Abstract

Spinoza distinguishes two orders of knowledge: an order conceived by the intellect, that is, the necessary order of nature and another order conceived by the imagination, that is, the common order of nature in which the contingent and the possible dwell. However, the common order is not only a deprivation of knowledge, but also a reality for the finite mode. Because we cannot exclude the existence of the common order, this paper attempts to understand how we can reconcile it with the necessary order. Spinoza’s critique of imagination is that it introduces fragmentation and discontinuity into nature, since it is a kind of knowledge that does not realize the basis of this continuity: the necessary order. Through an analysis of time as a product of imagination, we will try to show how it introduces the idea of contingency and consequently that of possible. Just as time, the common order can be grasped by reason as an outer frame, it will no longer be an obstacle to the necessary chain of things in the necessary order. It is through the necessary order that we can realize the necessity that underlies the production of time, possible, and contingency as the corruptibility of all particular things.