Acquiescentia and Power in Spinoza’s Ethics

1. Introduction

‘The highest thing we can hope for,’ Spinoza tells us in the Ethics (4p52s), is rational acquiescentia in se ipso (self-contentment or, preferably, self-esteem), which is the joy we derive from contemplating ourselves and our own power of acting.¹ Spinoza defines acquiescentia in se ipso (hereafter self-esteem) as ‘a joy born of the fact that a man considers [contemplatur] himself and his power of acting’ (3DA25). The ethical value of this affect hinges on the kind of self-cognition it involves. Insofar as we derive joy from an inadequate self-understanding through imagination, the first and lowest kind of cognition, our self-esteem is unwarranted and false. True and justified self-esteem is a joy based on an adequate cognition of oneself and one’s power of acting through reason, the second kind of cognition, which in turn involves an adequate knowledge of God—the highest good of the mind and its greatest virtue (4p28).

In Part 4 of the Ethics, after having presented in Part 3 various forms of unwarranted self-esteem based on imagination, Spinoza writes: ‘Self-esteem [acquiescentia in se ipso[ can arise from reason, and only that self-esteem which does arise from reason is the greatest there can be’ (4p52). This claim is puzzling because it is not clear how reason, the second kind of cognition, can provide the cognitive basis for a rational self-esteem—an adequate cognition of oneself and one’s power of acting. By ‘power of acting’ (potentia agendi), Spinoza means the actual causal activity by which every existing thing strives to persevere in its being. And he claims that a thing’s causal power or striving to persevere in its being is ‘nothing but’ the actual essence of that thing: ‘the power, or striving, by which [each thing] strives to persevere in its being, is nothing but the given, or actual, essence of the thing itself’ (3p7d).² Yet Spinoza’s theory of knowledge indicates that reason is universal cognition that has no access to singular essences. The foundations of reason are the common properties of things that do ‘not constitute the essence of any singular thing’ (2p37). Given Spinoza’s tendency to equate ‘power of acting’ with ‘striving to persevere’ or ‘actual essence,’ and given his claim that reason cannot ‘explain the essence of any singular thing’ (2p44c2d), it is difficult to see how reason can provide the self-knowledge required for an adequate self-esteem.

My aim in this paper is to propose an account of how reason, despite its inability to grasp singular essences, can make our singular power of acting accessible to us and thereby ground our proper self-esteem. I will argue that Spinoza employs the terms ‘power of acting’ and ‘striving’ in two different senses, both of which refer to the actual (durational) existence of singular things. The first sense signifies that aspect of a thing’s power of acting or striving that constitutes the thing’s actual essence and that remains unchanged so long as the thing exists; the second sense signifies the nonessential aspect of a thing’s power of acting, which is gradual and progressive, unceasingly increasing or diminishing.³ I will argue that this implies two ways in which the mind can come to adequately know its own power of understanding, which we must consider in making sense of Spinoza’s account of rational self-esteem. Whereas intuitive knowledge alone grasps the essential aspect of the mind’s power of acting and gives rise to the animi acquiescentia or blessedness, I suggest that reason can be said to grasp our singular ‘power of acting’ and to thereby ground our proper self-esteem only insofar as this power is taken in its gradual and nonessential sense, which I characterize below.

In interpreting Spinoza’s definition of rational acquiescentia in se ipso, many commentators have justifiably emphasized the importance he accords to rational self-knowledge and its close relation to the knowledge of God.⁴ But except for a few scattered remarks, the question of how and whether reason can meet this definition and provide knowledge of one’s power of acting has not been explicitly taken up. Another prevailing tendency among scholars is to explain Spinoza’s rational acquiescentia in se ipso by invoking the related but still distinct affective states he calls animi (or mentis) acquiescentia, which is the satisfaction of the mind with its own perfection when attaining intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva).⁵ While there is a fairly broad consensus that the animi acquiescentia, for Spinoza, belongs exclusively to intuition, and that the acquiescentia in se ipso arises from imagination or reason, some scholars treat the two Latin expressions as interchangeable, explaining the former in terms of the latter.⁶ Others have taken the two expressions to denote one and the same affect,⁷ or a single affect that varies according to the kind of cognition in which it is grounded.⁸ Contrary to this line of interpretation, I will suggest that the two affective states differ fundamentally from one another and deserve to be treated separately.⁹

I begin in section 2 with a brief outline of the limitations Spinoza sets to our self-knowledge through imagination and reason. In section 3, I examine the consequences of this analysis for Spinoza’s account of rational self-esteem in Part 4 of the Ethics. In section 4, I explain the two senses of ‘power of acting’ that this account implies and how it helps us resolve our guiding problem concerning rational self-esteem. I conclude with several remarks on how the twofold sense of ‘power of acting’ underlies the distinction between rational self-esteem and the animi acquiescentia of intuitive knowledge.

2. The Problem of Self-Knowledge

To see how reason can grant us the self-knowledge required for our proper self-esteem, it will be helpful to begin by examining the limitations Spinoza places on our self-understanding, first through imagination and then through reason.

In Part 2 of the Ethics, Spinoza maintains that the human mind qua the idea of the human body perceives all that happens in the body (2p12). And he also claims, ‘The human mind does not know the human body itself [ipsum humanum corpus], nor does it know that it exists, except through ideas of affections by which the body is affected’ (2p19).¹⁰ But the mind’s ideas of these affections are inevitably inadequate and confused, because they must involve the states of the human body and at the same time the states of the external bodies by which the body is affected (2p16). For Spinoza, an idea is adequate in a given mind when it is causally explainable through this mind alone. When this occurs, the mind is an adequate (complete) cause of the idea (3D1–2). The ideas the mind has of the affections of its body cannot be adequate, because they depend on the ideas of infinitely many singular things that are not contained in the mind. And given that the mind is the idea of the body, this account must apply to the mind’s knowledge of itself. Indeed, Spinoza says that the mind does not know itself either ‘except insofar as it perceives the ideas of the affections of the body’ (2p23).¹¹ In a number of passages (e.g., 2p9, 2p19d, 2p24d, 2p28d), he explains that the idea of the affections of the body are in God insofar as he is considered to be affected by infinitely many ideas of infinitely many singular things (by 1p28). The mind’s self-understanding is thus as inadequate and confused as its cognition of its own body. Spinoza affirms this in 2p29: ‘The idea of the idea of any affection of the human body does not involve adequate knowledge of the human mind.’ This leads Spinoza to assert that so long as the mind perceives things ‘from the common order of nature’ rather than from the order of the intellect and is determined externally from fortuitous encounter with things, it has confused and inadequate cognition ‘of itself, of its own body, and of external bodies’ (2p29s).

With this in hand, let us consider the kind of self-understanding reason provides and the extent to which it can overcome the limitations of imagination. Spinoza’s theory of the three kinds of cognition at 2p40s2 suggests two distinctive ways by which we can attain adequate ideas—reason (ratio) and intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva). I have argued elsewhere that reason and intuition differ from one another in kind—in both their objects and intrinsic features—and not only in degree. Whereas reason is universal and conceptual cognition, conceiving the necessary relations among things on the basis of their common properties, intuition is experiential and nonconceptual, consisting in the mind’s immediate acquaintance with singular essences.¹² For our purposes, however, it suffices to focus on Spinoza’s explicit conception of reason as ‘universal cognition’ that has no insight into singular essences. This will allow us, in the next two sections, to analyze our guiding problem concerning the ability of reason to ground our proper self-esteem.

According to Spinoza, reason derives ‘from the fact that we have common notions [notiones communes] and adequate ideas of the properties of things’ (2p40s2). Common notions are adequate ideas of properties shared by all finite modes under a given attribute, which are present ‘equally in the part and in the whole’ (2p37, 2p38). Motion and rest are Spinoza’s notable examples of such fundamental properties common to all bodies, properties that inhere equally in each part of them as in their entirety (2Le2). The inherent adequacy of the common notions lies in the pervasiveness of the properties they represent, which are said to be found equally in the part and in the whole of each finite mode pertaining to a given attribute (2p38d). And given that the common notions are the foundations of reason (fundamenta rationis) (2p44c2d and 2p40s1), knowledge of the second kind is necessarily adequate and true (2p41, 2p42).¹³

Spinoza indicates that the shared properties of things, although necessarily following from the essence of each singular thing, do not pertain to its essence, which is singular and belongs uniquely to that thing.¹⁴ He defines that which pertains to the essence of any thing as ‘that without which the thing can neither be nor be conceived, and which can neither be nor be conceived without the thing’ (2D2).¹⁵ And he explicitly asserts that the properties common to all things on which reason is founded ‘do not constitute the essence of any singular thing’ (2p37). The essence of each singular thing is accessible only through intuitive knowledge, which ‘proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the [formal] essence of things’ (2p40s2; cf. 5p25d). In having a direct insight into singular essences, intuition perceives things ‘under species of eternity’ (sub specie aeternitatis), that is, ‘through God’s essence, as real beings’ (5p30d) whose ideas ‘involve the eternal and infinite essence of God’ (5p29s). Reason, by contrast, perceives things from a general point of view, on the basis of their shared properties and not on the basis of the essence peculiar to each singular thing (5p36s). In Spinoza’s wording,

Add to this that the foundations of reason are notions . . . which (by 2p37) do not explain the essence of any singular thing. On that account, they must be conceived without any relation to time, but under a certain species of eternity [sub quadam aeternitatis specie]. (2p44c2d).¹⁶

On these grounds, Spinoza labels reason a ‘universal cognition’ (cognitione universali) and intuition a ‘cognition of singular things’ (rerum singularium cognitio) (5p36s).

So, what kind of self-understanding can reason provide? Is reason restricted to ideas of common properties and whatever follows from them, or can it also provide some adequate knowledge of particular beings, including oneself, albeit not of singular essences? This issue is quite controversial.¹⁷ Indeed, in Part 4 of the Ethics and the first half of Part 5, Spinoza proposes various techniques and means for increasing the power of reason over the passive affects by acquiring a better understanding of their causes. He claims that ‘an affect which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it’ (5p3).¹⁸ He then adds, importantly, that ‘there is no affection of the body of which we cannot form a clear and distinct concept’ (5p4). But although there is direct textual evidence showing that, according to Spinoza, we can have adequate ideas of our affects and our bodily affections, it remains quite questionable and controversial whether he thinks of the affection-type here, or of the affection token.¹⁹ Some clue is given in 5p4d, where Spinoza invokes the adequacy of the common notions in order to demonstrate that ‘there is no affection of the body of which we cannot form a clear and distinct concept.’ This may suggest that what we adequately cognize of our affects by means of reason, according to Spinoza, is some of their shared properties, that is, those necessary features in them which they share with all other affections of their sort.²⁰ In the scholium to 5p4, he accordingly qualifies his claim, saying that ‘each of us has—in part, at least, if not absolutely—the power to understand himself and his affects, and consequentially, the power to bring it about that he is less acted on by them’ (5p4s).²¹ Spinoza seems to be holding, then, that a general (philosophical and scientific) understanding of our affects through their common properties may help us understand their causes, and that in reordering and reconnecting them according to the order of the intellect (5p10), we become less driven by them. And yet, besides knowledge of these shared properties, in order for me to properly esteem myself I must also have some adequate knowledge of my singular power of acting in its particularity and uniqueness. Since Spinoza is explicit that reason cannot capture singular essences, and given his tendency to identify ‘power of acting’ with ‘striving to persevere’ or ‘actual essence,’ it remains unclear how reason can allow me to properly esteem myself on the basis of an adequate cognition of my singular power of acting.²² How, then, are we to acquire true and adequate self-esteem by means of reason? This will be the focus of the next two sections.

3. Rational Self-Esteem

Let us turn to Spinoza’s demonstration of the claim that ‘self-esteem can arise from reason,’ and that ‘only that self-esteem which does arise from reason, is the greatest there can be’ (4p52). This demonstration has two parts. The first part builds on Spinoza’s account of certainty, while the second part builds on his notion of adequacy. Let us consider them in turn.

4. Spinoza’s Twofold Sense of ‘Power of Acting’

In what follows, I propose an account of the two senses in which ‘power of acting’ or ‘striving’ are at work in the Ethics, of which only the first is identical to the actual essence of each singular thing. On this basis, I proceed to show how this distinction helps explain the ability of reason to ground our proper self-esteem through an adequate cognition of one’s power of acting.

A good place to start would be a passage from the Preface to Part 4, where Spinoza writes:

But the main thing to note is that when I say that someone passes from a lesser to a greater perfection, and the opposite, I do not understand that he is changed from one essence, or form, to another. . . . Rather, we conceive that his power of acting, insofar as it is understood through his nature, is increased or diminished. (4pref, G ii 208/24–30)

In this passage, Spinoza is explicit that decreases or increases in our degree of power of acting, perfection, or reality do not change our essence or form. Moreover, as Hübner (2017: 44) rightly emphasizes, in claiming that changes in power must be ‘understood through’ a thing’s essential nature, Spinoza indicates that ‘changes in power are not only consistent with a thing’s retaining its essence’ but also ‘require the existence of such an essence for their intelligibility.’ Yet, at first glance, this passage may seem inconsistent with other passages from the Ethics in which Spinoza identifies ‘power of acting’ with ‘essence,’ as well as changes in a thing’s power of acting with changes in its striving to persevere.²⁹ But there is no inconsistency here once we recognize that there are two distinct senses in which things can be said to have ‘power of acting’ or ‘striving to persevere.’ In the remainder of this section, I argue that in cases where ‘power of acting,’ ‘striving,’ ‘desire,’ or ‘appetite’ are said to be identical with a thing’s ‘essence,’ these terms are used to denote the unchanged aspect of one’s power of acting or striving that makes it the thing that it is.³⁰ In other cases, by contrast, where ‘power of acting,’ ‘striving,’ as well as ‘desire’ or ‘appetite’ are said to undergo unceasing changes, these terms are used to signify particular determinations or affections of the thing’s essence (i.e., of its ‘power’ or ‘striving’ in the former, essential sense) rather than its essence itself.³¹ In the Appendix to Part 4, for instance, Spinoza points to particular strivings or desires (taken in the nonessential sense) that are said to follow from one’s essential nature:

All our strivings, or desires [cupiditates], follow from the necessity of our nature in such a way that they can be understood either through it alone, as through their proximate cause, or insofar as we are part of nature. (4app1)

Consider also the demonstration to 3p56, in which the two senses of ‘desire’ are at work:

But Desire is the very essence, or nature, of each [man] insofar as it is conceived to be determined, by whatever constitution he has, to do something (see P9S). Therefore, as each [man] is affected by external causes with this or that species of Joy, Sadness, Love, Hate, etc.—i.e., as his nature is constituted in one way or the other, so his Desires vary and the nature of one Desire must differ from the nature of the other as much as the affects from which each arises differ from one another. (3p56d)

One thing to note about this passage is that the three occurrences of the word ‘desire’ appearing in it do not signify the same thing. Whereas the first occurrence of this word denotes the thing’s essence itself, the remaining two denote particular desires that follow from one’s essence qua its determinations or affections. The latter alone are said to undergo changes (‘as his nature is constituted in one way or the other, so his desires vary’) rather than the former. As Carriero (2020: 94) puts it, for Spinoza, that which brings me laetitia ‘is a matter of my nature being shaped in a certain way, and this shaping structures (“determines”) my activity in various ways’.³²

Another example is a passage from the ‘Definitions of the Affects’ at the end of Part 3, where both senses of ‘desire’ are employed, in two different contexts. After having defined desire as ‘man’s very essence, insofar as it is conceived to be determined, from any given affection of it, to do something,’ Spinoza proceeds to explain:

For by an affection of the human essence we understand any constitution of that essence. . . . Here, therefore, by the word Desire I understand any of a man’s strivings, impulses, appetites, and volitions, which vary as the man’s constitution varies, and which are not infrequently so opposed to one another that the man is pulled in different directions and knows not where to turn. (3DA1exp)

Here, too, what is said to undergo constant change is not ‘desire’ considered as ‘man’s very essence’ but rather the affections of one’s essence: ‘any of one’s strivings, impulses, appetites, and volitions.’³³

The idea that a thing’s power, striving, or desire—considered as the thing’s essence—remains unchanged notwithstanding unceasing changes in its affections or determinations (in the form of particular powers, desires, strivings, impulses, appetites, or volitions) sits well with Spinoza’s conception of the formal essence of any particular body as a fixed ratio of motion and rest among its parts (e.g., 2le5). In the demonstration to 2p24, Spinoza distinguishes two ways of considering the parts composing the human body: either as individuals, without relation to the human body, or as pertaining to the essence of the body. Although what concerns him here is the formal essence of the body, rather than its actual essence, this demonstration is revealing and important for our purposes:

The parts composing the human body pertain to the essence of the body itself only insofar as they communicate their motions to one another in a certain fixed manner . . . and not insofar as they can be considered as individuals, without relation to the human body. For (by 2post1), the parts of the human body are highly composite individuals, whose parts (by le4) can be separated from the human body and communicate their motions . . . to other bodies in another manner, while the human body completely preserves its nature and form. And so the idea, or knowledge, of each part will be in God (by 3p3), insofar as he is considered to be affected by another idea of a singular thing. . . . The same must also be said of each part of the individual composing the human body. (2p24d)

The human mind lacks adequate cognition of the parts composing the human body because none of these parts, considered in itself, belong to the body’s essence—a certain fixed proportion of motion and rest among its parts (2Le3ax2 Def). So long as this fixed proportion is maintained, the particular parts of the body can be removed or replaced ‘while the human body completely preserves its nature and form’ (cf. 2Le4). Thus, insofar as each of these parts is considered as an actual component of the individual body, without relation to the body’s essence or form, its perception can only be inadequate because the human mind does not contain the ideas of its causal antecedents (2p11c).³⁴ Now, for Spinoza, the formal essence (essentia formalis) of the body is eternally contained in God’s attribute (2p8) even when the body does not exist. And given that the human mind is the idea of an actually existing body, the formal essence of the existing body manifests itself in actuality as its ‘actual essence’ (essentia actualis), which is the unique causal power by which any particular body strives to maintain the fixed ratio of motion and rest among its parts (4p39). Thus, both the actual and the formal essence of the body, in being singular and unique, grant unity to the composite individual and make it the individual that it is. Presumably, there must be something in the mind analogous to the body’s ratio of motion and rest, something that constitutes its form, granting it its unique temper or character and making it the singular mind that it is. Genevieve Lloyd (2020) has recently argued that the body’s fixed ratio of motion and rest manifests itself in the mind as a fixed balance between adequate and inadequate ideas. This seems implausible to me, for two reasons. First, the proportion of motion and rest in bodies is not equivalent to that of activity and passivity, respectively, because ‘a body which moves or is at rest must be determined to motion or rest by another body’ (2Le3). Second, since Spinoza’s ethical progress consists in increasing our power or activity and thereby enhancing our participation in the power of nature, it is unlikely that he would hold that the human mind, while increasing its power of understanding, must maintain a fixed balance of adequate and inadequate ideas in order for it to persevere (cf. Lucash [1992: 61–64]).

Let us now turn to consider Spinoza’s two senses of ‘power of acting’ (and ‘power of understanding,’ with relation to the mind), both of which are related to the actual (durational) existence of singular things. The first sense signifies the actual essence of the thing, that is, the peculiar and unchanged force that determines how this particular thing strives to persevere in its being through its variable causal activity. When so conceived, a thing’s ‘power of acting’ signifies its ‘determinate nature’ (3p7d) or essential striving, which structures its particular powers, or strivings to persevere. Let us look more closely at the demonstration of 3p7:

From the given essence of each thing some things necessarily follow (by Ip36), and things are able [to produce] nothing except what follows necessarily from their determinate nature (by Ip29). So the power of each thing, or the striving by which it (either alone or with others) does anything, or strives to do anything—i.e. (by IIIp6), the power, or striving, by which it strives to persevere in its being, is nothing but the given, or actual, essence of the thing itself. (3p7d, my emphases)

In this passage, importantly, Spinoza does not say that the striving that constitutes a thing’s actual essence can itself incorporate others and undergo changes. He claims, rather, that the actual essence of a thing is the power, or striving, or determinate nature ‘by which it (either alone or with others) does anything [quo ipsa vel sola vel cum aliis quidquam agit], or strives to do anything’ (3p7d, my emphasis). The causal power or striving that constitutes a thing’s essence structures, so it seems, the character not only of its particular actions but also of its ability to be affected by external things. Thus, when considered in the essential sense, a thing’s causal power or striving constitutes its idiosyncratic nature that remains the same so long as the thing exists notwithstanding the everchanging decreases and increases in its particular powers or strivings (taken in the second, nonessential sense). Spinoza refers to this essential aspect of a thing’s ‘power of acting’ or ‘perfection’ when he writes:

Finally, by perfection in general I shall, as I have said, understand reality, i.e., the essence of each thing insofar as it exists and produces an effect. . . . But any thing whatsoever, whether it is more perfect or less, will always be able to persevere in existing by the same force by which it begins to exist [eadem vi qua existere incipit]. (4pref, G ii 209/1–4, 8–10, my emphasis)³⁵

In this passage, as in many others, Spinoza employs the term vis (translated by Curley as ‘force’) rather than potentia (which is usually translated as ‘power’), to denote that aspect of a thing’s striving or power that constitutes its essence. But Spinoza does not consistently maintain this terminological distinction. On some occasions, he treats the two terms as equivalent. To take just one example, near the end of Part 3, he speaks of the body’s ‘power of acting or force of existing’ (agendi potentia sive existendi vis) as something that is increased or diminished, aided or restrained.³⁶

The second sense in which Spinoza used ‘power of thinking’—which is gradual and cumulative—signifies aggregates of actions or powers that unceasingly increase or diminish while the body’s essence or ‘power of acting’ in the former sense remains completely the same. This gradual and nonessential sense of ‘power of acting,’ as well as of ‘reality’ and ‘perfection,’ is the pillar and ground of Spinoza’s account of the affects and ethical theory that runs through the last three parts of his Ethics: ‘The more each thing is perfect, the more reality it has (by 2D6), and consequentially (by 3p3 and 3p35), the more it acts and the less it is acted on’ (5p40d). Given Spinoza’s parallelism, the twofold sense of ‘power of acting’ must apply equally to the mind’s power of understanding as well.³⁷

The foregoing discussion implies two distinct ways in which the mind can be said to know itself and its power of understanding. The first, which Spinoza reserves for intuitive knowledge alone, is the immediate knowledge the mind has of its own essence or power of acting itself, which it perceives through the essence of God. By ‘power of acting itself,’ I mean the force (vis) that determines how any particular mind perseveres in existing, or understands, in a way peculiar to itself that sets it apart from all other finite minds in nature. This is how I read Spinoza’s account in 2p45s of what he calls ‘the very nature of existence,’ which is attributed to singular things insofar as they are in God and follow from its nature (by 1p16):

I am speaking, I say, of the very existence of singular things insofar as they are in God. For even if each one is determined by another singular thing to exist in a certain way, still the force [vis] by which each one perseveres in existing follows from the eternal necessity of God’s nature. (2p45s, my emphasis)

Notice, importantly, that the force (vis) by which each thing strives to persevere in existence pertains to the actual essence of the thing and is the actual counterpart of its eternal (formal) essence that inheres in God’s attribute. And as the next section will show, the knowledge of this force is involved in the animi acquiescentia through intuitive knowledge.

The second way in which Spinoza allows the mind to adequately know itself and its singular power of acting is harder to characterize. It is tempting to suggest that he allows for ideas of reason that capture, if not the mind’s power of acting itself, at least the particular powers or actions composing it. However, given my previous analysis of 2p24d, Spinoza firmly denied this possibility. As we have just seen, insofar as the parts composing the human mind are considered as individual components rather than as pertaining to the essence of the mind, they cannot be perceived adequately. Since reason cannot perceive the essence of the mind, it cannot form adequate ideas of the parts composing the mind’s power of thinking, which can in principle be separated from it and integrated with another mind in a different fixed manner.

What, then, is the second way in which Spinoza allows the mind to adequately know itself and its singular power of acting? In the previous section, we have seen how the two doctrines involved in 4p52d, the doctrine of certainty and that of adequacy, refer to ideas in their formal reality, as pure thinking activity, without relation to their objects. Only on this basis, I have argued, can Spinoza assert the unity of the mind (as the idea of the body) with its idea. Given that, for Spinoza, the idea of the mind has the same form (i.e., the same formal being) as the mind itself, and given his principle that we understand things through their causes (1ax4), both the certainty and the adequacy doctrines entail (independently) the same conclusion: whenever the mind forms an adequate idea through reason, this idea must involve knowledge not only of God’s essence under the attribute of Thought (as the cause of the idea’s objective being), but also of the mind itself as a cause, considered formally, as a pure thinking activity. Now, this is equivalent to saying that whenever the mind knows something through reason, it necessarily has an unmediated knowledge of its own power of thinking considered in its nonessential sense. This self-knowledge is unmediated, I argue, precisely because it consists in the unity of the mind (qua the idea of the body) and its idea, insofar as they are considered formally. It is at this point that the distinction between the two senses of ‘power of acting’ takes on its full relevance. It is one thing for the rational mind to know its own ‘power of thinking’ considered in the nonessential sense just described, and quite another thing for it to know its own ‘power of thinking’ qua the mind’s actual essence, which Spinoza reserves for intuitive knowledge alone. Thus understood, the two parts of 4p52d indicate that the second way in which the mind comes to know itself and its own singular power consists in the mind’s unmediated but still adequate acquaintance with its own activity or causal and conceptual self-sufficiency, with regard to the effects (ideas) it produces. It is this gradual, cumulative, and nonessential aspect of the mind’s ‘power of acting,’ I argue, that Spinoza means in 4p52d when he says that in forming adequate ideas through reason, the mind contemplates itself and its power of acting and enjoys the greatest self-esteem there can be.

In the scholium to 4p52, Spinoza says that ‘self-esteem is the highest thing we can hope for. For (as we have shown in 4p25) no one strives to preserve his being for the sake of any end’ (4p52s). By this, I take him to mean that rational self-esteem is a form of self-preservation and, as such, our highest hope and highest good (summum bonum)—the thing we pursue for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else (4p25), and the sole evaluative standard in relation to which things are considered good (4D1, 4p8). A full discussion of this challenging passage, however, goes far beyond the scope of this paper. For our purposes, let me note that, as I read Spinoza, what grants rational self-esteem its ethical primacy is the self-understanding in which it consists, by which we become acquainted with ourselves as acting.³⁸ This rational self-understanding includes, as we have seen, metaphysical and theoretical knowledge of our true power of acting and its place within the infinite power of nature, as well as of how this power enhances our ethical perfection and participation in God. But to have a proper self-esteem through reason, as I have tried to show, we must also have a true sense of ourselves as singular beings and be acquainted with ourselves as acting and existing, even while lacking an adequate cognition of our essence or power of acting itself. In increasing our power of acting through reason, moreover, our self-understanding causes us to feel love toward ourselves as the internal cause of our own knowledge and our joy. And because the adequate cognition we attain via reason necessarily involves rational knowledge of God, without which nothing else can ever be conceived (1p15 and 1ax4), we feel rational love not only toward ourselves but also toward God (5p15).³⁹

5. Conclusion

I have argued that explaining Spinoza’s account of rational self-esteem (acquiescentia in se ipso) requires explaining how one can have adequate knowledge of one’s singular power of acting through reason. Given the equation of ‘power of acting’ with ‘actual essence,’ and given that Spinoza denies the ability of reason to grasp singular essences, a question arises as to what Spinoza has in mind when claiming that, in forming adequate ideas through reason, a person contemplates itself and its power of acting and enjoys ‘the greatest self-esteem there can be’ (4p52d). Spinoza’s account of rational self-esteem presupposes a distinction between two senses of ‘power of acting,’ which implies two distinctive ways in which the mind can come to adequately know itself as a singular power of understanding. Rational self-esteem emerges as the joy one derives from having adequate cognition of the gradual and nonessential aspect of one’s power of acting, which amounts to knowing that one acts with relation to a given effect. What the rational mind adequately captures of itself as a singular power of thinking, then, is nothing but its own causal and conceptual self-sufficiency or activity in any particular instance. What the mind cannot adequately capture of itself through reason is the unchanged force (vis) that constitutes its essence, by which this or that particular person strives to persevere through her variable actual causal activity.

Recognizing these two senses of ‘power of acting’ may provide a better understanding of the distinction between rational acquiescentia in se ipso and the animi acquiescentia of intuitive knowledge. In the second half of Part 5, Spinoza shifts his focus from the second to the third kind of cognition, as well as from one kind of affective power arising from reason (mainly joy, self-esteem [acquiescentia in se ipso], and rational love of God) to another kind that arises from intuition. The latter includes intellectual love of God (amor Dei intellectualis) and blessedness (beatitudo) (5p27, 5p36s), which is the satisfaction of the mind (animi acquiescentia) with its own perfection that arises from intuitive knowledge (5p27, 5p33s). In 5p33s, Spinoza contrasts blessedness with ordinary joy (laetitia): ‘If joy, then, consists in the passage to a greater perfection, blessedness must surely consist in the fact that the mind is endowed with perfection itself’ (5p33s). The distinction between these two affective states deserves a separate study. But the reading I have proposed in this paper brings to light at least one crucial aspect of this distinction. Whereas the animi acquiescentia in which blessedness consists is the mind’s satisfaction with its present perfection or power of thinking itself, which it captures through God’s infinite power, rational self-esteem consists in the knowledge we have of our power in the gradual and nonessential sense, whose increase is experienced as ordinary joy.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.