Deciphering Spinoza’s Optical Letters

Line By Line Below is my reading of Spinoza’s Optical Letters (39 and 40) as best as I have been able to extract interpretations from them. They are letters that are in general ignored, or when brushed over, taken to be evidence for Spinoza’s incompetence in optical matters. It seems that few have thought to examine [...]

A Diversity of Sight: Descartes vs. Spinoza

Different Foci of “Clear and Distinct” This may be premature in my process, but I would like to set down some simple correspondences that have arisen in my reading of Kepler’s Paralipomena to Witelo (1604), correspondences that elicit strong tidal differences between Descartes’ approach to vision – with its attendant metaphysical counterpart, the clear and [...]

An origin of Spinoza’s “cones of rays” explanation, Letter 40

[addendum: in addition to these thoughts, the influence of a more recent source, James Gregory's Optica Promota (1663) has to be considered] Kepler and How Spinoza Viewed the Eye and Light As a point of reference it is important to locate the origin of Spinoza’s phrase “cones of rays” found in his letter 40, since [...]