 Certain things are fairly clear. For example, it’s clear that in his ontology, Spinoza is committed to the existence of particulars alone (that is, roughly, things that cannot exist in many places at the same time). It is also clear that, in his view, conceptual generality – and in particular the operation of abstracting from particulars – are rife with the possibility of error. (For example, we can be led to overlook differences among particulars [TIE §76], or mistake the products of our own abstraction for “real beings”, when in fact the resulting ideas present only mind-dependent “beings of reason” [Metaphysical Thoughts [= CM] 1.1; TIE §93]). Finally, it’s also clear that for Spinoza ideas of universals and abstractions often have lower epistemic value than ideas of particulars (e.g. TIE §93).