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Horst Steinke
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knowledge are present, and thus it is worthwhile to be quoted in
full:
From all that has been said above it is clear, that we, in many
cases, perceive and form our general notions:
(1) From particular things represented to our intellect fragmentarily,
confusedly, and without order through our senses; I have settled to call
such perceptions by the name of knowledge from the mere suggestions
of experience
337
. (2) From symbols, e.g. from the fact of having read or
heard certain words we remember things and form certain ideas con-
cerning them, similar to those through which we imagine things. I shall
call both these ways of regarding things
knowledge of the first kind
(
cogni-
tionem primi generis
)
, opinion,
or
imagination
338
.
(3) From the fact that we have notions common to all men, and ade-
quate ideas of the properties of things; this I call
reason
and
knowledge of
the second kind
(
secondi generis cognitionem
)
.
Besides these two kinds of knowledge (
duo cognitionis genera
), there is, as
I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call in-
tuition (
aliud tertium quod scientiam intuitivam vocabimus
). This kind of
knowledge (
hoc cognoscendi genus
) proceeds from an adequate idea of the
absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate
knowledge of the essence of things
339
.
Much of Spinoza studies has concerned itself with elucidating
Spinoza’s epistemology, a remotely adequate treatment of which
is beyond the scope of these notes; nevertheless, a few salient
points need to be brought out, primarily to locate language
(«words») in Spinoza’s system. Proposition XL associated lan-
guage to, and classified it together with, a highly unsatisfactory
epistemc state of affairs, marked by confusion, disconnection,
incompleteness, mere opinion, casual, unreflected experience, or
just imagining things. In the same Proposition, in the preceding
Note I, Spinoza had already explained the underlying reason, or
rather the «causes», of this problematic situation which consists
of the fact that knowledge of the first kind is tied to