Spinoza, Deleuze, Adequacy, Justification

Deleuze interprets Spinoza's concept of an 'Adequate Idea' of a finite entity as entailing not merely knowledge of the cause of the entity, but also "expression" of the cause of the idea itself. Insofar as 'Expression' has a perhaps idiosyncratic ontological significance for Deleuze, it is not immediately clear in what respect an idea can be said to 'express' its cause. However, his discussion suggests that what the term denotes is approximately equivalent to a more traditional relation, one that similarly clarifies Spinoza's concept of Adequate Idea. For an idea to 'express' its cause seems to mean to Deleuze that it entails the intellectual process by which it is derived. In other words, it entails what is more traditionally called 'justification'. Accordingly, Spinoza's concept of an Adequate Idea is what is traditionally characterized as a 'justified belief', which as Spinoza plainly asserts, is independent of the relation between an idea and its object, i. e. is independent of whether or not it is also 'true'.