Rationalism Versus Subjective Experience: The Problem of the Two Minds in Spinoza

Abstract

Syliane Malinowski-Charles undertakes to clarify the ontological status of inadequate ideas and passive affects in Spinoza by questioning the identity of the subjects of which Spinoza speaks when referring to the subjective and objective realities of a mode. Against the surprisingly widespread view which holds that for Spinoza, inadequate ideas and passive affects are “nothing,” she argues that they must have a share in Deus sive Natura and shows how our subjective, physchological mind is intrinsically related to the logical, abstract one in God’s intellect, of which it is a “part.”