''Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione'' (''Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect'') is an unfinished work of philosophy by the seventeenth-century philosopher

Baruch Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, ...

, published posthumously in 1677.

Summary

The ''Tractatus'' was first published in 1677, the year of Spinoza's death, by some of his closest friends, along with other works including the '' Ethica'' and the '' Tractatus Politicus''.Ludovico Geymonat, "Storia del Pensiero Scientifico e Filosofico" (History of Science and Philosophy). Garzanti, 1970. It is an attempt to formulate a

philosophical method In its most common sense, philosophical methodology is the field of inquiry studying the methods used to do philosophy. But the term can also refer to the methods themselves. It may be understood in a wide sense as the general study of principles ...

that would allow the mind to form the clear and distinct ideas that are necessary for its perfection. It contains, in addition, reflection upon the various kinds of knowledge, an extended treatment of definition, and a lengthy analysis of the nature and causes of doubt. He discusses, among other topics,

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

experience Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can ...

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remember ...

, and

forgetting Forgetting or disremembering is the apparent loss or modification of information already encoded and stored in an individual's short or long-term memory. It is a spontaneous or gradual process in which old memories are unable to be recalled from ...

Themes

Spinoza commenced this treatise with the intention of examining the problem of knowledge, but the work was never completed. In his other works epistemological discussions are intimately linked with the rest of his philosophy. Indeed, even in the ''Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding''

epistemological Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

views are almost inseparably connected with ethical ones. That is the consequence of his characteristic conception of knowledge. For Spinoza "knowledge" is "life", not in the sense that contemplation is the highest life, but in the sense that knowledge is the means of holding together the threads of life in a systematic unity that can fill its proper place in the cosmic system. There are two things which must be born in mind in connection with Spinoza's conception of knowledge. The first is his insistence on the ''active'' character of knowledge. The ideas or concepts by means of which thought constructs reality are not like "lifeless pictures on a panel"; they are activities by which reality is apprehended; they are part of reality, and reality is activity. The second point is that Spinoza does not divorce knowing from willing. Man always acts according to his lights. If a man's endeavours appear to fall short of his knowledge, that is only because his knowledge is not really what it is held to be, but is wanting in some respect. On the one hand, reason, for Spinoza, is essentially the " practical reason". On the other hand, the highest expression of willing is experienced in that striving for consistency and harmony which is so characteristic of reason.

References

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Translation with commentary

{{Authority control 1662 works Works by Baruch Spinoza Treatises