The doctrine of error in Espinoza's philosophy

• Grant number: 18/06934-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2018
• End date: August 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Luís César Guimarães Oliva
• Grantee: Gabriel Frizzarin Ramalhães de Souza
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/19326-7 - The doctrine of error in Spinoza's philosophy: the problem of language, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

In the year of 1661, Spinoza addresses to Oldenburg a letter containing a critique of the cause of the error in Descartes' philosophy, but does not present the substitution of this one by a safer one. What is the Spinoza's explanation to truly determine the cause of the error? Would there be a doctrine of error in Spinoza's philosophy? A doctrine of error involves the following questions: what is error? What does it consist of? What is your cause? What makes it possible to distinguish it from the true? How does it occur? The project intends to examine certain passages that lead to the understanding of the error in Spinoza, such as false ideas in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, and the privation of knowledge that inadequate ideas involve, as demonstrated in Ethics II. Thus we try to show not only there is a doctrine of error in Spinoza's philosophy, but also that it carries a critique of the Cartesian notion of error. It would be in contraposition to the theory of the error of Descartes that the Spinoza's doctrine of the error would develop. (AU)