knowledge is adequate when, after we have recognized clearly every-thing pertaining to the things, we now apprehend it in its wholeness, i.e., we clearly apprehend all of its intelligible features as a whole.
Or again: cum analysis ad finem usque producta habetur: “when the analysis of a thing’s determinateness has been carried out to the full,” such that the whole structure of the thing is clear in one stroke. To be sure, he adds: cuius (that is: cognitionis) exemplum per-fectum nescio an homines dare possint: “I do not know whether human knowledge can offer a case of such adequate knowledge.” Here we have a hint that such knowledge clearly transcends human capa-bilities. He says that for the most part human knowledge is a cognitio caeca, knowledge that is blind and not a visio—not a seeing but [120] nonetheless an intending. Or he calls it [cognitio] symbolica, which is nothing but what we have characterized as an empty representa-tion. I intend something without clearly or adequately possessing the intended thing itself.
4. And finally:
et certe cum notio valde composita est, non possumus omnes ingredientes eam notiones simul cogitare.
Because concepts are certainly and in the strong sense composites, it is impossible to adequately grasp the whole of its determinations at once.
Ubi tamen hoc licet, vel saltem in quantum licet, cognitionem voco intuitivam.
But where that is feasible, or at least insofar as it feasible, I call such knowl-edge {i.e., knowledge given adequately in one stroke} intuitive knowledge.
You must keep in mind that the first three determinations he mentions are always preserved and taken up into the final class, that of intuitive knowledge. If I can have a knowledge in which the object is itself present—that is, where the knowledge is identified with the thing itself and where the totality of determinations is present, worked out, and understood as such—then that knowledge is intuitive. So again, intuition, the concrete having of the thing, is true and proper knowledge.
I note in this regard that in the Ideas, when Husserl himself worked out and determined the idea of this kind of knowledge—especially in the context of the various basic kinds of evidence—he did so with an eye to, and under the essential influence of, these Leibnizian determinations. On the other hand, Leibniz formulated this idea of cognitio clara, distincta, adaequata, and intuitiva with help from Descartes. What