Power of affirmation

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Often appears with: will, choice, and freedom · will vs understanding · suspension of judgment · objections to determinism · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · buridan's ass thought experiment

Usually: argument (1) · skepticism (1)

Ethics — Part 2 primary

Benedictus de Spinoza · 1675-1676
Part II: ON THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND > Part. We there drew the conclusion, that God can form the idea of his essence, and of all things which follow necessarily therefrom, solely because he is a thinking thing, and not because he is the object of his own idea. Wherefore the actual being of ideas owns for cause God, in so far as he is a thinking thing. (27/30)

He begins refuting objections by addressing claims that the will has wider scope than understanding, that people can suspend judgment, that affirming seems equal in power to affirming falsely, and the Buridan’s ass problem.

consist in the image of anything, nor in words. The essence of words and images is put together by bodily motions, which in no wise involve the conception of thought. These few words on this subject will suffice: I will therefore pass on to consider the objections, which may be raised against our doctrine. Of these, the first is advanced by those, who think that the will has a wider scope than the understanding,…