Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-15T11:16:06.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

31. - Certainty

from C

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Syliane Malinowski-Charles
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Get access

Summary

Spinoza’s theory of truth has been an important topic of interest in the secondary literature, especially in comparison with Descartes’s conception of the clarity and distinctness of ideas. Certainty (certitudo) is a word commonly used by Spinoza throughout his works. Although it is never formally defined, Spinoza arguably makes specific epistemological and theological uses of it in addition to the usual meaning of certainty as that which is opposed to doubt. We can identify three essential characteristics of certainty in Spinoza’s thought: identity with the objective essence, being a feature of any true idea, and being self-evident.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 79 - 82
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Recommended Reading

Carriero, J. (2020). Descartes (and Spinoza) on intellectual experience and skepticism. Roczniki Filozoficzne / Annals of Philosophy, 68(2), 21–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deleuze, G. (1990). Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. C. V. Boundas. Zone. (Original work published 1968.)Google Scholar
Garrett, D. (2018a). Truth and ideas of imagination in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione. In Garrett, , Nature and Necessity in Spinoza’s Philosophy (pp. 151–75). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, D. (2018b). Truth, method, and correspondence in Spinoza and Leibniz. In Garrett, , Nature and Necessity in Spinoza’s Philosophy (pp. 176–98). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleizer, M. (2017). Vérité et certitude chez Spinoza. Classiques Garnier.Google Scholar
Malinowski-Charles, S. (2024). Spinoza on knowing that I know [MS].Google Scholar
Matheron, A. (1971). Le Christ et le salut des ignorants chez Spinoza. Aubier-Montaigne.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×