Hi All,

    At the beginning of Part 2 of the Ethics Spinoza opens with this comment:

===== E2: Preface:
    I now pass on to explaining the results, which must necessarily follow from the essence of God, or of the eternal and infinite being; not, indeed, all of them (for we proved in E1P16, that an infinite number must follow in an infinite number of ways), but only those which are able to lead us, as it were by the hand, to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness.
=====

    ...and at the end of this Part he closes with:

===== E2: PROP. 49 Corollary, Note:
...I thus bring the second part of my treatise to a close. I think I have therein explained the nature and properties of the human mind at sufficient length, and, considering the difficulty of the subject, with sufficient clearness. I have laid a foundation, whereon may be raised many excellent conclusions of the highest utility and most necessary to be known, as will, in what follows, be partly made plain.
=====

    I believe it was Spinoza's intent that his readers would actually read through his propositions and proofs with an eye toward coming to Understand for themselves (by the affirmations of their own mind, not simply by remembering and repeating his words) the things he had written about in the Ethics. In this way our own mind will affirm these excellent conclusions which follow from Part 1 as they will also affirm those conclusions which will follow from Part 2 concerning; the Emotions (Part 3), Human Bondage to the Emotions (Part 4), and Human Freedom or Blessedness (Part 5.)

    So, what did he demonstrate for us concerning the Mind? Many of Spinoza's propositions throughout the Ethics fall into groups with some close relationship to each other and so, as a possible aid to understanding his meaning and the direction of his thought, it might be useful to consider an outline of his work. With regard to Part 2 then, I see a possible grouping of propositions as follows (I'm sure others can come up with their own grouping or descriptions if they read the Ethics carefully):

(I.) Prop. 1 thru 13 + Lemmas on Bodies:

    The mind is the idea (a mode of the Attribute of Thought) of the existing body (a mode of the Attribute of Extension) and, the nature of all bodies involves the Attribute of Extension, and the immediate mode of motion/rest. Notice also that these propositions start from the Infinite Attributes of God and work toward particular and finite conditioned modes of those Attributes and, in particular, he is concerned more with the nature of modes of Thought (ideas/minds) even if these are the ideas of bodies.

(II.) Prop. 14-18:

    An existing human body retains impressions or images (bodily modifications) and memories (associations of two or more bodily images taken together) when it is acted upon by external bodies through motion/rest (the only way one body or part of a complex body can affect another) and the ideas of these modifications will be in that particular human mind. This is the fundamental nature of the Imagination, words and images.

(III.) Prop. 19-31:

    In so far as the mind imagines its own body and external bodies, through the motion/rest of its own existing body, it has only inadequate ideas of itself, of its own body, and of external bodies and it has only inadequate ideas of the duration of its own existing body and of external bodies. These propositions further explain the nature of the Imagination and the inadequacy of the ideas so formed in our particular mind. This is the realm, so to speak, of words and images which make up our own particular version of "the world" of external things including our imagination of our selves.

(IV.) Prop. 32-36:

    All ideas are in God, and in so far as they are referred to God they are true. Every idea, which in us is absolute or adequate and perfect, is true because those ideas are actually in God in so far as he constitutes our mind (we only imagine "ourselves" as separate from "god".) Further, there are no confused or inadequate ideas, except in respect to a particular mind.

(V.) Prop. 37-40:

    Some things are common to all bodies and the ideas of these things in any mind (including of course the minds of all men) can only be conceived adequately (although the words used to refer to these things will be associated with images, which are NOT the adequate ideas involved.) This explains the nature of Reason and the adequacy of those ideas, and of any other ideas which follow in our mind from those same ideas, and so on for other ideas which follow from these ideas, etc. This also explains the method Spinoza used in expressing the Ethics (see for instance his final comment in E4P18, Note.)

    Spinoza defines Three Kinds of Knowledge in the 2nd note to P40. These are; Imagination, Reason, and Intuition, and he comments that he will discuss the 3rd Kind of Knowledge (Intuition) in Part 5 so, until then, he is continuing to make use of Reason as his method of demonstration for us to follow in expressing his Ideas (as he has since the beginning of Part 1.) We may eventually discover that our mind already knows these same things directly and more powerfully by Intuition (see E5P36 Corollary, Note) but this is too often confused with words and images and so Reason can help lead us more and more out of the "land of confusion" which is our own Imagination. The more we work with Spinoza's expressions of Reasoning, the more readily we will regain our direction should we happen upon some moment of Intuition which, without such previous efforts, usually leads us to long periods of imagining that we have attained "Blessedness" and imagining that we no longer need to put in any more effort toward reasoning. With such glimmers of Intuition men have spent their whole lives fondly recalling and often writing about "that moment", all the while believing that when they die they will "enter Heaven" or be "fully awake" or some such.

(VI.) Prop. 41-47:

    Spinoza here distinguishes the Second and Third Kinds of Knowledge (Reason and Intuition), both of which he shows to be True, from the First Kind of Knowledge (Imagination), which he shows is the only source of falsity. He then shows, leaving Intuition for Part 5, that Reason (ideas following from those things common to all, etc.) regards things as necessary, not as contingent, and that in so doing, it (Reason) conceives things under the form of Eternity, not under the form of duration, and that further the mind knows that these ideas necessarily involve the Eternal and Infinite Essence of God. If we are Reasoning, in the way Spinoza defines it, we will at the same time be certain of the Eternal Truth of the ideas involved.

(VII.) Prop. 48-49:

    Spinoza shows that there is in the mind no absolute or free will and that Will and Understanding are actually one and the same, namely clear and distinct ideas themselves. The Note at the end of this part, following E2P49 Corollary, also reiterates the importance of distinguishing between words and images, and ideas. He points out that these three are by many persons entirely confused together or are not distinguished with sufficient accuracy or care and this prevents the mind from Understanding the ideas which he has necessarily clothed in words.

    I hope that this might be useful when studying over the foundational Ideas expressed in Part 2 of the Ethics concerning The Mind. Of course anyone reading this will have to verify or correct it for themselves as they study to Understand things through Spinoza's Reasoning. Hopefully too, by so studying, we will also eventually Understand these things (as Spinoza comments in that note in Part 5 mentioned above), through Intuition.