 One interpretative option here is to conclude that for Spinoza general and abstract ideas such as “human nature” have only some pragmatic value (cf. Carriero 2005). Spinoza clearly recognizes usefulness as an epistemic good (for example, he describes Aristotelian ideas of genera and species as handy mnemonic devices [CM1.1]). On such a reading, it might not be strictly speaking true that there is a common human nature, instantiated by each particular human being; nonetheless, for ethical or political ends it might be useful to invoke such an idea. But even this reading will have trouble explaining how Spinoza can nonetheless insist that the “true knowledge we have of good and evil” – again, hardly a minor issue for an Ethics – is “abstract, or universal” (E4p62s; G/II/257).