1. Nadler's Version of The Free Man: Subject to Passions but Never in Bondage to Them

Spinoza devotes one of the five parts of the Ethics—part IV—to exploring human bondage, which he describes as ‘man's lack of power to moderate and restrain the [passive] affects’ (preface to part IV). As we see in part IV, at the center of human bondage lies the phenomenon of akrasia: the situation wherein ‘though [we] see the better for ourselves, [we] are … forced to follow the worse’ (ibid.). Spinoza allocates a significant portion of part IV to demonstrating the cause of akrasia and, thereby, to ‘determin[ing] what reason can do in moderating the affects, and what it cannot do’ (EIVP17S, my italics). It is thus helpful to begin by considering Nadler's account of the free man in relation to akrasia so we can better delineate the self-mastery required to become a free man on this novel account. While I do not need to delve into a detailed analysis of the Spinozistic explanation of akrasia here, it is important to note that according to this explanation akrasia consists in a situation wherein (a) both a rational idea and a passionate idea exert some power (Lin Reference Lin2006: 395); and (b) the passionate idea ends up determining our action because in that particular situation the passionate idea is more powerful than the rational one. Spinoza famously holds that it is an error to think that we have free will, for then we are unaware of the fact that we are determined by causes (EIIP35S). Accordingly, for him in an akratic situation we are forced or determined to follow the worse course due to the power of passions and the comparative weakness of rational ideas—not due to the weakness of an undetermined will that would have guaranteed self-mastery if it had been strong enough. I will say more on what the power of ideas consists in for Spinoza. But first let us consider whether on Nadler's account the free man would ever suffer akrasia.

The answer to this question clearly seems to be in the negative. After all, if according to Nadler the free man could be subject to akrasia, then this view would conflict with Nadler's construal of Spinoza's free man as someone who, despite being subject to passions, never lets them determine his actions. According to Nadler's description of the free man,

This passage does not directly address whether the free man will ever experience a conflict between an adequate idea and a passionate idea. In other words, it is not clear here whether, on Nadler's account, the free man's passions can ever exert sufficient power to oppose the affective power of rational ideas so that he is tempted to act against his better judgment. (Elsewhere Nadler notes that in the free man, passions ‘remain subordinate as motivational elements to adequate ideas’ [115], which might suggest that on his reading passionate ideas cannot even oppose rational ideas.) What this passage clearly implies, however, is that in the event of such a conflict adequate ideas would always win out. Thus, it follows from Nadler's account that the free man never acts against his better judgment; he not only sees the better for himself, but also follows the better in an exceptionless manner.

If what distinguishes the free man is his exceptionless rational consistency as described by Nadler, then this implies that even though the free man has needs and vulnerabilities, he is never subject to akrasia. Needless to say, this also implies that the free man is never subject to nonakratic forms of bondage either. For instance, the free man never experiences a case of reason succumbing to passion wherein passion is so powerful that it prevents him from coming to see the better for him in the first place. As Nadler puts it, ‘it may even be that the free man experiences, on occasion, hate, anger, fear, and other “evil affects’’’ (Reference Nadler2015: 116). However, even in such circumstances, the free man will definitely—and, most likely, easily—overcome these passions, given the power of his adequate ideas and the ‘lack of efficacy’ (116) of his passionate ideas. In sum, thanks to his unshakable self-mastery, even when the free man experiences harmful passions such as hate and anger, he will always manage to conquer ‘these feelings within himself’ (116, my italics) and thereby surmount bondage to them.

Given all this, the critical question for our purposes is this: Can Nadler's version of the free man be possibly instantiated in a human life? Nadler himself acknowledges that ‘we are generally only very imperfectly free since most of our lives are led under the sway of the passions’ (107; Nadler adds that ‘even those who are devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, and who have thereby gained a significant store of adequate ideas, are not always determined to act based on those adequate ideas alone’). Accordingly, he recognizes just how difficult the task of becoming a free man can be given the self-mastery required (119). Notwithstanding this, Nadler does not consider the free man an ‘unattainable ideal that lies outside the realm of human possibility’ (104). Instead, he holds that becoming a free man, albeit difficult, is in principle possible for us. According to Nadler, it is important to show that ‘the free man is not an inadequately conceived, unrealizable, even impossible model, something that human beings can at best only asymptotically approximate but never actually become’ (104, my italics). This is because, for Nadler, ‘If the true and ultimate condition of human well-being is in principle unattainable or even incoherent, that would seem both to represent a serious philosophical flaw in Spinoza's theory and to detract from its interest as an account of the good life’ (105, my italics). But can Nadler's interpretation of the free man really be said to establish the attainability of the free man for us in line with his motivation?

In order to answer this question, we need to determine whether becoming a free man as Nadler describes it is indeed in principle possible for us in the Spinozistic system. While Nadler does not explain what he means by ‘in principle possible’, it seems safe to suggest that for him ‘in principle possible’ means logical possibility or the possibility of conception without contradiction. Accordingly, by suggesting that becoming a free man is in principle possible for human beings, Nadler means that the concept of a human being completely free from bondage is not self-contradictory in Spinoza's system. As I read Spinoza, if we are (not) able to conceive something without contradiction, it is because it is something that could (not) exist or occur in Nature, and vice versa. (I follow Richard Mason who holds that in the Spinozistic framework ‘to be possible cannot be to exist or to subsist in some shadow-realm of possibilities, but is simply to be an available outcome within the framework of Nature and natural laws’ [Reference Mason1986: 325]. Jon Miller also holds a similar position by saying that ‘the possible is that which could occur in Nature’ [Reference Miller2001: 810].) If this reading is correct, then it follows that in order to determine whether becoming a free man is possible in Spinoza's system, there is only one question we need to ask: Is it an available outcome for us in Nature? In other words, we need to consider whether it is a realizable ideal for finite existents, such as ourselves, to be part of Nature subject to passions, yet never lacking power to moderate and restrain these passions.

2. Is Nadler's Version of the Free Man Attainable for Finite Existents?

In this section, I will argue contra Nadler that even on this novel reading of the free man, the free man still remains an ‘unrealizable … model, something that human beings can … never actually become’ (Nadler Reference Nadler2015: 104). But first I wish to clarify one point. Admittedly, at first blush it appears that the gap between an actual human being and Nadler's version of the free man is narrower than the one between an actual human being and the free man of the usual interpretations. Whereas on the latter view, the free man is effectively outside of Nature in not being subject to any passions, on Nadler's view the free man is a part of Nature and subject to passions even though he is completely self-determined in that he is never in bondage to the passions. Here I will not dispute that in the Spinozistic framework we can be said to achieve instances of freedom or self-determination to the extent that our actions are determined by our adequate ideas. As I see it, however, that we can achieve instances of freedom does not mean that becoming a free man is ‘a very realizable goal for the achievement of human well-being’ (103).

In order to show that it is not attainable for a human being to become a free man—that is, someone who is subject to passions yet never acts on their basis, let us first turn to EIVP4, which Nadler describes as one of the most important propositions in the Ethics: ‘It is impossible that a man should not be a part of Nature, and that he should be able to undergo no changes except those which can be understood through his own nature alone, and of which he is the adequate cause’. Taken in isolation, EIVP4 is in line with Nadler's reading; for it necessitates that there are certain changes of which we are the inadequate cause and that cannot be understood through our nature alone. Since what is thus impossible according to this proposition is to be completely devoid of passions and since, on Nadler's account, the free man is not devoid of passions, the free man does not appear to present an impossibility.

However, the very fact that Spinoza presents EIVP4 in the part of the Ethics that is centered on the power of passions and human bondage—a part where Spinoza says he ‘would treat only of man's lack of power’ (EIVP17S, my italics)—suggests that for him there is a very thin line between being subject to passions and being in bondage to them insofar as human beings are concerned. In fact sometimes it appears that the line is not even there. In the context of part IV, Spinoza contrasts our lack of power to virtue by stating that the latter is ‘nothing but living according to the guidance of reason’, whereas the former ‘consists only in this, that a man allows himself to be guided by things outside him, and to be determined by them to do what the common constitution of external things demands, not what his own nature, considered in itself, demands’ (EIVP37S1). Given that lack of power indicates absence of self-determination, it is not surprising that throughout the Ethics, Spinoza not only uses ‘lack of power’ interchangeably with ‘passion’ (see, for instance, VP20S; see also IVP32D, IVPreface and IVAppII, according to which lack of power indicates negation and goes hand in hand with inadequate knowledge), but also invokes the former to define bondage. In the preface of part IV after defining bondage as ‘man's lack of power to moderate and restrain the affects’, Spinoza continues as follows: ‘For the man who is subject to affects is under the control, not of himself, but of fortune, in whose power he so greatly is that often, though he sees the better for himself, he is still forced to follow the worse’ (my italics). Here the context makes it clear that what is at stake is passive affects, not active affects. Spinoza thus describes being subject to passions as a state wherein we lack self-control and are, instead, under the control of fortune, as a result of which we are subject to bondage, including akrasia.

If for Spinoza we are ‘necessarily always subject to passions’ (EIVP4C) and if to the extent that we are subject to passions we are not under the control of ourselves, then can any human being ever achieve the exceptionless self-mastery or self-determination that is required to become a free man? The answer to this question hinges in large part on just how powerful our rational ideas can be and what they can promise in the face of passionate ideas, which brings us to Spinoza's account of the power of ideas in the Ethics. Whereas Nadler describes ‘the human mind [as] an agonistic arena, with adequate and inadequate ideas struggling for dominance’ (Reference Nadler2015: 107) and adds that ‘those ideas with the greater affective power will win out and effectively determine desire’ (107), he does not explain what the power of ideas consists in for Spinoza. In what follows I give a brief explanation of this issue (for a detailed treatment of this issue in relation to the power of intuitive ideas see Soyarslan Reference Soyarslan2014a).

According to the second axiom in part V of the Ethics, ‘The power of an effect is defined by the power of its cause, insofar as its essence is explained or defined by the essence of its cause’ (EVA2). Based on this axiom, it seems that for Spinoza the power of an idea is a function of the power of its causes (here I follow Della Rocca Reference Della Rocca2003: 212, Lin Reference Lin2006: 402 and Marshall Reference Marshall2008: 49). Now what does this mean insofar as rational ideas and passionate ideas are concerned? Since we are the adequate cause of a rational idea, a rational idea can be clearly and distinctly perceived through our essence alone, which, in turn, means that the essence of an adequate idea can be defined by our essence alone. Therefore, the power of a rational idea is just the power of our conatus (here I follow Lin Reference Lin2006: 403). Unlike the power of rational ideas, the power of passionate ideas is not defined by the power of our conatus alone, as we are the inadequate cause of passions. Rather, in Spinoza's words, ‘the force and growth of any passion, and its perseverance in existing, are not defined by the power by which we strive to persevere in existing, but by the power of an external cause compared with our own’ (EVP5, my italics). Since it is possible for the power of external causes to be greater than the power of any one individual by an indefinite degree (EIVP3), passions often end up being more powerful than rational ideas and determining our actions. This explains the pessimism in Spinoza's language when he states that human beings ‘must sin’ (EIVP54S, my italics) and ‘rarely live from the dictate of reason’ (ibid., see also EIVP35S). They are instead frequently subject to bondage.

Is it then possible for a human being to become a free man—that is, someone whose adequate ideas are always affectively stronger than his or her inadequate ideas? In other words, is it possible for us to attain a state of exceptionless self-determination or a condition wherein ‘desire always takes its lead from adequate ideas’ as Nadler (Reference Nadler2015:116) suggests? I submit that it is not. Notably, on Nadler's account, ‘self-determining’ means that an individual ‘is not “determined to do what the common constitution of external things demands” but rather “what his own nature, considered in itself, demands” (IVp37s1)’ (116). As I see it, achieving exceptionless self-determination in this sense is not an available outcome for us—not even for the most rational ones among us. This is because such an achievement would effectively require us—the finite members of the common order of Nature—to be ‘determined only by [ourselves]’ (preface to part III) and have ‘absolute power over [our] actions’ (ibid.). As I read Spinoza, it is clear that our adequate ideas do not offer such absolute power. After all, if the power of our adequate ideas is just the power of our conatus according to him and if ‘[our] power is very limited and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes’ (EIVApp.XXXII), then our adequate ideas can never offer an invincible power in the face of passions. For Spinoza ‘so long as we are not torn by affects contrary to our nature, we have the power of ordering and connecting the affections of the body according to the order of the intellect’ (EVP10). However, I hold that given the extremely powerful nature of passions and our limited power, we can never completely avoid being torn by or in bondage to the affects contrary to our nature. Since for Spinoza our power, even at its best, is nothing but God's very power manifested in a finite form (EIVP4D), even our most powerful adequate ideas cannot promise absolute freedom from bondage to the passions. Given this and the fact that we do not have an undetermined will over and above ideas that can offer absolute control over passions, I maintain that in the Spinozistic universe we are all ineliminably in bondage, albeit to varying degrees.

As seen earlier, Nadler's very motivation in his article is to show that the free man is an attainable ideal within our reach, one he describes as ‘a very realizable goal for the achievement of human well-being’ (Reference Nadler2015: 103, my italics)—something that human beings can ‘actually become’ (104, my italics)—not ‘something that they at best only asymptotically approximate’ (ibid.). In my view, even though Nadler's account does not succeed in establishing the attainability of the free man for us in line with his motivation, it does helpfully underscore the importance for a moral philosophy to present a human ideal that is within our reach. Whereas Nadler's free man is beyond our reach and thus is not ‘a very realizable goal for the achievement of human well-being’ as he considers it to be, I maintain that Spinoza's moral philosophy has room for an ideal yet perfectly human condition, which brings us to the third section.

3. An Ideal, Yet Perfectly Human Condition

On my reading, the ideal but perfectly human condition is represented by the wise man, described in part V as someone who ’is hardly troubled in spirit, but being, by a certain eternal necessity, conscious of himself, and of God, and of things’ (EVP42S). For Spinoza, in contrast to the ignorant man who ‘is driven only by lust … troubled in many ways by external causes, and unable ever to possess true peace of mind’, the wise man ‘always possesses true peace of mind (vera animi acquiescentia)’ (ibid.). Nadler also mentions the wise man by referring to a passage from part IV where Spinoza says ‘it is the part of a wise man … to refresh and restore himself in moderation with pleasant food and drink, with scents … and other things of this kind, which anyone can use without injury to another’ (EIV45S). Instead of treating the wise man as a separate ideal, however, Nadler (Reference Nadler2015: 115, note 14) identifies the wise man with the free man by maintaining that the context of EIVP45S does not bear out a distinction between them. (Nadler makes this point contra Hübner [Reference Hübner, Kisner and Youpa2014: 138, note 49]. I agree with Hübner that the wise man is not to be identified with the free man.) Unlike Nadler, I hold that the wise man represents a different, more human, ideal than the free man. In order to show why this is the case I will first consider what Spinoza says about the wise man in part V.

In the context of part V, Spinoza presents the above-cited passage regarding the wise man after completing his account of intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) and its accompanying affective state, that is, blessedness (beautitudo), and thereby ‘finish[ing] all the things [he] wished to show concerning the mind's power over the affects and its freedom’ (EVP42S). According to Spinoza, ‘the greatest virtue of the mind’ (EVP25) and ‘the greatest human perfection’ (EVP27D) consist in understanding things by intuitive knowledge, the third kind of knowledge, which he considers to be superior to and more powerful than reason. Intuitive knowledge, by definition, ‘proceeds from an adequate idea of certain attributes of God to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things’ (EVP25D). It consists in an immediate grasp of the relation of God's essence to the essences of things and gives rise to a state of affective and intellectual excellence that Spinoza describes as ‘perfect joy’ or blessedness. In Spinoza's words, ‘the more each of us is able to achieve [intuitive knowledge], the more he is conscious of himself and of God, that is, the more perfect and blessed he is’ (EVP31S). (As I see it, here it is clear from the context that consciousness implies adequate knowledge. Note, however, that there are passages, such as EVP34S, where consciousness does not imply adequate knowledge. Whether or not Spinoza has a consistent and developed account of consciousness is a disputed issue. See Curley [Reference Curley1988: 71–73], Wilson Reference Wilson1999, Nadler Reference Nadler2008, and LeBuffe Reference LeBuffe2010 for various accounts of consciousness in Spinoza's Ethics.)

Given that Spinoza describes the wise man in EVP42S as someone who is ‘conscious of himself, and of God, and of things’ after completing his account of intuitive knowledge and blessedness, it appears to me plausible to suggest that the wise man is someone who has attained intuitive knowledge and its attendant blessedness. Furthermore, I consider this achievement an available outcome for us in the Spinozistic framework based on the following textual evidence.

Beginning with the preface to part II, Spinoza makes clear his practical orientation by stating that in the rest of the Ethics he will be ‘explaining those things … that can lead us … to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness’ (my italics). Later on in EIIPP45–47 he shows that the human mind has an adequate knowledge of God's eternal and infinite essence or ‘the knowledge of God’, which he considers elsewhere (EVP20S) as the foundation of intuitive knowledge (note that Spinoza invokes EIIP47S in EVP20S in order to support this view). And then in EIIP47S he establishes the possibility of achieving intuitive knowledge: ‘From this we see that God's infinite essence and his eternity is known to all. And since all things are in God and conceived through God, it follows that we can deduce from this knowledge a great many things which we know adequately, and so can form the third kind of knowledge.’ What all these passages show is that even though intuitive knowledge is difficult to achieve, it is an available outcome for us in the Spinozistic universe. Accordingly, right before famously concluding the Ethics by saying that ‘all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare’ (EVP42S), Spinoza notes that ‘if the way [he has] shown to lead to [blessedness] now seems very hard, still, it can be found’ (see Primus [Reference Primus and Melamed2017: 185] for the idea that attaining intuitive knowledge and its attendant beautitudo are more achievable for finite minds than is sometimes supposed).

So far I have suggested that becoming a wise man—that is, becoming someone who has achieved intuitive knowledge and blessedness—is attainable for us in the Spinozistic universe. I need to clarify at this point that, on my reading, the wise man—unlike the free man—does not represent an ideal of exceptionless self-mastery. In other words, the wise man is not someone who has completely overcome human bondage even though he is someone who ‘is hardly troubled in spirit’ and ‘always possesses true peace of mind (vera animi acquiescentia)’ (EVP42S). Although it might not be immediately clear how possessing true peace of mind can be compatible with being ineliminably in bondage to a certain degree, the following passage sheds some light on how this could be possible.

On my reading of this passage, here acquiescentia, which Curley renders as ‘satisfaction’, does not arise from having achieved exceptionless self-mastery. Instead, it arises from an understanding of the reason as to why such an achievement is not attainable for us, given just how limited our power is as finite modes and that we do not have ‘an absolute power to adapt things outside us to our use’ (ibid.). Since ‘we are a part of the whole of Nature, whose order we follow’ (ibid.), we cannot always be determined to do ‘what our own nature, considered in itself, demands’ (EIVP37S1). However, that our ‘power is very limited and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes’ (AppXXXII) does not mean that we are thereby always necessarily troubled by external causes. It is possible for us to be ‘hardly troubled in spirit’ and experience, instead, a certain kind of peace of mind or acquiescentia if we manage to understand and come to terms with the fact that as parts of Nature we do not have absolute power in the face of the passions and, consequently, that we will necessarily undergo instances of bondage that we cannot avoid.

Importantly, vera animi acquiescentia—namely, the affect that Curley renders as ‘true peace of mind’ and ascribes to the wise man in EVP42S—is a species of acquiescentia that arises exclusively from intuitive knowledge. According to Spinoza's general definition, acquiescentia in se ipso Footnote ² is ‘joy born of the fact that a man considers himself and his own power of acting’ (EIIIDefAffXXV, see also EIIIP55S). In the Ethics acquiescentia in se ipso comes in active and passive forms depending on whether the acquiescentia at stake arises from an adequate knowledge of ‘[ourselves] and [our] power of acting’ (EIIIDefAffXXV) or not. The particular instance of acquiescentia that arises from intuitive knowledge is an active affect, which Spinoza treats coextensively with blessedness elsewhere (‘Indeed, blessedness is nothing but that satisfaction of mind (animi acquiescentia), which stems from the intuitive knowledge of God’ [EIVApp4]). In the case of vera animi acquiescentia, we consider ourselves or our power in relation to God's power. In understanding that we are in God, we thereby consider our power (as well as the power of other things) as a necessarily finite expression of God's power. That is why Spinoza describes the wise man as someone who is ‘conscious of himself, and of God, and of things’ (EIVP42S).

I do not need to delve into a detailed discussion of Spinoza's account of acquiescentia here. However, it is important to clarify two interrelated points. First, even achieving intuitive knowledge and thereby experiencing this highest form of acquiescentia does not provide boundless power in the face of passions or turn our mind into a special, ‘undetermined’ locus of power. After all, even though the power of our conatus reaches its pinnacle when we attain intuitive knowledge, the power of our mind's intuitive ideas is just the power of our conatus, which, in turn, is nothing but God's very power manifested in a finite form (EIVP4D). Furthermore, as Spinoza puts it in EVP40S, ‘it is clear that our mind, insofar as it understands, is an eternal mode of thinking, which is determined (determinatur) by another eternal mode of thinking, and this again by another, and so on, to infinity; so that together, they all constitute God's eternal and infinite intellect’ (my italics). In other words, for Spinoza our mind, even when it understands and gains some eternity,Footnote ³ still remains a part of the infinite and interdetermining network of finite minds, which brings us to the second point.

As I see it, insofar as our mind remains a finite member of the aforementioned network, it cannot retain acquiescentia permanently—that is, it cannot always be determined by this affect. In order for our mind to retain acquiescentia permanently in this sense, there would need to be no contrary passive affect in our mind that might challenge and overpower this active affect. Such a condition could be the case, only if (a) intuitive knowledge and the resultant acquiescentia offered boundless power in the face of passions, or (b) our mind were constituted solely by adequate ideas or the intellect, which Spinoza describes as the eternal part of the mind (EVP40C). I have just asserted in the previous paragraph that (a) is not possible. Regarding (b), I hold that since our mind is just the idea of an actually existing body (EIIP11and EIIP13) for Spinoza, it cannot be identified solely with its eternal part—that is, ‘the intellect through which we are said to act’ (EVP40C). In addition, every human mind, to the extent that it is considered to be part of the common order of Nature, also has an imaginative part, ‘through which alone we are said to be acted on’ (ibid.). And the mind of the wise man is no exception, or so I hold.

Notably, in EVP37, Spinoza appears to suggest that there is no passion in the mind ‘which is contrary to [the intellectual love of God], or [sive] which can take it away’ (my italics). Given that in the Ethics Spinoza treats the intellectual love coextensively with blessedness and animi acquiescentia, one might wonder if EVP37 poses a problem for my reading. I do not think it does. For, as I argue in Soyarslan (Reference Soyarslan2014a), EVP37 does not concern the mind per se. As I read Spinoza, the demonstration of EVP37 suggests that EVP37 concerns the mind only insofar as its eternal aspect is considered. However, since no human mind—including that of the wise man—can be identified with its eternal aspect alone, it would be impossible to rule out situations wherein passionate ideas can be copresent with adequate ideas in the same mind.

According to my interpretation, the wise man has a mind whose greatest part is eternal—that is, his ‘adequate ideas constitute the greatest part of [his] mind’ (EVP20S). His mind thus ‘acts most’ (ibid.) and can ‘bring about that [the passions] constitute the smallest part of the mind’ (ibid., my italics). Furthermore, having attained intuitive knowledge and thereby having achieved an affective transformation by assuming an eternal perspective of himself, the wise man lives his life in a special way. More specifically, rather than live an ordinary life, which Spinoza describes as a life dominated by the pursuit of transitory goods like honor, sensual pleasure, and wealth (TdIE, [3]), the wise man lives a life according to the order of the intellect (see my account of the transformative transition from ordinary life to life according to the order of the intellect in Soyarslan [Reference Soyarslan, Kisner and Youpa2014b]). However, despite the fact that he thus lives a life focused on the pursuit of the eternal good of understanding, the wise man does so while living in time. Insofar as the wise man represents the ideal condition of a human being living in time, even a mind as powerful as his cannot assume complete freedom from the passions in this life. Therefore, even when the human mind is at its best and sees that it is in God by conceiving of its own essence ‘as an eternal truth, through God's nature’ (EVP37D), the attendant state of acquiescentia can be retained only temporarily until the mind is acted on by passions that end up overpowering intuitive ideas.

Given all this, I maintain that true peace of mind (vera animi acquiescentia) involves not solely a consideration of our power, but also, at the same time, the acknowledgment that our power of understanding, even at its best, is the limited power of a finite mind, which, in turn, is just ‘a part of the infinite intellect of God’ (EIIP11C, my italics). Accordingly, I hold that while the wise man experiences true peace of mind or ‘joyful awareness of being in God’ (Carlisle Reference Carlisle2017: 228), he does not thereby presume an absolute power over the passions and lose sight of his vulnerability to bondage. Whereas he is someone who knows that our mind's power consists only in its power of understanding, he is also aware of the fact that sometimes this power can be a surprisingly fragile remedy in the face of extremely powerful passions.