Human Freedom as Adequate Causality in the Act of Intuitive Self-knowledge. Study on Spinoza’s Ethics

Abstract

This article examines the relation between human freedom and intuitive knowledge within the context of Spinoza’s Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order. There are mainly two distinguishable forms of human freedom in Spinoza’s Ethics. The first one, on which there is general agreement, corresponds to the idea of freedom as emancipation of the dominion of determining factors, such as passive affects and inadequate ideas. Through such a process of emancipation, which includes the forming of adequate ideas and the production of active affects, the human soul can reach a state of wisdom and happiness. The second one, for which this paper argues, corresponds to the potency of the human intellect to cause adequately the supreme act of intuitive self-knowledge, in which he coincides
with and participates in the productive and causal activity of the substance, that is, in its absolute freedom.