References & Attribution

General Sources — Amsterdam History

The creation of the Amsterdam Spritual Compass was done with great care. As a resident of this city, I have drawn much of my inspiration from the stories of fellow Amsterdammers. The following books and Wikipedia were used for fact-checking:

Spinoza references

All Spinoza references in this deck are drawn from the Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order), written between 1661 and 1675 and published posthumously in 1677. It is Spinoza's major philosophical work, structured like a geometry textbook: definitions, axioms, propositions, and scholia (explanatory notes) Full text in English (Project Gutenberg — free):  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3800 & Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Spinoza:  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/

The three kinds of knowledge

Source:  Ethica, Part II, Proposition 40, Scholium 2

Spinoza distinguishes three kinds of knowledge: sensory perception and memory (imaginatio), reasoning through common notions and causes (ratio), and intuitive knowledge that grasps the whole directly (scientia intuitiva). The first is unreliable; the second is adequate; the third is the highest form of human understanding.

The three primary passions

Source:  Ethica, Part III, Proposition 11, Scholium; Definitions of the Affects 1–3

All human emotions are derived from three basic passions: desire (cupiditas), joy (laetitia), and sadness (tristitia). Desire is the drive to persist and become; joy is the transition to greater power of existing; sadness is the transition to lesser power of existing.

Card 1 — The Law of Connectedness

Spinoza concept:  Deus sive Natura — God, or Nature, Source:  Ethica, Part I, Proposition 15; Part IV, Preface

The central idea of card 1 — that the divine lives in everything and nothing exists outside of God — is the foundation of Spinoza's philosophy. He argues that there is only one substance, which he calls God or Nature (Deus sive Natura), and that everything that exists is a mode of this one substance. "Quicquid est, in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo esse neque concipi potest. — Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God."English text:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm#part1

Cards 21–30 — Spinoza's Emotions and Ways of Knowing

  1. Card 21 — The Realm of Perception

    Spinoza concept:  imaginatio — the first way of knowing, Source:  Ethica, Part II, Proposition 40, Scholium 2

    Spinoza's first kind of knowledge: sensory impression, memory, and personal interpretation. It produces inadequate ideas — not false as such, but incomplete. The realm of imagination is where most human experience begins.

  2. Card 22 — The Light of Reason

    Spinoza concept:  ratio — the second way of knowing, Source:  Ethica, Part II, Proposition 40, Scholium 2; Part II, Proposition 38

    The second kind of knowledge: reasoning through common notions and causal understanding. More reliable than imagination. Spinoza sees reason as the path from confusion to clarity — from passive emotion to active understanding.

  3. Card 23 — Intuitive Knowing

  4. Spinoza concept:  scientia intuitiva — the third and highest way of knowing, Source:  Ethica, Part II, Proposition 40, Scholium 2; Part V, Propositions 25–36

    The highest form of knowledge: direct recognition of the whole. It leads to what Spinoza calls amor intellectualis dei — the intellectual love of God or Nature — and is the basis of human blessedness and freedom. "The highest virtue of the mind is to know God, or to understand things by the third kind of knowledge."

  5. Card 24 — The Drive Within

    Spinoza concept:  cupiditas — desire, the essence of the human being, Source:  Ethica, Part III, Proposition 9, Scholium; Definition of the Affects 1

    Cupiditas is the most fundamental of all passions: the drive to exist, to persist, and to reach toward what calls us. Spinoza identifies it with the conatus — the striving of every being to preserve its own existence. "Desire is the very essence of man, insofar as it is conceived to be determined from any given state of its existence to do something."

  6. Card 25 — The Expansion of Joy

    Spinoza concept:  laetitia — joy, expansion of inner power, Source:  Ethica, Part III, Proposition 11, Scholium; Definition of the Affects 2

    Laetitia is the transition of the mind and body to a greater state of power and perfection. Spinoza does not see joy as superficial — it is a genuine increase in the capacity to exist and act.

  7. Card 26 — Make Room for Sadness

    Spinoza concept:  tristitia — sadness, contraction of inner power, Source:  Ethica, Part III, Proposition 11, Scholium; Definition of the Affects 3

    Tristitia is the transition to a lesser state of power. Spinoza treats it not as something to be denied but as information: it reveals where the life force has contracted, and what needs attention.

  8. Card 27 — The Gift of Vulnerability

    Spinoza concept:  aegritudo — grief arising from love for what cannot be held, Source:  Ethica, Part III, Definition of the Affects 18

    Aegritudo (also called dolor) is a form of sadness specifically linked to love — the grief that comes from loving something that is lost, absent, or beyond reach. It is a derivative of tristitia, but coupled with amor (love).

  9. Card 28 — When Love Stands Guard

    Spinoza concept: conatus — the striving of every being to persist in its existence. Source: Ethica, Part III, Proposition 6; Part IV, Proposition 20

    Conatus is Spinoza's term for the fundamental drive of every living being to preserve and express itself. It is not selfishness but ontological necessity — the very essence of what a thing is. Spinoza argues that self-preservation is not in conflict with reason; it is reason's first expression. Yet he also recognised that when protection becomes control, it diminishes the freedom of both protector and protected. "Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being." — Ethica, Part III, Proposition 6

  10. Card 29 — Come Back to Ground

    Spinoza concept:  acquiescentia in se ipso — inner stillness, self-contentment, Source:  Ethica, Part IV, Proposition 52; Part III, Definition of the Affects 25

    One of the few consistently positive emotions in Spinoza's system. It is the quiet that arises from honest self-knowledge and understanding one's place in the whole — not dependent on others' approval, but arising from reason itself.

  11. Card 30 — Beyond Shame

    Spinoza concept:  humilitas — shame, the shrinking of the self under self-judgement, Source:  Ethica, Part III, Definition of the Affects 26; Part IV, Propositions 53–54. Humilitas is sadness arising from the belief that one is inferior or unworthy. Spinoza regards both pride and shame as harmful, because both make a person dependent on others' opinions. True freedom begins with honest self-knowledge — neither inflated nor diminished.

  12. Card 40 - Room for the unfinished

    Perfection and Imperfection, Source: Ethica, Part IV, Preface

    In the Preface to Part IV, Spinoza works through the concepts of perfection (perfectio) and imperfection (imperfectio), alongside good and evil. His central claim: these are not properties that things possess in themselves, but arise because we compare things to a general idea or model we have formed of them. Nothing is "by nature" imperfect for Spinoza; we only judge it so because it fails to match our own preconceived idea of what it should be. This same reference (alongside Part I, Proposition 15) underlies card 1's account of Deus sive Natura — God, or Nature, as the one substance in which nothing is judged against an external standard. "Each man called perfect that which he saw agree with the general idea he had formed of the thing in question, and called imperfect that which he saw agree less with his own preconceived type."

Visuals

Most of the visuals are edits of my own photographs, taken around the city over the years. Using Canva, I edited these photos to give them an Art Deco look.
Exceptions to this are the following images, which were either rights-free or used with permission:

Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright holders. If any omission has occurred, I apologize and will correct this in future editions.