This proposition, demonstration and scholium are difficult. The proposition asserts that we know a true idea and that we know that we know a true idea. The first aspect - of knowing a true idea - is an assertion of content. The second aspect - of knowing that we know a true idea - is an assertion of our nature of knowing, or alternatively, an assertion of form.
The demonstration initially focuses on the first aspect - of knowing a true idea. This true idea is identified as adequate as well as explicated by the nature of the human mind. Spinoza references the corollary of IIP11 in which he identifies the muddled origins of inadequate ideas so that he can identify here the focused origin of the adequate idea which is only of the human mind or as he states it - "explicated by the nature of the human mind" - which of course is the idea of the body. The idea of this idea, or alternatively, the idea of the human mind sets up the parallelism of IIP20 where the idea of the human mind is the same in God as the idea of human body. The demonstration and the scholium posit that there exists a dual parallelism where the body and the idea of the body as mind are parallel as well as the idea of the body and the idea of the idea of the body are parallel. As Spinoza works this out, he is indicating that this dual parallelism does refer to a different form of knowing. At the first level - the body and the idea of the body - there is modally one of expression or content or change. When this mode is adequate under the attribute of thinking, the mode is active in knowing within the passage of time. At the second level - the idea of the body and the idea of the idea of the body or the idea of the human mind, there is a modal structure but it is one of consciousness or reflexivity on modal essences. Thus, it is one of form as in the example earlier in the Ethics of modal essences of infinite squares inside a circle. Knowing here at the second level might be considered meditative or contemplative as it is a knowing that is not subject to time and more deeply certain. In this area, Spinoza indicates that it is not as much learning (which is of the first level) but discovering what was already known - as some kind of logic that forms the makeup of the human mind itself - unlike the human mind's role as of the body (with pain and other sensations).
Qui veram habet ideam, simul scit se veram habere ideam nec de rei veritate potest dubitare.
The person who has a true idea - at the same time knows that she (or he) has a true idea and is not able to doubt the truthfulness of the thing.
DEMONSTRATIO: Idea vera in nobis est illa quæ in Deo quatenus per naturam mentis humanæ explicatur, est adæquata (per corollarium propositionis 11 hujus). Ponamus itaque dari in Deo quatenus per naturam mentis humanæ explicatur, ideam adæquatam A. Hujus ideæ debet necessario dari etiam in Deo idea quæ ad Deum eodem modo refertur ac idea A (per propositionem 20 hujus cujus demonstratio universalis est). At idea A ad Deum referri supponitur quatenus per naturam mentis humanæ explicatur; ergo etiam idea ideæ A ad Deum eodem modo debet referri hoc est (per idem corollarium propositionis 11 hujus) hæc adæquata idea ideæ A erit in ipsa mente quæ ideam adæquatam A habet adeoque qui adæquatam habet ideam sive (per propositionem 34 hujus) qui vere rem cognoscit, debet simul suæ cognitionis adæquatam habere ideam sive veram cognitionem hoc est (ut per se manifestum) debet simul esse certus. Q.E.D.
A true idea in us is that which is adequate in God insofar as it [God] is explicated by the nature of the human mind (by IIP11C). Therefore we might argue that an adequate idea A exists in God insofar as it [God] is explicated by the nature of the human mind. The idea of this idea must necessarily also exist that refers to God in the same way as idea A (by IIP20 the demonstration of which is universal). But idea A is supposed to refer to God insofar as it [God] is explicated by the nature of the human mind; therefore also the idea of idea A must be referred to God in the same way, that is (by the same IIP11C) this adequate idea of idea A will be in the mind itself which has adequate idea A to the degree which the person who has an adequate idea or (by IIP34) who knows the thing truly, must at the same time have an adequate idea of its knowledge or a true knowledge, that is (as is clear through itself) must at the same time be certain.
SCHOLIUM: In scholio propositionis 21 hujus partis explicui quid sit idea ideæ sed notandum præcedentem propositionem per se satis esse manifestam. Nam nemo qui veram habet ideam, ignorat veram ideam summam certitudinem involvere; veram namque habere ideam nihil aliud significat quam perfecte sive optime rem cognoscere nec sane aliquis de hac re dubitare potest nisi putet ideam quid mutum instar picturæ in tabula et non modum cogitandi esse nempe ipsum intelligere et quæso quis scire potest se rem aliquam intelligere nisi prius rem intelligat? hoc est quis potest scire se de aliqua re certum esse nisi prius de ea re certus sit? Deinde quid idea vera clarius et certius dari potest quod norma sit veritatis? Sane sicut lux seipsam et tenebras manifestat, sic veritas norma sui et falsi est. Atque his me ad has quæstiones respondisse puto nempe si idea vera quatenus tantum dicitur cum suo ideato convenire, a falsa distinguitur, nihil ergo realitatis aut perfectionis idea vera habet præ falsa (quandoquidem per solam denominationem extrinsecam distinguuntur) et consequenter neque etiam homo qui veras præ illo qui falsas tantum ideas habet? Deinde unde fit ut homines falsas habeant ideas? Et denique unde aliquis certo scire potest se ideas habere quæ cum suis ideatis conveniant? Ad has inquam quæstiones me jam respondisse puto. Nam quod ad differentiam inter ideam veram et falsam attinet, constat ex propositione 35 hujus illam ad hanc sese habere ut ens ad non-ens. Falsitatis autem causas a propositione 19 usque ad 35 cum ejus scholio clarissime ostendi. Ex quibus etiam apparet quid homo qui veras habet ideas, homini qui non nisi falsas habet, intersit. Quod denique ultimum attinet nempe undenam homo scire potest se habere ideam quæ cum suo ideato conveniat, id modo satis superque ostendi ex hoc solo oriri quod ideam habet quæ cum suo ideato convenit sive quod veritas sui sit norma. His adde quod mens nostra quatenus res vere percipit, pars est infiniti Dei intellectus (per corollarium propositionis 11 hujus) adeoque tam necesse est ut mentis claræ et distinctæ ideæ veræ sint ac Dei ideæ.
In IIP21S, I have explained what might be the idea of the idea by noting the preceding proposition is clear enough through itself. For no one who has a true idea, is ignorant that the true idea involves the greatest certainty; for to have a true idea signifies nothing other than to know a thing perfectly or optimally and someone sane is not able to doubt this matter unless the person thinks the idea is mute as a picture on a tablet and not as a way for thinking to be, of course, to understand itself and I ask who is able to know that he understands something unless he first understands it? Next what idea is able to exist more clear and more than what is the measure is truth? Truly just as light reveals itself and shadows, thus truth is the measure of itself and falsehood. And so I believe that with these I have responded to these questions if a true idea insofar as it is said to match enough with its ideation, is distinguished from a false idea, thus nothing of reality or perfection has a true idea beyond a false one (since they are distinguished by the extrinsic denomination alone) and consequently also not even a man who has true ideas beyond that person which has false ideas. Next from where come false ideas which humans have? And next from where someone is able to know certainly that he has ideas which match with their ideations? To these questions I believe that I have already responded. For what holds fast to the difference between a true idea and a false idea, it stands from IIP35 to have this for itself as being and non-being. Moreover I have shown the causes of falsehood from IIP19 to P35 with its scholium most clearly. From these, it is also apparent what separates a person who has true ideas from the person with nothing but false ideas. Finally what holds fast at last of course from where a man is able to know that he has an idea which agrees with its ideation, in what way I have shown enough above, from this alone arises that has an idea which agrees with its ideation or what truth might be a measure to itself. To these add what our mind insofar as it perceives a thing truly, the part is the intellect of infinite God (by IIP11C) to a degree it is so necessary that clear and distinct ideas of the mind are true as ideas of God.
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