19. - Belief

Summary

Since Spinoza did not write in English, he did not use the term “belief.” Accordingly, it is a matter of interpretative choice (and of some debate) which bits of his philosophy, if any, are best understood in terms of beliefs. Spinoza’s own terms for doxastic states that are the most natural candidates for being translated as “belief” are, in Latin, “opinio,” “cognitio,” the verb “credere,” or even the terms “iudicium” and “idea,” as well as “geloof,” “mening,” and “waan” in Dutch. However, many of these terms are not as epistemically neutral as the English term “belief,” insofar as Spinoza often uses them to designate epistemically deficient doxastic states (such as “opinio” in E2p40s2, or “waan” in KV2.1–2) or epistemically privileged states (such as “(ware) geloof,” which Spinoza uses to designate doxastic states by which “we grasp … that it must be so and not otherwise,” KV2.2).