Podem os argumentos do apêndice da parte I da Ética vencer a superstição?

In this work, our intention is to investigate the power that the arguments of the appendix of the first part of Ethics have to weaken the superstition contained in the reader’s mind. Given the necessity of the prejudices that lead to the consolidation of the finalist superstition, it is expected that the reader, when faced with the Ethics, is completely overtaken by the finalist beliefs. In this configuration, how could the understanding of these arguments be capable of eliminating the superstition? As we shall demonstrate, the knowledge acquired is incapable, at least initially, of managing this task: an often repeated meditation is needed. This is possible because the meditation, by having the knowledge about the superstition’s necessity as a starting point, is capable of reorganizing the affections, in such a manner that the rational affections slowly become stronger than the affections tied to the superstition.