologically, "in another thing"--namely, Perception; or, in
other words, that they depend for their existence upon the existence of Perception. But the
conclusion that love, joy, etc., are merely modes of another thing requires both that they
be conceived through that other thing and that their existence depend upon that other
thing; hence, the conclusion that love, joy, etc., are merely modes of Understanding depends
upon the identification of it with Perception or, conversely, the conclusion that they are
merely modes of Perception depends upon the identification of it with Understanding (an
identification which appears to be rejected by Spinoza throughout most of the treatise).
Yet at the beginning of the section, Spinoza describes love, joy, etc., as "referred to
thought" (cogitatio), which by itself suggests that they are merely modes of Thought, as
indeed they are explicitly said to be in the Ethics. Now it seems to be the case that at least
in the present section Spinoza is tacitly identifying Thought and Perception, cogitatio and
perceptio, nor does he elsewhere in the treatise expressly deny that identification. Unfortunately, however, in the Ethics Understanding, whether finite or infinite, is taken to be
merely some mode(s) of Thought (see I, Prop. XVII Schol., and XXXI). The identification
between cogitatio and intellectus which Spinoza seems to be making here is, moreover,
apparently not the same identification as that which he has already made between (e.g.)

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these modes as unimportant except relatively "to our present purpose," which is
only to distinguish understanding and its true ideas f r o m other cognitive or pseudocognitive experiences or states of mind and then to discover the way in which the
understanding (or, rather, the mind) is best led to the true knowledge of things. It
might be objected, however, that emotions themselves are not wholly noncognitive
experiences--i.e., that (usually) they include quasi- or actual judgmental c o m p o nents; and indeed Spinoza himself in the Ethics, especially in Part I I I , analyzes
emotions (both active and passive) as involving "ideas" or beliefs and involving
them, not merely accidentally or, as one might say, peripherally, but rather
essentially. Nonetheless, the judgmental components of emotions are not, qua
"ideas," 9 of a sort different f r o m any of those which Spinoza does investigate in
the treatise, and therefore the investigation of emotions is not something which
he has to e m b a r k u p o n or to "tarry over" in this work.
It must be remembered, however, that although Spinoza is not concerned to
discuss or analyze any of the emotions here, the explicit goal of the M e t h o d which
Spinoza does describe--indeed, the very purpose of Spinoza's life (according to
the opening sections of the treatise) is the enjoyment of a "love towards a thing
eternal and infinite" (w 10), a love which he was later (in the Ethics) to describe
as the amor Dei intellectualis or 'intellectual love of God'. This love is neither
"outside" nor " a b o v e " the understanding: it is, rather, in the understanding and of
it. That is to say, it is (according to Spinoza) the inevitable p r o d u c t of one's
knowledge of God, the thing "eternal and infinite," but it is not (as it were) separated from that knowledge, nor is the latter the "transcendent" cause of that effect.
O n the other hand, Spinoza never suggests that the understanding is "effected" b y
its love or that the relation between knowledge and love is one in which the
latter, which is at ~first the effect, comes in time to act causally u p o n the former,
as a child in the course of time m a y come (and regularly does come) to act
causally in various ways u p o n its parent. The nature of the relation between love
and knowledge as Spinoza conceives it is, thus, rather obscure; but its obscurity
is not something which we have here to "tarry over" or which should cause us
to forget or to doubt that Spinoza at least intended s o m e h o w to unite knowledge
and love, understanding and emotion. His is not a rationalism which views all
mens and intellectus, for in the TDIE Spinoza nowhere explicitly equates 'thought' with
'mind' and indeed in the Ethics he explicitly distinguishes them (cf. especially Parts I and II).
But, though not the same as the latter identification, the former identification, too, is
expressive not only of Spinoza's confusion in this youthful work, but also (and, I think,
more interestingly) of an excessive rationalism, which is not to be found in his later work
(including the Ethics).
9 It should be noted that Spinoza makes no (sharp) distinction between ideas and
judgments or, accordingly, between ideas and volitions. For, following Descartes, he identifies the (so-called) "faculty of willing" or the will with the power to affirm and to deny;
but whereas Descartes had insisted that ideas in themselves are quite distinct from the
judgments--i.e., the affirmations or denials--which are passed upon them by the will,
Spinoza maintained that "outside of an idea there is no affirmation nor negation nor any
will" (w 34, note). Moreover, as this brief quotation indicates, Spinoza denied that there is a
real faculty of will over and above the individual volitions which are included in--i.e., are
the judgmental components of--particular "ideas." For more on this subject see the
discussion on pp. 188-191 below.

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emotion as irrational and which, therefore, seeks to purge it from the mind and
thereby purify or improve the intellect. 1~
The discussion so far has focused (or has been intended to focus) primarily
upon the meaning of emendatio in the phrase intellectus emendatio. Necessarily,
in the course of this discussion I have had to speak often about the intellectus
itself, or about Spinoza's conception of it; indeed, the reader m a y think that I have
said far too much about i t - - t o o much, that is, in view of the fact that I have not
yet indicated clearly what it is (or what Spinoza conceives it to be).
What, then, is the nature of intellectus, according to Spinoza? And what word
or words (if any) in English adequately express what Spinoza means by the word
intellectus? T o take the latter question first: no one has disputed or could
reasonably dispute that that Latin word (as Spinoza employs it in the TD1E) is
adequately translated either by 'intellect' or by 'understanding'. The only problem
which the translator faces in connection with intellectus is posed by the fact that,
throughout the treatise, Spinoza uses two other words which derive from the same
Latin root and which should, if possible, be translated by words which are
obviously "of the same family." These two other words are the verb, intelligere,
and the noun, intellectio. Thus the English translator has the choice of rendering
inteUectus by 'intellect' and, correspondingly, intelIigere by 'to intellect' and inteIlectio by 'intellection'; or of rendering intellectus by '(the) understanding' and,
correspondingly, intelligere by 'to understand' and intellectio again by 'unders t a n d i n g ' - - i.e., the (so-called) act of understanding as distinct from that which
does the understanding (namely, the intellectus). Since, however, 'intellect' is not
used in ordinary English as a verb and since 'intellection' is used only infrequently
--since, moreover, intelligere is a quite ordinary Latin verb and since Spinoza does
not give it a technical sense, the choice is easily made. In this commentary, however, I shall continue on occasion to translate intellectus by 'intellect' and intellectio by 'intellection'.l
Next, with regard to the nature of intellectus as Spinoza conceives it, we know
already that Spinoza in the TDIE often identifies it simply with mind as such but
that, apparently, his true doctrine is that it is a "level" or a "part" of the mind.
That the latter is his true doctrine and that he does not simply vacillate between
the one view and the other is indicated by the fact that Spinoza, although he sometimes comes close to saying (cf. the discussion on pp. 173-175 above), never actually
does say that the intellect contains or m a y contain imaginational impurities within
itself although he certainly does say that the mind may contain or usually does
contain such impurities; and though often he contrasts intellectus (or intellectio)
10 Of course, anyone who has read the Ethics knows that in it (Part III, Prop. LVIII
et seq.) Spinoza draws a distinction between active emotions and passions, and that he does
wish and seek to eliminate all passions, or to become "free" (i.e., free from them) so far as
may be possible.
11 Similarly, the German translator can easily parallel inteIlectus[intelIectio[intelligere
with der Verstand/das Verstiindnis (or, das Verstehen)/verstehen; but the French translator,
e.g., can find, I believe, no ordinary words of the same root as l'entendement to render
intellectio and intelligere and no common word of the same root as la comprdhension and
comprendre to render intellectus.

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with imaginatio, he never contrasts (e.g.) m e n s with imaginatio, lz Since or insofar

as Spinoza does, however, sometimes identify the understanding with the mind,
the nature of the former cannot be indicated without indicating also the nature
of the latter. But at this point I wish to consider the intellect primarily as it figures
in Spinoza's true doctrine; for the exposition and explication of Spinoza's conception of the mind (and so of the understanding when it is identified with the
mind) lead us immediately to views which are central to Spinoza's metaphysics
and discussion of which, therefore, may or indeed should be omitted at this
relatively early point in the commentary.
Perhaps it may be best to begin by considering the view of understanding that
Spinoza presents in his Short Treatise, a work which apparently he completed only
shortly before his first draft of the T D I E . In the first of two Dialogues inserted between Chapters I I and I I I in Bk. I of the Short Treatise (or, in Dutch, K o r t e Verhandeling), 13 Spinoza represents an exchange of views between Verstand, de L i e f d e ,
de Reede, en de B e g e e r l y k h e i d (i.e., 'Understanding, 14 Love, Reason, and Desire')
- - a l l of them, of course, personified. Unfortunately, he does not make it clear here
or later in the Short Treatise what exactly the distinction between V e r s t a n d and
R e e d e is supposed to be. But very probably Wolf is correct in maintaining t 5 that
the former--i.e., Understanding--"represents the highest form of knowledge,
namely, knowledge by way of immediate intuition. R e a s o n , on the other hand,
represents the lower grade of knowledge by way of discursive inference." On Wolf's
interpretation (which I am here adopting), therefore, Understanding is to be
identified only with "the highest form of knowledge," that form which in the
Ethics Spinoza called scientia intuitiva (literally, "intuitive science').
In the T D I E , however, it is clear that Spinoza identifies understanding with
both of the relatively superior m o d i percipiendi (or 'modes of perceiving')---or
rather, it would be better to say, he attributes to understanding, knowlege that is of
both these types or modes, which are to be identified respectively with reason and
with scientia intuitiva. What is not so clear is that he does not attribute to understanding, at least when it is in a relatively "unimproved" state, knowledge of the
first two kinds which he distinguishes--namely, "perception which we gain from
hearsay or from some [arbitrary] sign" and "perception which we gain from vague
experience." In other words, it is not clear that Spinoza does not in this treatise
la To be sure, he does sometimes speak of the "pure mind" (pura mens) and, at least

by implication, contrast it with the imagination; but, as I have indicated above (on p. 173),

the pura mens seems to be identified with the intelleetus. In other words, the mind insofar
as it is "pure" is the understanding; and as such it is (to be) contrasted with the imagination.
13 All modern editions and translations of the Short Treatise are based upon two
manuscripts written in Dutch--the so-called codex A and codex B, both of them discovered
within a relatively short space of time before van Vloten first edited and published them,
together with his Latin translation, in 1862.
14 Once again, it is difficult to know how best to translate this term, the obvious
meaning of which is, however, 'Understanding'. But in his commentary on this passage
Wolf remarks that "Understanding is hardly the right word for what is meant here by the
Dutch Verstand= ? Intellectus. 'Spirit' or 'spiritual insight' might be better in some respects"
(A. Wolf, Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man and his Well-Being. New York, 1963
[lst published London, 1910], p. 184).
15 Ibid., pp. 184-185.

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simply attribute to understanding all four modes of perception which he distinguishes or, more briefly, that he does not identify understanding (intellectus) and
perception (perceptio). I have already broached this subject (cf. footnote 8), but it
is necessary to enter into it more deeply at this point. What I want to try to
establish, of course, is that Spinoza does not in fact mean to attribute to the understanding any perceptions of the first two types which he lists--that, on the congary, he associates it primarily with the fourth and finest type of perception and,
to a lesser extent and derivatively, with the third (namely, reason).
In the initial listing of the four modi percipiendi in w 19, the understanding is
explicitly referred to only once--viz, in the description of the second mode. (He
there equates "vague experience," which is the source for all perceptions of this
second type, with "experience which is not determined by the understanding.") But
later when he is attempting to discover "which mode of perceiving we are to
choose" (w 26), he rejects the first on the ground (inter alia) that "by simple hearsay
no one can ever be effected unless his own understanding has prepared the way."
What Spinoza means here by 'being effected' (affici) is not entirely clear; 16 but the
point of the whole sentence surely seems to be to "separate" hearsay knowledge
from any knowledge which is properly attributable to the understanding or which
the understanding contains. Spinoza does not actually say that there can be hearsay
knowledge which is independent of some or all other kinds of knowledge although,
when it is thus independent, it is also "'ineffective"; but neither does he suggest
that hearsay knowledge can become "effective" only by somehow "uniting" with,
e.g., understanding or "participating" in it. On the contrary, by saying that hearsay
knowledge can be "effective" only if "understanding has prepared the way," he
seems to suggest that understanding must precede "simple hearsay" if the latter is
to be "effective"; but if understanding merely precedes hearsay knowledge, then the
latter cannot itself be in or of the understanding.
In the following section (w 27) Spinoza proceeds to reject knowledge of the
second type; and the final ground which he there offers for rejecting it seems quite
similar to that which he has just advanced for rejecting knowledge of the first type.
He maintains that, via the second mode of perception, "one will never perceive...
anything in natural objects except [their] accidents, which are never understood
clearly unless the essences [of those objects] are known previously." It is possible to
interpret this passage as implying that, via the second mode of perceiving, the
accidents of things may be understood, although not clearly; on this interpretation, the understanding would include (at least some) knowledge of the second
kind. On the other hand, it seems possible to interpret it, rather, as implying that,
via the second mode of perception, the accidents of things may be known (in
some degree), but that they cannot be understood by one who is limited to that
mode of perception: they can be understood--and afortiori understood "clearly"-only by one who has attained to or employed at least the third mode of perception.
Fortunately, we are enabled to decide between these two interpretations of the
present passage--more exactly, to reject the former in favor of the latter--by
~ For a brief discussion of this point see Joachim, op. cit., pp. 34-35, especially p. 35,
footnote 1.

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going o u t s i d e the p a s s a g e itself or, rather, b y c o n s i d e r i n g it in the c o n t e x t of

v a r i o u s o t h e r passages in the treatise. Thus, in w 95 S p i n o z a c l a i m s t h a t " t h e
p r o p e r t i e s [proprietates] of things a r e n o t u n d e r s t o o d w h e n their essences a r e
u n k n o w n . " N o t e that he does n o t c l a i m here m e r e l y that the p r o p e r t i e s of things
are n o t u n d e r s t o o d clearly when the essences of t h o s e things are u n k n o w n . O f
course, it is possible to s u p p o s e that S p i n o z a is here o v e r s t a t i n g his case ( r a t h e r
t h a n to s u p p o s e t h a t in w 27 he is u n d e r s t a t i n g it o r else using ' c l e a r l y ' there
m e r e l y as a t h r o w - a w a y word), especially in view o f t h e fact t h a t in a still l a t e r
p a s s a g e S p i n o z a does a d d the qualifier ' c l e a l y ' o r i n d e e d the q u a l i f y i n g p h r a s e
' c l e a r l y a n d d i s t i n c t l y ' - - t h a t is, in w 107 w h e r e S p i n o z a says of the u n d e r s t a n d i n g
itself t h a t "its p r o p e r t i e s . . , c a n n o t b e p e r c e i v e d clearly a n d distinctly unless their
n a t u r e is k n o w n . " I t s h o u l d be noted, however, t h a t in this p a s s a g e S p i n o z a a d d s
the q u a l i f y i n g p h r a s e to t h e w o r d ' p e r c e i v e d ' r a t h e r t h a n to the w o r d ' u n d e r s t o o d ' ;
a n d p e r h a p s it m i g h t still be m a i n t a i n e d t h a t " t o perceive clearly a n d d i s t i n c t l y " is
e q u i v a l e n t s i m p l y to ' t o u n d e r s t a n d ' sans phrase. B u t in a n y case, S p i n o z a does n o t
seem to identify o r e q u a t e the accidents a n d the p r o p e r t i e s of things: f r o m his
e x a m p l e s in w 20 of the things which he h i m s e l f k n o w s b y vague experience, it
m a y easily be inferred that he m e a n s b y ' a c c i d e n t s ' either (1) those characteristics
of a species or class of things w h i c h b e l o n g i n d e e d to all m e m b e r s of the species o r
class but n o t only to them, o r (2) those c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s w h i c h b e l o n g o n l y to the
m e m b e r s of a certain species or class b u t n o t to all of t h e m , or, p e r h a p s , (3) those
characteristics which b e l o n g to all a n d o n l y the m e m b e r s of a certain species o r
class, b u t n o t a l w a y s o r all the time. 17 O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , it is clear t h a t he m e a n s
b y "properties'--proprietates or propria (he uses the two w o r d s i n t e r c h a n g e a b l y ) x8
lr These are three of the four senses in which the scholastics were accustomed to use
the words proprietas or proprium; in the fourth and strictest sense the words referred to
any of those characteristics which belong always to all and only the members of a certain
species or class. Obviously, "this last sort of property is that which constitutes most distinctively a fourth predicable distinct from the others, so that the other sorts of properties
may be reduced to the class Accident, which is the fifth type of predicable." The preceding
sentence and the fourfold classification of properties itself are taken from the account of
properties, or of the traditional conception of them, offered by the late scholastic Eustache
of St. Paul in his Summa philosophica quadripartita (Paris, 1609). His account is that cited
by Gilson, under the heading "PROPRE, PROPRieTY," in his monumental Index ScolasticoCartdsien (Paris, 1912).
It is, I think, impossible to determine from Spinoza's examples whether he is using the
term "accident' in only one of the three senses distinguished above, nor does Spinoza himself
offer an explicit definition of the term anywhere in the TDIE. Indeed, he uses the term itself
only once in the treatise--namely, in the passage from w27 which is here under investigation.
It should be noted, however, that--whatever the particular sense of 'accident' he has in mind
or is employing here---Spinoza offers as the last of his examples of the accidents of things
which are known from vague experience, that "man is a rational animal"--i.e., precisely the
example which for Aristotle and the scholastics served as the paradigm of a real definition,
which revealed the essence of the definiendum. Thus there is implied in this last of Spinoza's
examples a critique of the traditional view(s) concerning definition and concerning the essence
or nature of man. The implicit critique of the traditional conception(s) of definition is continued in the concluding sections of the treatise--cf, especially w167
95-98; the implicit critique
of the Aristotelian and scholastic definition of man is continued, e.g., in the Ethics (II,
Prop. X et seq.).
is Thus, e.g., in w95 he tells us that a "definition in order to be called perfect will have
to explain the innermost essence of a thing and [we shall have] to take care lest we put in its
place certain [of its] properties [propria]"; and "in order to explain this," he offers in the

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- - t h o s e characteristics which are not "of the essence" of some thing or type of
thing but which are (somehow) necessary consequents of the essential charac,
teristics of the thing or type of thing and of them only. 19 Yet, if Spinoza does
really mean that the properties of things cannot be understood at all unless and
until the essences of those things are known, why would he wish to say only that
the accidents of things cannot be understood clearly unless and until the essences
of those things are known? If he would say that the connection between the
properties of things and those things' essences is (so to speak) so "close"--indeed,
so much "closer" than is the connection between the accidents of things and those
things' essences-- that one could not understand the properties qua properties (i.e.,
could not understand how or why the things have these characteristics) unless and
until one understands the very essences of the things, could it not well be replied
that the very "distance" between the essences and the accidents of things must
make it extremely difficult to understand how or why the things have these further
characteristics which seem indeed, quite as their name suggests, to be only accidentally or fortuitously associated with those things?
But there are stronger considerations leading to the same conclusion--viz., that
the accidents of things cannot be understood at all via the second mode of perception "'unless the essences [of those objects] are known previously." Indeed, even if
the essences of things are known already, their accidents cannot be understood and,
afortiori, cannot be understood clearly via that mode of perception, which is gained
from "vague experience." For it should be evident that, precisely because vague
experience is, according to w 19.II, experience "which is not determined by the
understanding," absolutely nothing can be understood from vague experience. And
since the accidents of things cannot be understood by the second mode of perception (or by the first since, once again, nothing can be understood by it), either they
cannot be understood at all or else they are capable of being understood only by
one who has attained to the third or, perhaps, even to the fourth mode of percept i o n - t h a t is, to the very modes by which the essences of things may be understood.
If, then, Spinoza is to be interpreted as holding that the understanding does
not include any perceptions of the first two types which he distinguishes, there can
be no doubt that he does include perceptions of the third and fourth types in the
understanding or does attribute them to the understanding. T o be sure, understanding is not explicitly referred to in what seems to be the definition of the
third modus percipiendi in w 19.III--namely, that it is that mode of perception
"in which the essence of a thing is inferred from something else, but not adequately . . . . ,, zo But in the note describing the first variety or subtype of this
same section an example of what he takes to be an impertect definition of a circle---a definition which, he says, "does not explain in the least the essence of a circle; but only some
property [proprietatem] of it."
19 That he means this by "properties' may easily be gathered from, e.g., the final
section of the treatise (w 110) where Spinoza says that the "essence of thought . . . must be
sought from the positive properties just enumerated [in w108], that is, something common
[i.e., some common basis] must now be established, from which these properties necessarily
follow. . . . '
~0 Similarly, understanding is not explicitly referred to in the initial description of the

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183

m o d e - - v i z . , t h a t in w h i c h "we infer the cause f r o m s o m e effect," S p i n o z a says,

"'When this is done, we u n d e r s t a n d n o t h i n g a b o u t the c a u s e except that w h i c h
we c o n s i d e r in the effect" a n d t h e r e b y he implies, of course, t h a t we d o understand
s o m e t h i n g in this case (namely, " t h a t w h i c h we c o n s i d e r in the effect"). Y e t
this u n d e r s t a n d i n g , like all u n d e r s t a n d i n g g a i n e d b y the t h i r d m o d e of p e r c e p t i o n ,
is s o m e h o w imperfect. A c c o r d i n g to the definition o r d e s c r i p t i o n of t h e t h i r d m o d e
(just cited), the essence of a thing, w h e n it is i n f e r r e d f r o m s o m e t h i n g else, is
k n o w n or u n d e r s t o o d " b u t not a d e q u a t e l y " ; again, in the first e x a m p l e of k n o w ledge g a i n e d b y the t h i r d m o d e , S p i n o z a says (in w 21),
after we clearly perceive that we are aware, by sensation, of such-and-such a body
and no other, then, I say, we clearly infer that the soul [or, mind] is united to the body,
and that that union is the cause of such [a] sensation; but we cannot thereby understand absolutely what that sensation is. (Italics added.)
P r e s u m a b l y , " n o t a d e q u a t e l y " a n d " n o t a b s o l u t e l y " m e a n , in this context, at least
r o u g h l y the s a m e thing; a n d at first one m i g h t c o n c l u d e (with a feeling of puzzlement) that w h a t they m e a n is " n o t t r u l y " ; for in w 35 S p i n o z a identifies a n
a d e q u a t e i d e a with " t h e objective essence of s o m e t h i n g " (essentia objectiva
alicujus rei), a n d w 36 he says, quite explicitly, t h a t the p h r a s e s ' t r u t h itself', ' t h e
o b j e c t i v e essences of things', a n d ' i d e a s ' all "signify the s a m e t h i n g " (ipsa veritas,
aut essentiae objectivae rerum, aut ideae [omnia illa idem significant]): I t w o u l d
s e e m t h a t f r o m the latter passages o n e c o u l d infer t h a t the a d v e r b s ' t r u l y ' a n d
" a d e q u a t e l y ' - - a n d , hence, their negations, ' n o t t r u l y ' a n d ' n o t a d e q u a t e l y ' - - m u s t
be used s y n o n y m o u s l y b y Spinoza, at least in the TDIE. I n w 28, h o w e v e r , S p i n o z a
informs us t h a t via the t h i r d m o d e of p e r c e p t i o n " w e c a n infer w i t h o u t d a n g e r o f
e r r o r " (just as he tells us in the f o l l o w i n g section t h a t v i a the f o u r t h m o d e we
c a n a p p r e h e n d things " w i t h o u t d a n g e r o f e r r o r " ) ; hence, t h o u g h we c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d adequately v i a t h e t h i r d m o d e , neither can we t h i n k falsely so l o n g as w e
e m p l o y it. Now, if we c a n e m p l o y it " w i t h o u t d a n g e r of e r r o r , " it m i g h t seem
t h a t S p i n o z a will n o t reject it as he has rejected the first two m o d e s of p e r c e p t i o n - f o r b y this t h i r d m o d e we c a n understand, even if we c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d
fourth mode of perception, that whereby "a thing is perceived through its essence alone, or
[else] through the knowledge of its proximate cause" (w 19.IV); but that one does understand
things by that mode of perception is explicitly maintained in many later passages of the
treatise. For example, speaking of that fourth mode, Spinoza says, at the end of w22, "the
things which up to this time I could understand by such knowledge have been very few";
and in w29, "We shall endeavor to explain, therefore, what must be done in order that
things [previously] unknown may be understood by us by that [mode of] knowledge . . . . "
There are notorious difficulties associated with Spinoza's account in the TDIE (and in the
Ethics) of this highest and best mode of perception, scienfia intuitiva. In particular, it is
puzzling how Spinoza can say of himself that "the things which up to this time I could
understand by such knowledge have been very few" when he has just cited, as an example
of something which he does know by that mode of perception, "that two and three are five";
for surely, one would think, any normal adult would know a rather large number of simple
arithmetical truths immediately or without (consciously) following any general arithmetical
rule. It is not any part of my purpose here to discuss such difficulties, however; for I have
wanted to demonstrate only that the third and especially the fourth modes of perception
are modes whereby one may or will understand things, according to Spinoza.

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adequately. Thus at the beginning of w 28 Spinoza admits, about this mode, that
"it must be said in some measure that we do have [via it] the idea of the thing...";
and, as we have just seen, according to w 36 the phrase 'the idea of a thing'
signifies exactly what the phrase 'the truth itself' (concerning that thing) signifies.
Despite this admission, however, Spinoza goes on immediately in w 28 to add "but
nonetheless of itself it will not be the means for our acquiring our perfection" and
in w 29 he tells us that, not the third mode, but rather the fourth "will have to be
used chiefly" (maxime). Exactly what is it, then, that makes this third mode of
perception unsatisfactory and the knowledge that we may gain by it inadequate?
The reason for Spinoza's rejecting the third mode of perception seems to be
this: the knowledge which is gained thereby is abstract or general (or, alternatively,
it concerns abstractions and universals) and/or it is knowledge of the properties
of a thing rather than of its essence. (As I shall indicate, it is not clear from
Spinoza's account whether, via the third mode, one might acquire knowledge
which is not general but which, nonetheless, is imperfect because it concerns
fundamentally the properties of the thing or things known; but I am inclined to
think that he means that such knowledge is inadequate always on both grounds.)
Thus in the note on w 19.III Spinoza points out that, when we infer the cause from
some effect, "the cause is not explained except in the most general terms" (or it
may even be expressed negatively, as "not this or that"); and his very description
or definition of the second variety or subtype of this third mode refers to "some
universal" from which "it is inferred that some property always accompanies it."
But throughout the treatise Spinoza registers his dissatisfaction with knowledge
claims which are couched in general terms or which concern or are about generalities, abstractions, and universals--cf., e.g. w 99, where he says,
Hence we can see that it is above all necessary for us that we always deduce all our
ideas from Physical things or [i.e.] from real entities by proceeding, as far as can be,
according to the order of causes from one real entity to another real entity and
indeed in such a way that we do not pass over to abstractions and universals, lest we
deduce anything real from them or lest they be deduced from anything real: for either
[of these transitions] interrupts the true progress of the understanding.
As this passage so vividly indicates, throughout the TDIE Spinoza is concerned
with the understanding of the essences of particular things and of the properties of
such things; he rejects the reality of abstractions, of universals, of the traditional
genera and species and affirms an uncompromising nominalism, according to which
the only real things are particulars or individuals, such as, e.g., this or that man.
And he insists that particular things have essences which are as individual, and as
unique, as are the things themselves. So the first ground of Spinoza's dissatisfaction with the third modus percipiendi is precisely that it gives us a knowledge of
particular things which is, however, expressed in the language of abstracta et
universalia--in short, it does not give us a knowledge of particulars in their
particularity. But does Spinoza in fact allow that somethnes knowledge gained
via one or another variety of this third mode may be non-abstract or non-general
and yet, nonetheless, not "adequate" because it concerns fundamentally or directly

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the properties of a p a r t i c u l a r thing r a t h e r t h a n its essence itself? I t h i n k t h a t this

question c a n n o t be a n s w e r e d with a n y definiteness. F o r while a c c o r d i n g to the initial
d e s c r i p t i o n of the second variety, the k n o w l e d g e of p r o p e r t i e s w h i c h t h a t v a r i e t y
affords is always inferred " f r o m some u n i v e r s a l , " in his n o t e on w I 9 . H I S p i n o z a
m a i n t a i n s that "in secundo casu 21 s o m e t h i n g is a t t r i b u t e d to the cause b e c a u s e
of the effect, w h i c h is clearly c o n c e i v e d . . . ; b u t [what is a t t r i b u t e d is] n o t h i n g
except properties, n o t i n d e e d the essence of the p a r t i c u l a r thing." Since s o m e clear
c o n c e p t i o n is involved in this case, one m i g h t infer that w h a t is a t t r i b u t e d to the
cause is s o m e t h i n g k n o w n concretely or in its p a r t i c u l a r i t y ; for one m i g h t a p p l y to
this case w h a t S p i n o z a says later, in w 55, a b o u t the c o n c e p t of e x i s t e n c e - - n a m e l y ,
the more generally existence is conceived, the more confusedly is it conceived, and the
more easily can it be attributed to anything at all: contrariwise, when it is conceived
more particularly, then the more clearly is it understood, and the harder is it to
attribute [existence] to anything except the thing itself [i.e., its proper object] when we
do not attend to the order of Nature.
F u r t h e r , o n e m i g h t c o n s t r u e S p i n o z a ' s c l a i m that in secundo casu w h a t is a t t r i b u t e d
is " n o t h i n g except p r o p e r t i e s , n o t i n d e e d the essence of the p a r t i c u l a r t h i n g " as
c o n t r a s t i n g merely the p r o p e r t i e s of the p a r t i c u l a r t h i n g with its essence, r a t h e r t h a n
contrasting properties, conceived in general terms, with the p a r t i c u l a r essence of
the p a r t i c u l a r thing. O n the o t h e r h a n d , while the p r o p e r t i e s of things need n o t be
conceived in general o r in " t h e m o s t g e n e r a l " terms, I t a k e i t t h a t t h e y c a n n o t be
c o n c e i v e d o t h e r t h a n abstractly ( a l t h o u g h it is n o t at all clear to m e that S p i n o z a
himself ever m a d e a s h a r p distinction b e t w e e n a b s t r a c t i o n s a n d generalities); a n d
Spinoza seems a l m o s t to have e q u a t e d conceiving s o m e t h i n g a b s t r a c t l y a n d conceiving the thing t h r o u g h its p r o p e r t i e s o r at least to h a v e viewed these as a l w a y s
going together. T h u s he says, e.g., in the second note for w 2 1 - - i m m e d i a t e l y after
having illustrated the first s u b t y p e of the third m o d e of p e r c e p t i o n by the e x a m p l e
(previously q u o t e d - - s e e p. 183) of the inference to the u n i o n of soul a n d b o d y as
the cause of the sensation " o f s u c h - a n d - s u c h a b o d y a n d no o t h e r " 2 2 - - " w h e n
21 The Latin phrase is ambiguous; for it may mean "in the second case" or "in a
(more) favorable case." If the former interpretation is adopted--and the context of the
phrase makes it somewhat more likely that that interpretation is the correct one here--then
the situation which is described in the remainder of the sentence (after that opening phrase)
is one which involves the second variety of inference attributed to the third modus percipiendi. If, however, the latter interpretation is adopted, then the situation there decribed is,
of course, one which still involves the first variety, i.e., exactly the variety which Spinoza
has been discussing in the preceding sentence of the note.
2z In this example the cause, the "union" of mind and body, in inferred from the
"clearly conceived" (or perceived) effect, namely, the sensation or awareness of "such-andsuch a body and no other." In other words, there is attributed to the union of mind and
body the property of being the cause of the sensation in question. Thus even the first subtype of the third mode of perception involves the conception of things through one or more
of their properties; it appears to differ from the second subtype in this way: in it something is "identified" as the cause of a certain effect, but no further property is attributed
to that thing; in the second subtype a certain property or set of properties is attributed
to a cause previously (or at least otherwise) identified. (That the example of attributing to
the union of soul and body the cause of the sensation or special awareness of that body

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OF PHILOSOPHY

things are thus conceived abstractly, and n o t t h r o u g h [their] true essence, at once
t h e y are c o n f u s e d b y t h e i m a g i n a t i o n . " z3 H e r e although the exact n a t u r e of the
c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n t h e m is not clarified, conceiving of things a b s t r a c t l y and conceiving of t h e m t h r o u g h their p r o p e r t i e s r a t h e r t h a n t h r o u g h their "true essence"
a r e s o m e h o w very closely (perhaps, i n s e p a r a b l y ) connected. H e n c e I believe that,
on S p i n o z a ' s view, a n y e x a m p l e of s o m e t h i n g k n o w n v i a the t h i r d m o d e of
p e r c e p t i o n is an e x a m p l e of s o m e t h i n g conceived abstractly; for in any such
e x a m p l e a t h i n g is c o n c e i v e d t h r o u g h one or m o r e of its properties, either because
the thing is identified in virtue of its p r o p e r t y of causing such a n d such an effect
(in the first subtype) o r because there is a t t r i b u t e d to the thing, t a k e n or k n o w n to
be the cause of such a n d such a n effect, a further p r o p e r t y o r set of properties (in
t h e s e c o n d subtype),
But, t h o u g h S p i n o z a rejects conceiving of things a b s t r a c t l y b y m e a n s of one
o r m o r e of their p r o p e r t i e s in the w a y that one w o u l d who e m p l o y e d the t h i r d
m o d e of p e r c e p t i o n , it should be noted that he does not reject that w a y of conceiving of things or, in other words, does n o t reject the third m o d e of perception
itself, c o m p l e t e l y o r w i t h o u t qualification (as he does the first two m o d e s of
perception). F o r despite t h e i n a d e q u a c i e s of t h a t m o d e of p e r c e p t i o n , it does at
least "in s o m e m e a s u r e " give us "the i d e a of the thing." I n d e e d , it m u s t d o so
precisely because, a c c o r d i n g to Spinoza, as we have seen, "the p r o p e r t i e s of things
a r e not u n d e r s t o o d when their essences are u n k n o w n " ; that is, precisely because
via the t h i r d m o d e of p e r c e p t i o n we (may) u n d e r s t a n d the p r o p e r t i e s of things, we
m u s t also at the s a m e t i m e u n d e r s t a n d " i n s o m e m e a s u r e " the things themselves
a n d their essences. C o n s e q u e n t l y , the t h i r d m o d e of p e r c e p t i o n m a y serve until
one has a c q u i r e d the f o u r t h m o d e - - - o r rather, it seems, reflection on something
w h i c h one u n d e r s t a n d s by the third m o d e m a y lead, a n d be d e s i g n e d or intended
to lead, directly to one's u n d e r s t a n d i n g of that thing via the f o u r t h m o d e . Thus at
t h e very e n d of the treatise, S p i n o z a is trying to discover the n a t u r e of the understanding, s o m e t h i n g which, he admits, is not " a b s o l u t e l y clear in itself" (w 107)
and of no other--i.e., of identifying that union as the cause of that sensation--is an
example of the first rather than of the second subtype within the third mode cannot be
doubted.)
z~ At least in appearance, this passage together with the preceding part of the sentence
from which it is taken--namely, "For unless we are very cautious, we fall into errors at once"
---contradicts Spinoza's assertion (in w28) that "we can infer [vi~ this third model without
danger of error"; for must there not be danger of error in any situation in which we must be
"very cautious" lest "we fall into errors at once"? Apparently, Spinoza should have said in
w 28, "we can infer [via this third mode] without error provided that we are very cautious."
What we have here to be cautious about are abstractions; exactly how we are to be cautious
about them while we continue to employ the third mode o/ perception is not, I think,
clearly indicated at any point in the treatise. Indeed, the general remedy for errors and
confusions which Spinoza suggests there is to think only about particular things in an order
which parallels that of their actual connection with one another; but to act in accordance
with that prescription is to try to eliminate (so far as possible) all abstractions from one's
thought--it is not to employ abstractions although with great caution. I presume, however,
that Spinoza means that proper caution in employing abstractions consists precisely in
employing them as infrequently as possible, for we human beings cannot, at least "at the
outset" and, perhaps, at any point in the progressive "improvement of our understanding,"
eliminate them altogether from our thought.

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or entirely self-evident; and he proposes to discover the nature of the understanding by reflecting on those properties of the understanding which he understands "clearly and distinctly." Apparently, there is no other way of discovering
that nature or essence; hence, the third mode of perception, by which Spinoza
grasps at least some of the properties of the understanding, is in this case
indispensable (for the purpose of apprehending the nature of the understanding
itself). But there is no suggestion in the treatise that in all cases the third m o d e of
perception is thus indispensable; on the contrary, some things or their essences are
or, perhaps, must be (completely) understandable in themselves. God is one such
thing, according to Spinoza; for thought, when it is perfect, begins with the idea
of H i m (rather than with the idea of certain of His properties). Moreover, to
conceive of God through some one or more of His properties would be to conceive
H i m abstractly; but in fact God--i.e., "the origin of Nature" (as Spinoza, somewhat
misleadingly, describes H i m in w 7 6 ) - - " c a n be conceived neither abstractly nor
universally" (ibid.); hence, He cannot be conceived through any of His properties,
but only directly in and through His essence. 24 N o r is it the case that, however a
thing itself or its essence comes to be k n o w n in the fourth mode of perception, the
properties of the thing can be known only by the third m o d e - - t h a t is, conceiving
a thing through some of its properties and conceiving some of the properties of a
thing are not to be confused with one another; for according to Spinoza (in w 22),
from the fact that I know, e.g., the essence of the soul (or, mind), I know also, via
the fourth mode of perception, that it is united to the body. Thus whereas, according to Spinoza's example in w 20, one m a y infer, on the basis of one's sensation
"of such-and-such a body and no other," that one has a soul and that it is united
with the body so as to cause that sensation, one m a y also perceive the soul
"through its essence alone" and, having perceived that, perceive also that it possesses the property of being united to the body, a union which is the proximate cause
of one's sensation of "such-and-such a body and no other." Indeed, Spinoza makes
it a condition of any proper definition that from it all the properties of the thing
may be deduced (cf. w 96.II and w 97.IV); but the very first rule for the definition
of an uncreated thing is "that it exclude every cause, that is, the object must require
nothing else beyond itself for its explanation" (w 97.I), which is to say that the
object will be known "through its essence alone," and the first rule for the definition of a created thing is that the definition include the "proximate cause" of the
definiendum (cf. w 96.1). Hence, the first rule of proper definition is that the
definiendum be known via the fourth m o d e of perception--i.e., that the thing be
perceived either "through its essence alone, or [else] through the knowledge of its
proximate cause"; 25 and apparently, quite as the preceding considerations have
z4 It has to be remembered that God's attributes are distinct from His properties; for
the properties of God--indeed, the properties of any thing--are those characteristics which
somehow depend necessarily on the essence, whereas God's attributes are His essence itself,
at least insofar as that essence is perceived or revealed to "the intellect" (cf. the definition of
'attribute' in Ethics I, Def. IV).
25 Here I have associated perceiving a thing through its essence alone with the
(resultant) definition of an uncreated thing, and perceiving a thing through the knowledge
of its proximate cause with the (resultant) definition of a created thing. But Spinoza, as

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indicated, i n c o m i n g to k n o w all the properties of the definiendum b y deducing

t h e m from the definiens one remains within the fourth m o d e of perception.
T w o final points c o n c e r n i n g Spinoza's conception of intellectus i n the T D I E
r e m a i n to be m a d e - - a n d I shall m a k e t h e m briefly although they might be dealt
with at considerable length. First, t h o u g h Spinoza often i n this treatise (as in his
later writings) speaks of ideas as being in (e.g.) the u n d e r s t a n d i n g or the m i n d or
as their products, it should n o t be supposed that he actually conceived the unders t a n d i n g or the m i n d as some sort of spiritual receptacle which is (so to speak) the
n a t u r a l place of ideas, or even as a real "faculty" distinct from the occurrent
thoughts which are merely its manifestations or its effects. But one should n o t go
too far in the opposite direction a n d suppose that, for Spinoza, the m i n d is simply
a " b u n d l e " or congeries of i d e a s - - a n d thus that S p i n o z a anticipated the doctrine
which is n o w regularly identified as H u m e ' s - - a n d that the u n d e r s t a n d i n g is n o t h i n g
more t h a n the collective n a m e for certain of the particular ideas or perceptions
m a k i n g u p the " b u n d l e . " This interpretation or exposition is quite correct insofar
as it m a i n t a i n s that, for Spinoza, there is no u n d e r s t a n d i n g - - a n d , it should n o w be
added, n o will---over a n d above or, for that matter, u n d e r n e a t h particular ideas or
thoughts. T h o u g h Spinoza does n o t discuss this subject directly in the T D I E , it
m a y be p r e s u m e d that when he wrote that treatise he h a d no other view o n this
subject than that which he had put forward already i n the Short Treatise 26 and
which he expressed also in the Scholium to Prop. X L V I I I in Part I I of the Ethics. 2~
B u t o n e need n o t rely only o n such external evidence i n order to determine how
Spinoza viewed the u n d e r s t a n d i n g in the T D I E ; for as we have already seen, in
w 36 he explicitly identifies the truth itself a n d ideas (or, the objective essences
we have seen, speaks in w22 of knowing, via the fourth mode of perception, the essence of
the soul (and thereby knowing also that it is united to the body); yet a soul is, for Spinoza,
a mode or created thing, not substance itself or an attribute of substance (an uncreated thing).
Accordingly, one might think that the essence of the soul cannot be known at all by the
fourth mode of perception. In fact, however, Spinoza seems to mean that, via that mode
of perception, one is acquainted always with the essence of the thing known, but that one
may become acquainted with that essence (i.e., come to understand it) in one of two ways-namely, by knowing it "through itself alone" or else by discovering the proximate cause
of the thing. In discovering via the fourth mode of perception the proximate cause of some
effect, one will come to understand the essence of that thing which is the effect; if its
proximate cause is itself created, it must be known in turn through its proximate cause, and
so on. Of course, this process comes to an end--where, according to Spinoza, really it
should have started--with the knowledge of an uncreated thing knowable through itself alone
(i.e., an attribute of the divine substance).
26 Cf., e.g., the following passage from Part II, Ch. XVI (the passage may be found
in Wolf, op. cir., p. 106):
As to the view that the efficient cause thereof [i.e., of each separate volition] is not an Idea
but the human Will itself, and that the Understanding is a cause without which the will can
do nothing, so that the Will in its undetermined form, and also the Understanding, are not
things of Reason, but real entities--so far as I am concerned, whenever I consider them
attentively they appear to be universals, and I can attribute no reality to them.
~r Though Spinoza thus denies the reality of the understanding or of the will per se,
it is, of course, not surprising that he continues to talk as if there were such things; for, once
it is realized that the corresponding words are only collective names (i.e., refer to the
particular ideas-volitions in the mind), no philosophical confusion or error should result
from employing them rather than seeking ontologically more perspicuous but verbally more
cumbersome paraphrases.

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189

of things), a n d later, at the e n d of w 68, he e x p l i c i t l y identifies truth a n d the under~

standing (verum, sive intellectus); hence, it m a y be inferred that he identified o r
w o u l d h a v e identified the u n d e r s t a n d i n g with p a r t i c u l a r i d e a s - - n a m e l y , the true
ones. 28 O n the o t h e r h a n d , t h a t i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o r e x p o s i t i o n is w h o l l y i n c o r r e c t
insofar as it m a i n t a i n s that, for Spinoza, the m i n d is to be a n a l y z e d in t h e s a m e
w a y that the u n d e r s t a n d i n g i s - - i . e . , a n a l y z e d into a m e r e b u n d l e of i d e a s ( a m o n g
w h i c h there are certain true ones, which constitute the u n d e r s t a n d i n g ) . F o r a c c o r d ing to S p i n o z a the m i n d is one idea, in w h i c h a r e " c o n t a i n e d " m a n y further a n d
r e l a t i v e l y " s i m p l e r " ideas. O n c e again, this p a r t of S p i n o z a ' s view is n o t d e v e l o p e d
explicitly in the T D I E ; n o r p e r h a p s c a n it be inferred f r o m a n y t h i n g w h i c h he does
say there. B u t it is, I think, h e l p f u l - - p e r h a p s , n e c e s s a r y - - t o u n d e r s t a n d t h e
" a t o m i s t i c " view of intellectus which is a d u m b r a t e d in the T D I E a n d d e f e n d e d in,
e.g., the Ethics in the (contrasting) light p r o v i d e d b y S p i n o z a ' s view of the m i n d
itself (a view which again is d e v e l o p e d a n d d e f e n d e d in the Ethics, especially
P a r t II); for so u n d e r s t o o d , S p i n o z a ' s view of the intellectus a p p e a r s to e s c a p e a t
least the chief difficulties which H u m e h i m s e l f a n d m a n y of his s u b s e q u e n t critics
have detected in the b u n d l e t h e o r y of the m i n d . 29 T h e intellectus is not, after all,
m e r e l y a m u l t i t u d e of p a r t i c u l a r i d e a s t h a t a r e h e a p e d together, or diffused,
a m o n g m a n y o t h e r p a r t i c u l a r i d e a s in a m i n d which is n o t h i n g b u t the a r i t h m e t i c a l
s u m of all the i n d i v i d u a l ideas. R a t h e r , just a s (e.g.) a m u l t i t u d e of " s i m p l e r
b o d i e s " m a y be united, a c c o r d i n g to Spinoza, to f o r m one h u m a n b o d y , so the
i n d i v i d u a l i d e a s w h i c h are m o d a l l y i d e n t i c a l to those s i m p l e r b o d i e s (i.e., w h i c h
are the s a m e m o d e s c o n s i d e r e d u n d e r the a t t r i b u t e of T h o u g h t r a t h e r t h a n t h a t of
E x t e n s i o n ) are u n i t e d to f o r m the m i n d , w h i c h is the i d e a of t h a t b o d y . I t follows,
h o w e v e r - - a l t h o u g h S p i n o z a himself does n o t explicitly d r a w this i n f e r e n c e - - t h a t
if all ideas n o t " d e t e r m i n e d " b y the u n d e r s t a n d i n g were ever to be e l i m i n a t e d
f r o m a h u m a n m i n d , w h a t w o u l d r e m a i n w o u l d have to be s o m e t h i n g m o r e t h a n a
2s When Spinoza in w 36 identifies the truth simply with ideas, he seems to be indicating
that, properly speaking, all ideas are true ones; for one who is speaking thus properly, the
phrase 'true ideas'--employed so frequently by Spinoza himself--becomes redundant, and
the so-called false, suppositional, and doubtful ideas have to be considered merely as quasior, perhaps, pseudo-ideas, not genuine or full-fledged acts of thought. But one should not
conclude overhastily that in speaking of true ideas Spinoza does not indeed mean to be
assigning a truth-value to mere ideas, but only to be singling out what are really ideas
from what are (for some reason or in some way) not real ideas. In fact, ideas (as Spinoza
conceives them) do have a truth-value: they are not mere ideas that might be somehow
combined or synthesized to form a judgment (much less are they "images which are formed
at the back of the eye or, if you please, in the middle of the brain"; Ethics II, Prop. XLVIII
Schol.). They already are (or include) judgments, and so are true or false in the sense in
which only judgments--together with propositions, statements, and perhaps sentences--are
either true or false. Thus, it seems to be Spinoza's view (a) that all ideas which are true
in the sense of being genuine acts of thought are true also in the further sense that in
them there is a perfect adequation or "correspondence" between thought and its object
(though the nature of this correspondence is very different from what it is supposed to be
on any naively realistic view); and (b) that all ideas, properly or strictly speaking, are true
in both these senses or, if you will, in that double sense, of the term.
,o9 But I do not wish to suggest that Spinoza's own view of the understanding and of the
mind is free from all difficulties, for of course it is not. Indeed, the difficulties facing it may
be quite as serious as those which are involved in or generated by rival views, including the
bundle theory.

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merely arithmetical sum or a (nominalistically interpreted) set of individual ideas;

for what would remain would be the mind, and yet a mind identical to the understanding. In such a case the understanding would not be a fiction or an ens rationis;
it would be a genuinely existing, particular mode of Thought. Thus it might be
said that such a radical improvement of the mind would consist or culminate in
the realization of the understanding--i.e., in making it real. But what a human
mind might thus become in the course of time, God's mind has been----or rather,
is--eternally. Hence, Spinoza always speaks of the infinitus Dei intellectus, i.e.,
'the infinite intellect of God', as an ens reale and never as an ens rationis (or ens
imaginationis); it is, according to Spinoza, the immediate infinite mode of God's
attribute of ThouKht. 3~
This (passing) reference to the infmitus Dei intellectus leads me to the second
and last point which I wished to make here: namely, that in the T D I E Spinoza
appears to identify intellectus, intellectio, and idea--an identification which may
help to clarify for us the nature of the understanding, which Spinoza himself is
seeking to discover and to elucidate in the TDIE, but which may also help to
resolve the long-standing problem concerning whether the mode that Spinoza
describes in the Ethics as the idea Dei or 'Idea of God' is or is not identical to the
infinitus Dei intellectus and, hence, whether the phrase idea Dei designates the
immediate infinite mode of the attribute of Thought or rather the mediate infinite
mode. I have already indicated (cf. p. 188 above) that in the T D I E Spinoza appears
to identify the understanding (or intellectus) and ideas--that is, to identify the
(alleged) "subject" or "source" of true thinking and the corresponding objects of
thought. But he seems also to identify intellectus with intellectio--i.e., the
"subject" or "source" of true thinking with the corresponding act of thinking, the
intellect with intellection. That the word intellectio is not for Spinoza simply
synonymous with the word intellectus may be inferred, e.g., from a passage at the
beginning of w 37, where Spinoza says, "Rursus Methodus necessario debet de
ratiocinatione, aut de intellectione"--i.e., "Again, Method necessarily must speak
about reasoning or about intellection." Clearly, intellectio is here to be distinguished from intellectus in the way that ratiocinatio (reasoning or ratiocination) is to be
distinguished from that which (allegedly) does the reasoning, namely, ratio or
reason. That there is, however, no ontological difference--i.e., that there is an
identity--between that which is denoted by the word intellectus and that which is
denoted by the word intellectio may be inferred, e.g., from what Spinoza says in
the note for w 91--namely,
Praecipua hujus partis Regula est, ut ex prima parte sequitur, recensere omnes ideas,
quas ex puro intellectu in nobis invenimus, ut eae ab iis, quas imaginamur, distinguantur; quod ex proprietatibus uniuscujusque, nempe imaginationis et intellectionis,
erit eliciendurn.
30 For Spinoza's discussion of the infinite modes of God and, in particular, of the
infinite Intellect or Understanding of God, see Ethics I, Props. XXI-XXII; also Short
Treatise I, Ch. IX, and Eps. LXIII-LXIV.

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191

T h a t passage m a y be translated thus:

The principal Rule of this part, as follows from the first part, is to examine all ideas
which we discover in ourselves [arising] from the pure understanding [or, purely from
the understanding~ so that they may be distinguished from those which we imagine;
this will have to be elicited from [examination of] the properties of each, namely of
imagination and of understanding.
Although Spinoza speaks here first of the intellectus and of the ideas which derive
from it and, on the other hand, of the ideas "which we imagine," he concludes
by saying that the difference which he seeks must be elicited from the properties
of e a c h - - n a m e l y , the properties of imaginatio and those of intellectio, al This
same passage suggests, moreover, the identification between the ideas which we
discover in ourselves ex puro intellectu and the act of understanding (intellectio)-an identification which can, in any case, be inferred from the fact that Spinoza (a)
identifies true ideas with the intellectus and (b) the intellectus, in turn, with intellectio. Thus we discover, by a rather r o u n d a b o u t route, that Spinoza, so far from
viewing ideas as the passive or inert contents of a receptacleqike understanding,
conceives them, rather, as individual acts of t h o u g h t (participating in and contributing to that unified act of thought which is the h u m a n mind).
Now, if it is true in the case of the h u m a n being that intellectus----intellectio = ideae, it should be true also in the case of the divine being--i.e., the
Understanding of G o d must be identical with His (eternal) act of understanding
and both of them with the object of that Understanding, namely, the Idea Dei. But
if the denotatum of the phrase infinitus D e i intellectus is thus identical with the
denotatum of the phrase idea Dei, the latter cannot designate the mediate infinite
mode of the attribute of T h o u g h t , which is a different m o d e from the immediate
infinite mode of that attribute and not simply the same m o d e under a different
description. There can, however, be no question that the immediate infinite m o d e
of T h o u g h t is the infinite Understanding of G o d ; hence, the " I d e a of G o d " is
simply that same m o d e under a different description, a2
Indiana University

~1 The same identification is implied, e.g., by Spinoza's speaking throughout w

of things which exist in intellectu et non in imaginatione and then going on to say, at the
beginning of the following section, Vitamus praeterea aliam magnam causam confusionis,

et quae ]acit, quo minus intellectus ad se reflectat: nempe, cure non distinguimus inter imaginationem et intellectionem (i.e., "We avoid besides another great cause of confusion and

[one] which prevents the understanding from reflecting on itself: namely, while we do not
distinguish between the imagination and understanding . . .").
82 This argument is, of course, designed to supplement rather than to replace the considerations offered by H. A. Wolfson in support of the view that the infinite Understanding
of God is identical with the Idea of God, contrary to the view taken (e.g.) by Pollock (op.
cir., Ch. V, especially p. 176) and by Joachim both in his study of the TDIE (op. cir., pp. 8588) and in his Study of the Ethics of Spinoza (Oxford, 1901), pp. 94-95. For Wolfson's
argument, see his The Philosophy of Spinoza (paperback ed. New York, I958), I, pp. 238-24I.