Will, Affirmation, Denial

Spinoza argues, apparently against Descartes, that a dubious perception is only an inadequate one, i. e. it is not the product of some power of 'free will' that has the capacity to suspend judgment regarding the truth of a perception. On the other hand, he elsewhere classifies the capacity to affirm or deny as 'volitional'. Hence, the relation between the power that he rejects and the capacity that he recognizes is unclear, as is the basis of the "or" that relates affirmation and disjunction. Furthermore, his equating of affirmation with conceiving, a synthesizing process that, fundamentally, represents bodily modification, leaves unexplained the constitution of a corresponding process of denial. Hence, he does not consider that, as is proposed here, 'denial' is an abstraction from Will, the process of diversification in Experience, and is, therefore, volitional, whereas affirmation is not. Accordingly, he does not consider that affirmation and denial are alternatives only insofar as denial is the generation of an alternative to some affirmation.