Spinoza's top-down determination starts with a single category (divine substance) progressively divided by concepts, presupposing a whole that precedes its parts.

In general this is how the Logic proceeds: seeking its most basic and universal determination, thought posits a category to be reflected upon, finds then that this collapses due to a contradiction generated, like that generated by the category being, and so then seeks a further category with which to make retrospective senses of those contradictory categories. However, in turn the new category will generate some further contradictory negation and again the demand will arise for a further concept