Event Detail
Thu Feb 11, 2016 Howison Library 4–6 PM |
Philosophy Colloquium Kristin Primus (Georgetown University) The Roles of Inadequate Ideas in Adequate Cognition |
Interpreters of Spinoza have tended to focus on the negative affective and epistemic consequences of having inadequate ideas. While I think it’s clear that inadequate ideas can bring discord and turmoil, I don’t think that inadequate ideas always undermine adequate cognition’s gains. In this paper, I will explain how inadequate ideas —even those highly confused, very inadequate ideas like being, thing, or something— can help a cognizer emend her intellect and get more adequate ideas. I will also explain why it’s coherent for a cognizer to have entirely adequate ideas about durationally-existing things. This is an important result, as it rescues Spinoza’s system from inconsistency.