2. What does Spinoza mean in Proposition VII when he says that "the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things"? How is this expressed in the distinction between objective and formal reality (e.g., between the idea of a circle and a circle)?
3. Why does Spinoza say that "of things as they are in themselves God is really the cause"?
4. According to Proposition IX, "The idea of an individual thing actually existing is caused by God, not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he is considered as affected by another idea of a thing actually existing, of which he is the cause, insofar as he is affected by a third idea, and so on to infinity"; why?
5. Why can't the idea of something not exist unless the thing of which it is the idea exists?
6. Why can nothing take place in the body without being perceived by the mind? And how is the body the object of the idea that constitutes the human mind?
7. How is understanding the relation between the mind and body central to seeing how all things are "animated"?
8. How is the superiority of one mind over others understood as the fitness of its body to do many actions or receive many impressions?
9. How is our knowledge of external bodies based on our knowledge of our own bodies? And why does this prompt Spinoza to say that "the human mind does not know the human body," even though the mind "perceives only the human body"?
10. What does Spinoza mean by saying that the idea of the mind is united to the mind in the same way that the mind is united to the body?
11. What would an adequate knowledge of bodies be? Why can't the human mind have adequate knowledge of the parts of the human body?
12. How are true ideas different from adequate ideas?
13. How does Spinoza distinguish his three kinds of knowledge? Why are the second and third kinds of knowledge adequate and necessarily true?
14. Why are things known through imagination contingent and those understood by reason or intuition necessary?
15. Why are will and understanding the same?