185. - Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect

Summary

The TIE (Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione) is an early, unfinished text that first appeared in the Opera posthuma. There is strong evidence that it was mostly written before Ep6 and the KV (Mignini ) and that it was, perhaps, intended as a methodological companion to that metaphysical work. Spinoza was familiar with the methodological works of Aristotle and Bacon. Descartes, however, in some ways provided the closest model for Spinoza’s project. Like Descartes’ Discourse on Method which accompanied scientific works illustrating the method, the TIE begins with an inspiring autobiographical story about redirecting one’s life toward the pursuit of the highest good. The TIE even more closely follows the model of Descartes’s similarly titled Rules for the Direction of the Native Intellect. Like Spinoza’s TIE, that methodological work was left unfinished and unpublished in the author’s lifetime, but it is likely that Spinoza had access to it (Marion ). The project of the TIE is, as the title suggests, to emend or purify the intellect of distractions resulting from the pursuit of sensual pleasure, honor, wealth, and so on.