Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2)
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~14,100 words · 67 passages
Cite this work
- APABaruch Spinoza. (n.d.). Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, et de via qua optime in veram rerum cognit [Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-de-intellectus-emendatione-et-de-via-qua-optime-in-veram-rerum-cognit
- MLABaruch Spinoza. Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, et de via qua optime in veram rerum cognit [Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-de-intellectus-emendatione-et-de-via-qua-optime-in-veram-rerum-cognit.
- ChicagoBaruch Spinoza. Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, et de via qua optime in veram rerum cognit [Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/tractatus-de-intellectus-emendatione-et-de-via-qua-optime-in-veram-rerum-cognit.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The Latin original of Spinoza's unfinished treatise on the emendation of the understanding, published posthumously in 1677.
Context and history
It opens with a page unlike anything else in Spinoza: a first-person confession of having seen that riches, honour and pleasure give nothing that lasts, and of having resolved to look for a good that does. What follows is enough to show the method: to distinguish the ways in which we know — by hearsay, by vague experience, by reasoning, and the fourth, the perception of a thing through its essence — and to show that only the last is worth anything. The treatise was left unfinished; Spinoza abandoned it to write the 'Ethics', which applies the method instead of explaining it. That is why it is the best way in: one sees what he was after, before the geometry covered everything over.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
35. Hinc patet, quod certitudo nihil sit praeter ipsam essentiam obiectivam ; id est, modus, quo sentimus essentiam formalem, est ipsa certitudo. Unde iterum patet, quod ad certitudinem veritatis nullo alio signo sit opus, quam veram habere ideam ; nam, uti ostendimus, non opus est, ut sciam, quod sciam me scire. Ex quibus rursum patet, neminem posse scire, quid sit summa certitudo, nisi qui habet adaequatam ideam aut essentiam obiectivam alicuius rei ; nimirum, quia idem est certitudo et essentia obiectiva. VII. De recta methodo cognoscendi. 36. Cum itaque veritas nullo egeat signo, sed sufficiat habere essentias rerum obiectivas, aut, quod idem est, ideas, ut omne tollatur dubium ; hinc sequitur, quod vera non est methodus signum veritatis quaerere post acquisitionem idearum, sed quod vera methodus est via, ut ipsa veritas, aut essentiae obiectivae rerum aut ideae (omnia illa idem significant) debito ordine quaerantur . 37. Rursus methodus necessario debet loqui de ratiocinatione aut de intellectione ; id est, methodus non est ipsum ratiocinari ad intelligendum causas rerum, et multo minus est το intelligere causas rerum ; sed est intelligere, quid sit vera idea, eam a ceteris perceptionibus distinguendo eiusque naturam investigando, ut inde nostram intelligendi potentiam noscamus, et mentem ita cohibeamus, ut ad illam normam omnia intelligat, quae sunt intelligenda, tradendo tamquam auxilia certas regulas, et etiam faciendo, ne mens inutilibus defatigetur. 38. Unde colligitur, methodum nihil aliud esse, nisi cognitionem reflexivam aut ideam ideae ; et quia non datur idea ideae, nisi prius detur idea, ergo methodus non dabitur, nisi prius detur idea. Unde illa bona erit methodus, quae ostendit, quomodo mens dirigenda sit ad datae verae ideae normam.…