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In part I of the Ethics, Spinoza introduces a series of predicates: "in itself," "conceived through itself," and others. There is no gradation or qualification, but neither are there any explicit attacks on gradualism. In later parts, however, some of the same predicate words express graded predicates, or they appear with other qualifications that rule out the view that they represent absolute dichotomies. In what follows we shall refer to such deabsolutizing as forms of "grading" in a wide sense.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-4519-6_33

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