Philosophic Classics From Plato to Derrida

PROPOSITION 49:There is in the mind no volition, that is, affirmation and negation,
except that which an idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves.
Proof: There is in the mind (preceding Pr.) no absolute faculty of willing and non-
willing, but only particular volitions, namely, this or that affirmation, and this or that
negation. Let us therefore conceive a particular volition, namely, a mode of thinking
whereby the mind affirms that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.
This affirmation involves the conception, or idea, of a triangle; that is, it cannot be con-
ceived without the idea of a triangle. For to say that A must involve the conception of B is
the same as to say that A cannot be conceived without B. Again, this affirmation (Ax. 3, II)
cannot even be without the idea of a triangle. Therefore, this idea can neither be nor be
conceived without the idea of a triangle. Furthermore, this idea of a triangle must involve
this same affirmation, namely, that its three angles are equal to two right angles. Therefore,
vice versa, this idea of a triangle can neither be nor be conceived without this affirmation,
and so (Def. 2, II) this affirmation belongs to the essence of the idea of a triangle, and is
nothing more than the essence itself. And what I have said of this volition (for it was arbi-
trarily selected) must also be said of every volition, namely, that it is nothing but an idea.
Corollary: Will and intellect are one and the same thing.
Proof: Will and intellect are nothing but the particular volitions and ideas (Pr. 48, II
and Sch.). But a particular volition and idea are one and the same thing (preceding Pr.).
Therefore, will and intellect are one and the same thing.
Scholium: By this means we have removed the cause to which error is commonly
attributed. We have previously shown that falsity consists only in the privation that frag-
mentary and confused ideas involve. Therefore, a false idea, insofar as it is false, does
not involve certainty. So when we say that a man acquiesces in what is false and has no
doubt thereof, we are not thereby saying that he is certain, but only that he does not
doubt, or that he acquiesces in what is false because there is nothing to cause his imag-
ination to waver. On this point see Sch. Pr. 44, II. So however much we suppose a man
to adhere to what is false, we shall never say that he is certain. For by certainty we mean
something positive (Pr. 43, II and Sch.), not privation of doubt. But by privation of cer-
tainty we mean falsity.
But for a fuller explanation of the preceding proposition some things remain to
be said. Then, again, there is the further task of replying to objections that may be
raised against this doctrine of ours. Finally, to remove every shred of doubt, I have
thought it worthwhile to point out certain advantages of this doctrine. I say certain
advantages, for the most important of them will be better understood from what we
have to say in Part V.
I begin, then, with the first point, and I urge my readers to make a careful distinction
between an idea—i.e., a conception of the mind—and the images of things that we imagine.
Again, it is essential to distinguish between ideas and the words we use to signify things. For
since these three—images, words, and ideas—have been utterly confused by many, or else
they fail to distinguish between them through lack of accuracy, or, finally, through lack of
caution, our doctrine of the will, which it is essential to know both for theory and for the
wise ordering of life, has never entered their minds. For those who think that ideas consist in
images formed in us from the contact of external bodies are convinced that those ideas of
things whereof we can form no like image are not ideas, but mere fictions fashioned arbi-
trarily at will. So they look on ideas as dumb pictures on a tablet, and misled by this precon-
ception they fail to see that an idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves affirmation or negation.
Again, those who confuse words with idea, or with the affirmation which an idea involves,
think that when they affirm or deny something merely by words contrary to what they feel,

ETHICS(II, P49) 519