Abstract

This article contains an investigation of the meaning of Spinoza's thesis that the human mind is a part of the infinite intellect. Because it is such a part, no matter whether it perceives inadequately or adequately, the modes of human cognition cannot be explicated on the basis of the status of the mind as such a part. Its being a part only guarantees the correspondence between idea and object. It guarantees the truth of an idea but not its adequacy ; its adequacy must be ascertained by man under conditions of his own finitude. The import of the theory of the infinite intellect is in the main an ontological one, while the theory of human cognition has been developed with reference to specific elements of human finitude. Only so it is significant to make use of human cognition as the basis of an ethic that is concerned with the well-being of man as a finite mode