 One interesting upshot of Spinoza allowing for this second, relative type of common notion is that our ability to transcend mere sense experience into the realm of reason is not simply a function of the invariable ontological make-up of the world, of there being only so many truly universal on/off properties. We can also do something to increase the number of common notions that it is possible for beings like us to have given our “usual” environments. The more we can make it the case that we have something in common with things around us – and in part this means, the more diverse we ourselves are (cf. Sharp 2011: 98–9) – the broader the epistemic “foundation” on which we can rely in reasoning.