Key Arguments

• (1) Knowledge from ‘particular things’ perceived fragmentarily and from ‘symbols’ (heard/read words) is called opinion or imagination.
• (2) Knowledge from notions common to all and adequate ideas of properties is reason, necessarily true.
• (3) A third kind, intuition, proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to adequate knowledge of things.
• Example of finding a fourth proportional: tradesmen apply a memorized rule (symbols/experience), a geometer uses Euclid VII.19 (reason), and with very simple numbers we ‘see’ the fourth proportional by grasping the ratio directly (intuition).

Source Quotes

Note II.—From all that has been said above it is clear, that we, in many cases, perceive and form our general notions:—(1.) From particular things represented to our intellect fragmentarily, confusedly, and without order through our senses (II. xxix. Coroll.); I have settled to call such perceptions by the name of knowledge from the mere suggestions of experience.[4] [4] A Baconian phrase. Nov.

[Pollock, p. 126, n.] (2.) From symbols, e.g., from the fact of having read or heard certain words we remember things and form certain ideas concerning them, similar to those through which we imagine things (II. xviii. note). I shall call both these ways of regarding things knowledge of the first kind, opinion, or imagination.

(3.) From the fact that we have notions common to all men, and adequate ideas of the properties of things (II. xxxviii. Coroll., xxxix. and Coroll. and xl.); this I call reason and knowledge of the second kind. Besides these two kinds of knowledge, there is, as I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition.

Coroll., xxxix. and Coroll. and xl.); this I call reason and knowledge of the second kind. Besides these two kinds of knowledge, there is, as I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition. This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.

But with very simple numbers there is no need of this. For instance, one, two, three, being given, everyone can see that the fourth proportional is six; and this is much clearer, because we infer the fourth number from an intuitive grasping of the ratio, which the first bears to the second. PROP.

Key Concepts

• knowledge from the mere suggestions of experience.
• From symbols, e.g., from the fact of having read or heard certain words we remember things
• this I call reason and knowledge of the second kind.
• there is, as I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition.
• we infer the fourth number from an intuitive grasping of the ratio

Context

Ethics II, Prop. XL, Note II (lines 1335–1464); taxonomy of cognition with proportional example