A Noção de contemplação no Livro II da Ética de Espinosa

This paper investigates the concept of contemplation in the book two of Spinoza ´s Ethics, examining the uses of that term, as much as its precise sense, in the contexts of each one of the three kinds of knowledge proposed by the philosopher. The analysis of these passages indicates that Spinoza uses the term to signify the knowledge of singular things, either in the field of inadequacy (first kind of knowledge) or of adequacy (third kind). The appearances of the term in propositions on the second kind (knowledge of general properties) do not invalidate the hypothesis, because they don´t aim at the object itself of this kind of knowledge, but at a previous condition of it.