display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
| 4835 | Anyone who knows, must know that they know, and even know that they know that they know.. [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: If a man knows anything, he, by that very fact, knows that he knows it, and at the same time knows that he knows that he knows it, and so on to infinity. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 21) | |
| A reaction: A delightfully bold claim! This is 'super internalism', but it seems to require that we must be certain in order to know, whereas I think my own view is internalist but 'fallibilist' - I know, while admitting I could be wrong. |
| 20308 | Encounters with things confuse the mind, and internal comparisons bring clarity [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: The mind has only a confused knowledge of itself, its own body, and external bodies, as long as it is perceived from fortuitous encounters with things, ...and not internally, from the agreements, differences and oppositions of a number of things at once. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 29s) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is a very nice expression of the commitment to coherence as justification, typical of the rationalist view of things. Empiricists are trapped in an excessively atomistic concept of knowledge (one impression or sense datum at a time). |