LUCAS ANDRÉ MARQUES PEREIRA

This research aims to investigate if the arguments of the appendix of the first part of Ethics have the power to weaken the superstition contained in the reader’s mind. Given the necessity of the prejudices that lead to the consolidation of the finalist superstition, it is expected that the reader, when faced with the Ethics for the first time, is completely overtaken by superstition. Merefore, how could the understanding of these arguments be capable of overcoming the finalist superstition? As we shall demonstrate, the knowledge acquired by the reader cannot achieve this goal per se, at least initially. An expressive amount of meditations is necessary to fulfill this task, because, through these processes, the reader may utilize the knowledge regarding the superstition’s necessity as a starting point, and thus become capable of reorganizing his affections, in such a manner that the rational affections slowly become stronger than the affections tied to the superstition.