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In Book V, Proposition XXIII, Spinoza argues: "The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains of it something which is eternal."

I read through the argument here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm

Am I understanding this correctly that Spinoza is suggesting that there is life after death. If this is correct, could someone explain the argument.

Here's how it appears to me.

(1) God is eternal and has external ideas which is the idea of the possibility of a person independent of duration which includes both the idea of the essence of a person's body as well as the idea of the essence of a person's mind.

But if I follow the logic, it doesn't say that there is life after death as much as there is an idea of a person which would be a "memory" for God.

Larry Freeman
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  • God is eternal, substance is eternal, thought and body are attributes of God (**Bk.II, Prop.I&II**) and thus are eternal. Thus,... But life after death usually means some sort of "individual". – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Nov 21 '22 at 09:24
  • The human mind = an "individual" as far as I understand Spinoza. Otherwise, what is the point in saying that something remains of the mind when the body dies? This suggests to me that he is talking about what happens after an individual dies. – Larry Freeman Nov 21 '22 at 15:31
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    Indeed here’s very hard to understand but critical. This eternal mode of human mind conceived under the form of eternity as the third kind of knowledge itself constitutes the infinite and eternal attribute of God’s thought which surpasses any other kind of knowledge such as universal arithmetic number theory… – Double Knot Nov 28 '22 at 23:34
  • Thanks, @DoubleKnot I will think about that. Is there any source you can recommend that discusses this point in more detail. I will reread to be clearer on the "third kind of knowledge". – Larry Freeman Nov 29 '22 at 04:41
  • Reread would do to locate around your prop XXIII, knowledges such as external a priori arithmetic number theory partaking but not constituting of the eternal and infinite attribute belong to the 2nd kind. Plato said similar at least in spirit (the ignorance of the common people) mentioned in this recent [post](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/92488/why-does-plato-rank-numbers-fundamentally-below-certain-other-ideas) briefly: *mathematical knowledge does not achieve the height of knowledge about ideas that are given existence by the Good itself, like the Idea of Justice*... – Double Knot Nov 30 '22 at 01:42

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