On the Improvement of Understanding

[Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione]

by

Benedict de Spinoza

Translated by R. H. M. Elwes

eBooks@Adelaide
2007

The text is derived from the translation of the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione by R. H. M. Elwes, Bohn Library edition published by George Bell and Sons in 1883.

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Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

  1. On the Improvement of the Understanding
  2. Of the ordinary objects of men’s desires
  3. Of the true and final good
  4. Certain rules of life
  5. Of the four modes of perception
  6. Of the best mode of perception
  7. Of the instruments of the intellect, or true ideas
  8. Answers to objections

First part of method

  1. Distinction of true ideas from fictitious ideas
  2. And from false ideas
  3. Of doubt
  4. Of memory and forgetfulness
  5. Mental hindrances from words — and from the popular confusion of ready imagination with distinct understanding.

Second part of method:

  1. Its object, the acquisition of clear and distinct ideas
  2. Its means, good definitions Conditions of definition
  3. How to define understanding

Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:45:16 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.