Baruch Spinoza (; Dutch: [baːˈrux spɪˈnoːzaː];
born Benedito de Espinosa, Portuguese: [bɨnɨˈðitu
ðɨ ʃpiˈnɔzɐ]; 24 November 1632 – 21
February 1677, later Benedict de Spinoza)
was a Jewish-Dutch philosopher of Portuguese
Sephardi origin. By laying the groundwork
for the Enlightenment and modern biblical
criticism, including modern conceptions of
the self and the universe, he came to be considered
one of the great rationalists of 17th-century
philosophy. Along with René Descartes, Spinoza
was a leading philosophical figure of the
Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name, which
means "Blessed", varies among different languages.
In Hebrew, it is written ברוך שפינוזה‬.
His Portuguese name is Benedito "Bento" de
Espinosa. In his Latin works, he used Latin:
Benedictus de Spinoza.
Spinoza was raised in a Portuguese-Jewish
community in Amsterdam. He developed highly
controversial ideas regarding the authenticity
of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the
Divine. Jewish religious authorities issued
a herem (חרם‬) against him, causing him
to be effectively shunned by Jewish society
at age 23. His books were also later put on
the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
Spinoza lived an outwardly simple life as
an optical lens grinder, collaborating on
microscope and telescope lens designs with
Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens. He turned
down rewards and honours throughout his life,
including prestigious teaching positions.
He died at the age of 44 in 1677 from a lung
illness, perhaps tuberculosis or silicosis
exacerbated by the inhalation of fine glass
dust while grinding lenses. He is buried in
the churchyard of the Christian Nieuwe Kerk
in The Hague.Spinoza's magnum opus, the Ethics,
was published posthumously in the year of
his death. The work opposed Descartes' philosophy
of mind–body dualism, and earned Spinoza
recognition as one of Western philosophy's
most important thinkers. In it, "Spinoza wrote
the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, and
one in which the refined conceptions of medieval
philosophy are finally turned against themselves
and destroyed entirely". Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel said, "The fact is that Spinoza is made
a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that
it may really be said: You are either a Spinozist
or not a philosopher at all." His philosophical
accomplishments and moral character prompted
Gilles Deleuze to name him "the 'prince' of
philosophers."
== Biography ==
=== Family and community origins ===
Spinoza's ancestors were of Sephardic Jewish
descent and were a part of the community of
Portuguese Jews that had settled in the city
of Amsterdam in the wake of the Portuguese
Inquisition (1536), which had resulted in
forced conversions and expulsions from the
Iberian Peninsula. Attracted by the Decree
of Toleration issued in 1579 by the Union
of Utrecht, Portuguese converts to Catholicism
first sailed to Amsterdam in 1593 and promptly
reconverted to Judaism. In 1598, permission
was granted to build a synagogue, and in 1615
an ordinance for the admission and government
of the Jews was passed. As a community of
exiles, the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam were
highly proud of their identity.Although the
Portuguese name "de Espinosa" or "Espinosa,"
then spelled with a "z," can be confused with
the Spanish "de Espinoza" or "Espinoza," there
is no evidence in Spinoza's genealogy that
his family came from Espinosa de los Monteros,
near Burgos, or from Espinosa de Cerrato,
near Palencia, both in Northern Castile, Spain.
Still, this was a common Portuguese conversos
family name.Spinoza's father was born roughly
a century after the forced conversions in
the small Portuguese city of Vidigueira, near
Beja in Alentejo. When Spinoza's father Miguel
(Michael) was still a child, Spinoza's grandfather,
Isaac de Spinoza, who was from Lisbon, took
his family to Nantes in France. They were
expelled in 1615 and moved to Rotterdam, where
Isaac died in 1627. Spinoza's father and his
uncle Manuel then moved to Amsterdam where
they resumed the practice of Judaism. Miguel
was a successful merchant and became a warden
of the synagogue and of the Amsterdam Jewish
school. He buried three wives and three of
his six children died before reaching adulthood.
=== 17th-century Netherlands ===
Amsterdam and Rotterdam operated as important
cosmopolitan centres where merchant ships
from many parts of the world brought people
of various customs and beliefs. This flourishing
commercial activity encouraged a culture relatively
tolerant of the play of new ideas, to a considerable
degree sheltered from the censorious hand
of ecclesiastical authority (though those
considered to have gone "too far" might have
gotten persecuted even in the Netherlands).
Not by chance were the philosophical works
of both Descartes and Spinoza developed in
the cultural and intellectual background of
the Dutch Republic in the 17th century. Spinoza
may have had access to a circle of friends
who were unconventional in terms of social
tradition, including members of the Collegiants.
One of the people he knew was Niels Stensen,
a brilliant Danish student in Leiden; others
included Albert Burgh, with whom Spinoza is
known to have corresponded.
=== Early life ===
Benedito de Espinoza was born on 24 November
1632 in the Jodenbuurt in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
He was the second son of Miguel de Espinoza,
a successful, although not wealthy, Portuguese
Sephardic Jewish merchant in Amsterdam. His
mother, Ana Débora, Miguel's second wife,
died when Baruch was only six years old. Spinoza's
mother tongue was Portuguese, although he
also knew Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, perhaps
French, and later Latin. Although he wrote
in Latin, Spinoza learned the language only
late in his youth.
Spinoza had a traditional Jewish upbringing,
attending the Keter Torah yeshiva of the Amsterdam
Talmud Torah congregation headed by the learned
and traditional senior Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira.
His teachers also included the less traditional
Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel, "a man of wide
learning and secular interests, a friend of
Vossius, Grotius, and Rembrandt". While presumably
a star pupil, and perhaps considered as a
potential rabbi, Spinoza never reached the
advanced study of the Torah in the upper levels
of the curriculum. Instead, at the age of
17, after the death of his elder brother,
Isaac, he cut short his formal studies in
order to begin working in the family importing
business.The precise date of Spinoza's first
studies of Latin with Francis van den Enden
(Franciscus van den Enden) is not known. Some
state it began as early as 1654-1655, when
Spinoza was 20; others note that the documentary
record only attests to his presence in van
den Enden's circle around 1657–58. Van den
Enden was a notorious free thinker, former
Jesuit, and radical democrat who likely introduced
Spinoza to scholastic and modern philosophy,
including that of Descartes. (A decade later,
in the early 1660s, Van den Enden was considered
to be a Cartesian and atheist, and his books
were put on the Catholic Index of Banned Books.)
Spinoza's father, Miguel, died in 1654 when
Spinoza was 21. He duly recited Kaddish, the
Jewish prayer of mourning, for eleven months
as required by Jewish law. When his sister
Rebekah disputed his inheritance, he took
her to court to establish his claim, won his
case, but then renounced his claim in her
favour.Spinoza adopted the Latin name Benedictus
de Spinoza, began boarding with Van den Enden,
and began teaching in his school. Following
an anecdote in an early biography by Johannes
Colerus, he is said to have fallen in love
with his teacher's daughter, Clara, but she
rejected him for a richer student. (This story
has been discounted on the basis that Clara
Maria van den Enden was born in 1643 and would
have been no more than about 13 years old
when Spinoza left Amsterdam. In 1671 she married
Dirck Kerckring.)
During this period Spinoza also became acquainted
with the Collegiants, an anti-clerical sect
of Remonstrants with tendencies towards rationalism,
and with the Mennonites who had existed for
a century but were close to the Remonstrants.
Many of his friends belonged to dissident
Christian groups which met regularly as discussion
groups and which typically rejected the authority
of established churches as well as traditional
dogmas.Spinoza's break with the prevailing
dogmas of Judaism, and particularly the insistence
on non-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch,
was not sudden; rather, it appears to have
been the result of a lengthy internal struggle:
"If anyone thinks my criticism [regarding
the authorship of the Bible] is of too sweeping
a nature and lacking sufficient foundation,
I would ask him to undertake to show us in
these narratives a definite plan such as might
legitimately be imitated by historians in
their chronicles... If he succeeds, I shall
at once admit defeat, and he will be my mighty
Apollo. For I confess that all my efforts
over a long period have resulted in no such
discovery. Indeed, I may add that I write
nothing here that is not the fruit of lengthy
reflection; and although I have been educated
from boyhood in the accepted beliefs concerning
Scripture, I have felt bound in the end to
embrace the views I here express."Nevertheless,
once branded as a heretic, Spinoza's clashes
with authority became more pronounced. For
example, questioned by two members of his
synagogue, Spinoza apparently responded that
God has a body and nothing in scripture says
otherwise. He was later attacked on the steps
of the synagogue by a knife-wielding assailant
shouting "Heretic!" He was apparently quite
shaken by this attack and for years kept (and
wore) his torn cloak, unmended, as a souvenir.After
his father's death in 1654, Spinoza and his
younger brother Gabriel (Abraham) ran the
family importing business. The business ran
into serious financial difficulties, however,
perhaps as a result of the First Anglo-Dutch
War. In March 1656, Spinoza filed suit with
the Amsterdam municipal authorities to be
declared an orphan in order to escape his
father's business debts and so that he could
inherit his mother's estate (which at first
was incorporated into his father's estate)
without it being subject to his father's creditors.
In addition, after having made substantial
contributions to the Talmud Torah synagogue
in 1654 and 1655, he reduced his December
1655 contribution and his March 1656 pledge
to nominal amounts (and the March 1656 pledge
was never paid).Spinoza was eventually able
to relinquish responsibility for the business
and its debts to his younger brother, Gabriel,
and devote himself chiefly to the study of
philosophy, especially the system expounded
by Descartes, and to optics.
=== Expulsion from the Jewish community ===
On 27 July 1656, the Talmud Torah congregation
of Amsterdam issued a writ of cherem (Hebrew:
חרם‬, a kind of ban, shunning, ostracism,
expulsion, or excommunication) against the
23-year-old Spinoza. The following document
translates the official record of the censure:
The Lords of the ma'amad, having long known
of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de
Espinoza, have endeavoured by various means
and promises, to turn him from his evil ways.
But having failed to make him mend his wicked
ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving
more and more serious information about the
abominable heresies which he practised and
taught and about his monstrous deeds, and
having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses
who have deposed and borne witness to this
effect in the presence of the said Espinoza,
they became convinced of the truth of the
matter; and after all of this has been investigated
in the presence of the honourable chachamin
[sages], they have decided, with their consent,
that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated
and expelled from the people of Israel. By
the decree of the angels, and by the command
of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel,
curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the
consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the
consent of all the Holy Congregation, in front
of these holy Scrolls with the six-hundred-and-thirteen
precepts which are written therein, with the
excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho,
with the curse with which Elisha cursed the
boys and with all the curses which are written
in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day
and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when
he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises
up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed
be he when he comes in. The Lord will not
spare him; the anger and wrath of the Lord
will rage against this man, and bring upon
him all the curses which are written in this
book, and the Lord will blot out his name
from under heaven, and the Lord will separate
him to his injury from all the tribes of Israel
with all the curses of the covenant, which
are written in the Book of the Law. But you
who cleave unto the Lord God are all alive
this day. We order that no one should communicate
with him orally or in writing, or show him
any favour, or stay with him under the same
roof, or within four ells of him, or read
anything composed or written by him.
The Talmud Torah congregation issued censure
routinely, on matters great and small, so
such an edict was not unusual. The language
of Spinoza's censure is unusually harsh, however,
and does not appear in any other censure known
to have been issued by the Portuguese Jewish
community in Amsterdam. The exact reason for
expelling Spinoza is not stated. The censure
refers only to the "abominable heresies that
he practised and taught," to his "monstrous
deeds," and to the testimony of witnesses
"in the presence of the said Espinoza." There
is no record of such testimony, but there
appear to have been several likely reasons
for the issuance of the censure.
First, there were Spinoza's radical theological
views that he was apparently expressing in
public. As philosopher and Spinoza biographer
Steven Nadler puts it: "No doubt he was giving
utterance to just those ideas that would soon
appear in his philosophical treatises. In
those works, Spinoza denies the immortality
of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of
a providential God—the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob; and claims that the Law was neither
literally given by God nor any longer binding
on Jews. Can there be any mystery as to why
one of history's boldest and most radical
thinkers was sanctioned by an orthodox Jewish
community?"Second, the Amsterdam Jewish community
was largely composed of former "conversos"
who had fled from the Portuguese Inquisition
within the previous century, with their children
and grandchildren. This community must have
been concerned to protect its reputation from
any association with Spinoza lest his controversial
views provide the basis for their own possible
persecution or expulsion. There is little
evidence that the Amsterdam municipal authorities
were directly involved in Spinoza's censure
itself. But "in 1619, the town council expressly
ordered [the Portuguese Jewish community]
to regulate their conduct and ensure that
the members of the community kept to a strict
observance of Jewish law." Other evidence
makes it clear that the danger of upsetting
the civil authorities was never far from mind,
such as bans adopted by the synagogue on public
wedding or funeral processions and on discussing
religious matters with Christians, lest such
activity might "disturb the liberty we enjoy."
Thus, the issuance of Spinoza's censure was
almost certainly, in part, an exercise in
self-censorship by the Portuguese Jewish community
in Amsterdam.Third, it appears likely that
Spinoza had already taken the initiative to
separate himself from the Talmud Torah congregation
and was vocally expressing his hostility to
Judaism itself. He had probably stopped attending
services at the synagogue, either after the
lawsuit with his sister or after the knife
attack on its steps. He might already have
been voicing the view expressed later in his
Theological-Political Treatise that the civil
authorities should suppress Judaism as harmful
to the Jews themselves. Either for financial
or other reasons, he had in any case effectively
stopped contributing to the synagogue by March
1656. He had also committed the "monstrous
deed," contrary to the regulations of the
synagogue and the views of some rabbinical
authorities (including Maimonides), of filing
suit in a civil court rather than with the
synagogue authorities—to renounce his father's
heritage, no less. Upon being notified of
the issuance of the censure, he is reported
to have said: "Very well; this does not force
me to do anything that I would not have done
of my own accord, had I not been afraid of
a scandal." Thus, unlike most of the censure
issued routinely by the Amsterdam congregation
to discipline its members, the censure issued
against Spinoza did not lead to repentance
and so was never withdrawn.
After the censure, Spinoza is said to have
addressed an "Apology" (defence), written
in Spanish, to the elders of the synagogue,
"in which he defended his views as orthodox,
and condemned the rabbis for accusing him
of 'horrible practices and other enormities'
merely because he had neglected ceremonial
observances." This "Apology" does not survive,
but some of its contents may later have been
included in his Theological-Political Treatise.
For example, he cited a series of cryptic
statements by medieval Biblical commentator
Abraham ibn Ezra intimating that some apparently
anachronistic passages of the Pentateuch (i.e.,
"[t]he Canaanite was then in the land," Genesis
12:6, which ibn Ezra called a "mystery" and
exhorted those "who understand it [to] keep
silent") were not of Mosaic authorship as
proof that his own views had valid historical
precedent.The most remarkable aspect of the
censure may be not so much its issuance, or
even Spinoza's refusal to submit, but the
fact that Spinoza's expulsion from the Jewish
community did not lead to his conversion to
Christianity. Spinoza kept the Latin (and
so implicitly Christian) name Benedict de
Spinoza, maintained a close association with
the Collegiants (a Christian sect of Remonstrants)
and Quakers, even moved to a town near the
Collegiants' headquarters, and was buried
in a Christian Protestant graveyard—but
there is no evidence or suggestion that he
ever accepted baptism or participated in a
Christian mass or Quaker meeting. Thus, by
default, Baruch de Espinoza became the first
secular Jew of modern Europe.In September
2012, the Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente
te Amsterdam asked the chief rabbi of their
community Haham Pinchas Toledano to reconsider
the cherem after consulting several Spinoza
experts. However he declined to remove it,
citing Spinoza's "preposterous ideas, where
he was tearing apart the very fundamentals
of our religion".
=== Later life and career ===
Spinoza spent his remaining 21 years writing
and studying as a private scholar.Spinoza
believed in a "Philosophy of tolerance and
benevolence" and actually lived the life which
he preached. He was criticized and ridiculed
during his life and afterwards for his alleged
atheism. However, even those who were against
him "had to admit he lived a saintly life".
Besides the religious controversies, nobody
really had much bad to say about Spinoza other
than, "he sometimes enjoyed watching spiders
chase flies".After the cherem, the Amsterdam
municipal authorities expelled Spinoza from
Amsterdam, "responding to the appeals of the
rabbis, and also of the Calvinist clergy,
who had been vicariously offended by the existence
of a free thinker in the synagogue". He spent
a brief time in or near the village of Ouderkerk
aan de Amstel, but returned soon afterwards
to Amsterdam and lived there quietly for several
years, giving private philosophy lessons and
grinding lenses, before leaving the city in
1660 or 1661.During this time in Amsterdam,
Spinoza wrote his Short Treatise on God, Man,
and His Well-Being, which he never published
in his lifetime—assuming with good reason
that it might get suppressed. Two Dutch translations
of it survive, discovered about 1810."Spinoza
moved around 1660 or 1661 from Amsterdam to
Rijnsburg (near Leiden), the headquarters
of the Collegiants. In Rijnsburg, he began
work on his Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy"
as well as on his masterpiece, the Ethics.
In 1663, he returned briefly to Amsterdam,
where he finished and published Descartes'
"Principles of Philosophy," the only work
published in his lifetime under his own name,
and then moved the same year to Voorburg.
=== Voorburg ===
In Voorburg, Spinoza continued work on the
Ethics and corresponded with scientists, philosophers,
and theologians throughout Europe. He also
wrote and published his Theological Political
Treatise in 1670, in defence of secular and
constitutional government, and in support
of Jan de Witt, the Grand Pensionary of the
Netherlands, against the Stadtholder, the
Prince of Orange. Leibniz visited Spinoza
and claimed that Spinoza's life was in danger
when supporters of the Prince of Orange murdered
de Witt in 1672. While published anonymously,
the work did not long remain so, and de Witt's
enemies characterized it as "forged in Hell
by a renegade Jew and the Devil, and issued
with the knowledge of Jan de Witt." It was
condemned in 1673 by the Synod of the Reformed
Church and formally banned in 1674.
=== Lens-grinding and optics ===
Spinoza earned a modest living from lens-grinding
and instrument making, yet he was involved
in important optical investigations of the
day while living in Voorburg, through correspondence
and friendships with scientist Christiaan
Huygens and mathematician Johannes Hudde,
including debate over microscope design with
Huygens, favouring small objectives and collaborating
on calculations for a prospective 40 ft. telescope
which would have been one of the largest in
Europe at the time. The quality of Spinoza's
lenses was much praised by Christiaan Huygens,
among others. In fact, his technique and instruments
were so esteemed that Constantijn Huygens
ground a "clear and bright" 42 ft. telescope
lens in 1687 from one of Spinoza's grinding
dishes, ten years after his death. The exact
type of lenses that Spinoza made are not known,
but very likely included lenses for both the
microscope and telescope. He was said by anatomist
Theodor Kerckring to have produced an "excellent"
microscope, the quality of which was the foundation
of Kerckring's anatomy claims. During his
time as a lens and instrument maker, he was
also supported by small but regular donations
from close friends.
=== The Hague ===
In 1670, Spinoza moved to The Hague where
he lived on a small pension from Jan de Witt
and a small annuity from the brother of his
dead friend, Simon de Vries. He worked on
the Ethics, wrote an unfinished Hebrew grammar,
began his Political Treatise, wrote two scientific
essays ("On the Rainbow" and "On the Calculation
of Chances"), and began a Dutch translation
of the Bible (which he later destroyed by
burning).Spinoza was offered the chair of
philosophy at the University of Heidelberg,
but he refused it, perhaps because of the
possibility that it might in some way curb
his freedom of thought.In 1676, Spinoza met
with Leibniz at The Hague for a discussion
of his principal philosophical work, Ethics,
which had been completed in 1676. This meeting
was described in Matthew Stewart's The Courtier
and the Heretic.Spinoza's health began to
fail in 1676, and he died on 21 February 1677
at the age of 44. His premature death was
said to be due to lung illness, possibly silicosis
as a result of breathing in glass dust from
the lenses that he ground. Later, a shrine
was made of his home in The Hague.Textbooks
and encyclopaedias often depict Spinoza as
a solitary soul who eked out a living as a
lens grinder; in reality, he had many friends
but kept his needs to a minimum. He preached
a philosophy of tolerance and benevolence.
Anthony Gottlieb described him as living "a
saintly life." Reviewer M. Stuart Phelps noted,
"No one has ever come nearer to the ideal
life of the philosopher than Spinoza." Harold
Bloom wrote, "As a teacher of reality, he
practised his own wisdom, and was surely one
of the most exemplary human beings ever to
have lived." According to The New York Times:
"In outward appearance he was unpretending,
but not careless. His way of living was exceedingly
modest and retired; often he did not leave
his room for many days together. He was likewise
almost incredibly frugal; his expenses sometimes
amounted only to a few pence a day." Bloom
writes of Spinoza, "He appears to have had
no sexual life."Spinoza also corresponded
with Peter Serrarius, a radical Protestant
and millenarian merchant. Serrarius was a
patron to Spinoza after Spinoza left the Jewish
community and even had letters sent and received
for the philosopher to and from third parties.
Spinoza and Serrarius maintained their relationship
until Serrarius' death in 1669. By the beginning
of the 1660s, Spinoza's name became more widely
known, and eventually Gottfried Leibniz and
Henry Oldenburg paid him visits, as stated
in Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the
Heretic. Spinoza corresponded with Oldenburg
for the rest of his short life.
=== Writings and correspondence ===
The writings of René Descartes have been
described as "Spinoza's starting point." Spinoza's
first publication was his 1663 geometric exposition
of proofs using Euclid's model with definitions
and axioms of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy.
Spinoza has been associated with Leibniz and
Descartes as "rationalists" in contrast to
"empiricists."Spinoza engaged in correspondence
from December 1664 to June 1665 with Willem
van Blijenbergh, an amateur Calvinist theologian,
who questioned Spinoza on the definition of
evil. Later in 1665, Spinoza notified Oldenburg
that he had started to work on a new book,
the Theologico-Political Treatise, published
in 1670. Leibniz disagreed harshly with Spinoza
in his own manuscript "Refutation of Spinoza,"
but he is also known to have met with Spinoza
on at least one occasion (as mentioned above),
and his own work bears some striking resemblances
to specific important parts of Spinoza's philosophy
(see: Monadology).
When the public reactions to the anonymously
published Theologico-Political Treatise were
extremely unfavourable to his brand of Cartesianism,
Spinoza was compelled to abstain from publishing
more of his works. Wary and independent, he
wore a signet ring which he used to mark his
letters and which was engraved with the word
caute (Latin for "cautiously") underneath
a rose, itself a symbol of secrecy. "For,
having chosen to write in a language that
was so widely intelligible, he was compelled
to hide what he had written."The Ethics and
all other works, apart from the Descartes'
Principles of Philosophy and the Theologico-Political
Treatise, were published after his death in
the Opera Posthuma, edited by his friends
in secrecy to avoid confiscation and destruction
of manuscripts. The Ethics contains many still-unresolved
obscurities and is written with a forbidding
mathematical structure modelled on Euclid's
geometry and has been described as a "superbly
cryptic masterwork."In a letter, written in
December 1675 and sent to Albert Burgh, who
wanted to defend Catholicism, Spinoza clearly
explained his view of both Catholicism and
Islam. He stated that both religions are made
"to deceive the people and to constrain the
minds of men". He also states that Islam far
surpasses Catholicism in doing so.
== Philosophy ==
=== Substance, attributes, and modes ===
These are the fundamental concepts with which
Spinoza sets forth a vision of Being, illuminated
by his awareness of God. They may seem strange
at first sight. To the question "What is?"
he replies: "Substance, its attributes, and
modes".
Spinoza argued that God exists and is abstract
and impersonal. Spinoza's view of God is what
Charles Hartshorne describes as Classical
Pantheism. Spinoza has also been described
as an "Epicurean materialist," specifically
in reference to his opposition to Cartesian
mind-body dualism. This view was held by Epicureans
before him, as they believed that atoms with
their probabilistic paths were the only substance
that existed fundamentally. Spinoza, however,
deviated significantly from Epicureans by
adhering to strict determinism, much like
the Stoics before him, in contrast to the
Epicurean belief in the probabilistic path
of atoms, which is more in line with contemporary
thought on quantum mechanics. Spinoza's system
imparted order and unity to the tradition
of radical thought, offering powerful weapons
for prevailing against "received authority."
He contended that everything that exists in
Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe)
is one Reality (substance) and there is only
one set of rules governing the whole of the
reality that surrounds us and of which we
are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as
two names for the same reality, namely a single,
fundamental substance (meaning "that which
stands beneath" rather than "matter") that
is the basis of the universe and of which
all lesser "entities" are actually modes or
modifications, that all things are determined
by Nature to exist and cause effects, and
that the complex chain of cause-and-effect
is understood only in part. His identification
of God with nature was more fully explained
in his posthumously published Ethics. Spinoza's
main contention with Cartesian mind–body
dualism was that, if mind and body were truly
distinct, then it is not clear how they can
coordinate in any manner. Humans presume themselves
to have free will, he argues, which is a result
of their awareness of appetites that affect
their minds, while being unable to understand
the reasons why they desire what they desire
and act as they do.
Spinoza contends that "Deus sive Natura" is
a being of infinitely many attributes, of
which thought and extension are two. His account
of the nature of reality then seems to treat
the physical and mental worlds as intertwined,
causally related, and deriving from the same
Substance. It is important to note that, in
Parts 3 through 4 of the Ethics," Spinoza
describes how the human mind is affected by
both mental and physical factors. He directly
contests and denies dualism. The universal
Substance emanates both body and mind; while
they are different attributes, there is no
fundamental difference between these aspects.
This formulation is a historically significant
solution to the mind–body problem known
as neutral monism. Spinoza's system also envisages
a God that does not rule over the universe
by Providence, by which it can and does make
changes, but a God that is the deterministic
system of which everything in nature is a
part. Spinoza argues that "things could not
have been produced by God in any other way
or in any other order than is the case,";
he directly challenges a transcendental God
that actively responds to events in the universe.
Everything that has and will happen is a part
of a long chain of cause-and-effect, which,
at a metaphysical level, humans are unable
to change. No amount of prayer or ritual will
sway God. Only knowledge of God provides the
best response to the world around them.
Not only is it impossible for two infinite
Substances to exist (two infinities being
absurd), God as the ultimate Substance cannot
be affected by anything else, or else it would
be affected by something else, and not be
the fundamental, all-pervasive Substance.
Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who
held that absolutely everything that happens
occurs through the operation of necessity.
For him, even human behaviour is fully determined,
with freedom being our capacity to know that
we are determined and to understand why we
act as we do. By forming more "adequate" ideas
about what we do and our emotions or affections,
we become the adequate cause of our effects
(internal or external), which entails an increase
in activity (versus passivity). This process
allows us to become both more free and more
like God, as Spinoza argues in the Scholium
to Prop. 49, Part II. However, Spinoza also
held that everything must necessarily happen
the way that it does.
Therefore, humans have no free will, despite
strongly believing that they do. This illusionary
perception of freedom stems from human consciousness,
experience, and indifference to prior natural
causes. Humans think they are free, but they
″dream with their eyes open″. For Spinoza,
our actions are guided entirely by natural
impulses. In his letter to G. H. Schuller
(Letter 58), he wrote: "men are conscious
of their desire and unaware of the causes
by which [their desires] are determined."This
picture of Spinoza's determinism is illuminated
by this famous quote in Ethics: ″the infant
believes that it is by free will that it seeks
the breast; the angry boy believes that by
free will he wishes vengeance; the timid man
thinks it is with free will he seeks flight;
the drunkard believes that by a free command
of his mind he speaks the things which when
sober he wishes he had left unsaid. … All
believe that they speak by a free command
of the mind, whilst, in truth, they have no
power to restrain the impulse which they have
to speak.″ Thus for Spinoza morality and
ethical judgement like choice is predicated
on an illusion. For Spinoza, ″Blame″ and
″Praise″ are nonexistent human ideals
only fathomable in the mind because we are
so acclimatized to human consciousness interlinking
with our experience that we have a false idea
of choice predicated upon this.
Spinoza's philosophy has much in common with
Stoicism inasmuch as both philosophies sought
to fulfil a therapeutic role by instructing
people how to attain happiness. Spinoza, however,
differed sharply from the Stoics in one important
respect: He utterly rejected their contention
that reason could defeat emotion. On the contrary,
he contended, an emotion can only be displaced
or overcome by a stronger emotion. For him,
the crucial distinction was between active
and passive emotions, the former being those
that are rationally understood and the latter
those that are not. He also held that knowledge
of true causes of passive emotion can transform
it to an active emotion, thus anticipating
one of the key ideas of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.
=== Ethical philosophy ===
Spinoza shared ethical beliefs with ancient
Epicureans, in renouncing ethics beyond the
material world, although Epicureans focused
more on physical pleasure and Spinoza more
on emotional wellbeing. Encapsulated at the
start in his Treatise on the Improvement of
the Understanding (Tractatus de intellectus
emendatione) is the core of Spinoza's ethical
philosophy, what he held to be the true and
final good. Spinoza held good and evil to
be relative concepts, claiming that nothing
is intrinsically good or bad except relative
to a particularity. Things that had classically
been seen as good or evil, Spinoza argued,
were simply good or bad for humans. Spinoza
believes in a deterministic universe in which
"All things in nature proceed from certain
[definite] necessity and with the utmost perfection."
Nothing happens by chance in Spinoza's world,
and nothing is contingent.
Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely
ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good
and Evil have no absolute meaning. The world
as it exists looks imperfect only because
of our limited perception.
=== Spinoza's "Ethics" ===
In the universe anything that happens comes
from the essential nature of objects, or of
God or Nature. According to Spinoza, reality
is perfection. If circumstances are seen as
unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate
conception of reality. While components of
the chain of cause and effect are not beyond
the understanding of human reason, human grasp
of the infinitely complex whole is limited
because of the limits of science to empirically
take account of the whole sequence. Spinoza
also asserted that sense perception, though
practical and useful, is inadequate for discovering
truth. His concept of "conatus" states that
human beings' natural inclination is to strive
toward preserving an essential being, and
asserts that virtue/human power is defined
by success in this preservation of being by
the guidance of reason as one's central ethical
doctrine. According to Spinoza, the highest
virtue is the intellectual love or knowledge
of God/Nature/Universe.
Also in the "Ethics", Spinoza discusses his
beliefs about what he considers to be the
three kinds of knowledge that come with perceptions.
The first kind of knowledge he writes about
is the knowledge of experiences. More precisely,
this first type of knowledge can be known
as the knowledge of things that could be "mutilated,
confused, and without order." Another explanation
of what the first knowledge can be is that
it is the knowledge of dangerous reasoning.
Dangerous reason lacks any type of rationality,
and causes the mind to be in a "passive" state.
This type of "passive mind" that Spinoza writes
about in the earlier books of The Ethics is
a state of the mind in which adequate causes
become passions.
Spinoza’s second knowledge involves reasoning
plus emotions. He explains that this knowledge
is had by the rationality of any adequate
causes that have to do with anything common
to the human mind. An example of this could
be anything that is classified as being of
imperfect virtue. Imperfect virtues are seen
as those which are incomplete. Many philosophers,
such as Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, would
compare imperfect virtue to pagan virtue.
Spinoza defines the third and final knowledge
as the knowledge of God, which requires rationality
and reason of the mind. In more detail, Spinoza
uses this type of knowledge to join together
the essence of God with the individual essence.
This knowledge is also formed from any adequate
causes that include perfect virtue.In the
final part of the "Ethics", his concern with
the meaning of "true blessedness", and his
explanation of how emotions must be detached
from external causes in order to master them,
foreshadow psychological techniques developed
in the 1900s. His concept of three types of
knowledge—opinion, reason, intuition—and
his assertion that intuitive knowledge provides
the greatest satisfaction of mind, lead to
his proposition that the more we are conscious
of ourselves and Nature/Universe, the more
perfect and blessed we are (in reality) and
that only intuitive knowledge is eternal.
== History of reception ==
=== Pantheist, panentheist, or atheist? ===
It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated
God with the material universe. He has therefore
been called the "prophet" and "prince" and
most eminent expounder of pantheism. More
specifically, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg
he states, "as to the view of certain people
that I identify God with Nature (taken as
a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they
are quite mistaken". For Spinoza, our universe
(cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of
Thought and Extension. God has infinitely
many other attributes which are not present
in our world.
According to German philosopher Karl Jaspers
(1883–1969), when Spinoza wrote Deus sive
Natura (Latin for 'God or Nature'), Spinoza
meant God was natura naturans (nature doing
what nature does; literally, 'nature naturing'),
not natura naturata (nature already created;
literally, 'nature natured'). Jaspers believed
that Spinoza, in his philosophical system,
did not mean to say that God and Nature are
interchangeable terms, but rather that God's
transcendence was attested by his infinitely
many attributes, and that two attributes known
by humans, namely Thought and Extension, signified
God's immanence. Even God under the attributes
of thought and extension cannot be identified
strictly with our world. That world is of
course "divisible"; it has parts. But Spinoza
said, "no attribute of a substance can be
truly conceived from which it follows that
the substance can be divided", meaning that
one cannot conceive an attribute in a way
that leads to division of substance. He also
said, "a substance which is absolutely infinite
is indivisible" (Ethics, Part I, Propositions
12 and 13). Following this logic, our world
should be considered as a mode under two attributes
of thought and extension. Therefore, according
to Jaspers, the pantheist formula "One and
All" would apply to Spinoza only if the "One"
preserves its transcendence and the "All"
were not interpreted as the totality of finite
things.Martial Guéroult (1891–1976) suggested
the term "panentheism", rather than "pantheism"
to describe Spinoza's view of the relation
between God and the world. The world is not
God, but it is, in a strong sense, "in" God.
Not only do finite things have God as their
cause; they cannot be conceived without God.
However, American panentheist philosopher
Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) insisted
on the term Classical Pantheism to describe
Spinoza's view.In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich
Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinoza's
pantheism, after Gotthold Lessing was thought
to have confessed on his deathbed to being
a "Spinozist", which was the equivalent in
his time of being called an atheist. Jacobi
claimed that Spinoza's doctrine was pure materialism,
because all Nature and God are said to be
nothing but extended substance. This, for
Jacobi, was the result of Enlightenment rationalism
and it would finally end in absolute atheism.
Moses Mendelssohn disagreed with Jacobi, saying
that there is no actual difference between
theism and pantheism. The issue became a major
intellectual and religious concern for European
civilization at the time.
The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to
late 18th-century Europeans was that it provided
an alternative to materialism, atheism, and
deism. Three of Spinoza's ideas strongly appealed
to them:
the unity of all that exists;
the regularity of all that happens;
the identity of spirit and nature.By 1879,
Spinoza’s pantheism was praised by many,
but was considered by some to be alarming
and dangerously inimical.Spinoza's "God or
Nature" (Deus sive Natura) provided a living,
natural God, in contrast to Isaac Newton's
first cause argument and the dead mechanism
of Julien Offray de La Mettrie's (1709–1751)
work, Man a Machine (L'homme machine). Coleridge
and Shelley saw in Spinoza's philosophy a
religion of nature. Novalis called him the
"God-intoxicated man". Spinoza inspired the
poet Shelley to write his essay "The Necessity
of Atheism".Spinoza was considered to be an
atheist because he used the word "God" (Deus)
to signify a concept that was different from
that of traditional Judeo–Christian monotheism.
"Spinoza expressly denies personality and
consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence,
feeling, nor will; he does not act according
to purpose, but everything follows necessarily
from his nature, according to law...." Thus,
Spinoza's cool, indifferent God is the antithesis
to the concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly
God who cares about humanity.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Spinoza's God is an "infinite
intellect" (Ethics 2p11c) — all knowing
(2p3), and capable of loving both himself—and
us, insofar as we are part of his perfection
(5p35c). And if the mark of a personal being
is that it is one towards which we can entertain
personal attitudes, then we should note too
that Spinoza recommends amor intellectualis
dei (the intellectual love of God) as the
supreme good for man (5p33). However, the
matter is complex. Spinoza's God does not
have free will (1p32c1), he does not have
purposes or intentions (1 appendix), and Spinoza
insists that "neither intellect nor will pertain
to the nature of God" (1p17s1). Moreover,
while we may love God, we need to remember
that God is really not the kind of being who
could ever love us back. "He who loves God
cannot strive that God should love him in
return," says Spinoza (5p19).Steven Nadler
suggests that settling the question of Spinoza's
atheism or pantheism depends on an analysis
of attitudes. If pantheism is associated with
religiosity, then Spinoza is not a pantheist,
since Spinoza believes that the proper stance
to take towards God is not one of reverence
or religious awe, but instead one of objective
study and reason, since taking the religious
stance would leave one open to the possibility
of error and superstition.
=== Comparison to Eastern philosophies ===
Similarities between Spinoza's philosophy
and Eastern philosophical traditions have
been discussed by many authors. The 19th-century
German Sanskritist Theodor Goldstücker was
one of the early figures to notice the similarities
between Spinoza's religious conceptions and
the Vedanta tradition of India, writing that
Spinoza's thought was ... a western system
of philosophy which occupies a foremost rank
amongst the philosophies of all nations and
ages, and which is so exact a representation
of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might
have suspected its founder to have borrowed
the fundamental principles of his system from
the Hindus, did his biography not satisfy
us that he was wholly unacquainted with their
doctrines... We mean the philosophy of Spinoza,
a man whose very life is a picture of that
moral purity and intellectual indifference
to the transitory charms of this world, which
is the constant longing of the true Vedanta
philosopher... comparing the fundamental ideas
of both we should have no difficulty in proving
that, had Spinoza been a Hindu, his system
would in all probability mark a last phase
of the Vedanta philosophy.
Max Müller, in his lectures, noted the striking
similarities between Vedanta and the system
of Spinoza, saying "the Brahman, as conceived
in the Upanishads and defined by Sankara,
is clearly the same as Spinoza's 'Substantia'."
Helena Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical
Society also compared Spinoza's religious
thought to Vedanta, writing in an unfinished
essay "As to Spinoza's Deity—natura naturans—conceived
in his attributes simply and alone; and the
same Deity—as natura naturata or as conceived
in the endless series of modifications or
correlations, the direct out-flowing results
from the properties of these attributes, it
is the Vedantic Deity pure and simple."
=== Spinoza's reception in the 19th and 20th
centuries ===
Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries grew
even more interested in Spinoza, often from
a left-wing or Marxist perspective. Karl Marx
liked Spinoza's account of the universe, interpreting
it as materialistic. The philosophers Louis
Althusser, Gilles Deleuze, Antonio Negri and
Étienne Balibar have each drawn upon Spinoza's
philosophy. Deleuze's doctoral thesis, published
in 1968, calls him "the prince of philosophers".
Nietzsche esteemed few philosophers, but he
esteemed Spinoza. However, Nietzsche never
read Spinoza's works themselves, but learned
about Spinoza from Kuno Fischer's History
of Modern Philosophy.When George Santayana
graduated from college, he published an essay,
"The Ethical Doctrine of Spinoza", in The
Harvard Monthly. Later, he wrote an introduction
to Spinoza's Ethics and "De intellectus emendatione".
In 1932, Santayana was invited to present
an essay (published as "Ultimate Religion")
at a meeting at The Hague celebrating the
tricentennial of Spinoza's birth. In Santayana's
autobiography, he characterized Spinoza as
his "master and model" in understanding the
naturalistic basis of morality.
=== Spinoza's religious criticism and its
effect on the philosophy of language ===
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein evoked Spinoza
with the title (suggested to him by G. E.
Moore) of the English translation of his first
definitive philosophical work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,
an allusion to Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.
Elsewhere, Wittgenstein deliberately borrowed
the expression sub specie aeternitatis from
Spinoza (Notebooks, 1914-16, p. 83). The structure
of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus does
have some structural affinities with Spinoza's
Ethics (though, admittedly, not with the latter's
own Tractatus) in erecting complex philosophical
arguments upon basic logical assertions and
principles. Furthermore, in propositions 6.4311
and 6.45 he alludes to a Spinozian understanding
of eternity and interpretation of the religious
concept of eternal life, stating that "If
by eternity is understood not eternal temporal
duration, but timelessness, then he lives
eternally who lives in the present." (6.4311)
"The contemplation of the world sub specie
aeterni is its contemplation as a limited
whole." (6.45)
Leo Strauss dedicated his first book, Spinoza's
Critique of Religion, to an examination of
the latter's ideas. In the book, Strauss identified
Spinoza as part of the tradition of Enlightenment
rationalism that eventually produced Modernity.
Moreover, he identifies Spinoza and his works
as the beginning of Jewish Modernity. More
recently Jonathan Israel argued that, from
1650 to 1750, Spinoza was "the chief challenger
of the fundamentals of revealed religion,
received ideas, tradition, morality, and what
was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and
non-absolutist states alike, as divinely constituted
political authority."
=== Spinoza in literature, art, and popular
culture ===
Spinoza has had influence beyond the confines
of philosophy.
Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus was
presented to the Chair of the Dutch Parliament,
and shares a shelf with the Bible and the
Quran.
The 17th-century philosopher John Locke, who
also spent time in Amsterdam, was influenced
by his "pioneering and profound conceptions
of religious tolerance and democratic government,"
according to Cornel West.
The 19th-century novelist George Eliot produced
her own translation of the Ethics, the first
known English translation of it. Eliot liked
Spinoza's vehement attacks on superstition.
In his autobiography From My Life: Poetry
and Truth, Goethe recounts the way in which
Spinoza's Ethics calmed the sometimes unbearable
emotional turbulence of his youth. Goethe
later displayed his grasp of Spinoza's metaphysics
in a fragmentary elucidation of some Spinozist
ontological principles entitled Study After
Spinoza. Moreover, he cited Spinoza alongside
Shakespeare and Carl Linnaeus as one of the
three strongest influences on his life and
work.
The 20th century novelist W. Somerset Maugham
alluded to one of Spinoza's central concepts
with the title of his novel Of Human Bondage.
In the early Star Trek episode "Where No Man
Has Gone Before", the antagonist, Gary Mitchell
is seen reading Spinoza, and Mitchell's remark
regarding his ease in comprehending Spinoza
implies that his intellectual capacity is
increasing dramatically. The dialogue indicates
that Captain Kirk is familiar with Spinoza's
work, perhaps as part of his studies at Starfleet
Academy.
In the M*A*S*H episode "Fade Out, Fade In,
Part 2", Major Charles Emerson Winchester,
on his exile to Korea, describes himself as
someone who "can quote Spinoza from memory".PBS
television series, Jeeves and Wooster (1993)
Season 4 Episode 2 has Spinoza as a central
part of the plot. This episode draws on the
book Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse which
also includes Jeeves desire to own a copy
of the latest edition of Spinoza’s work.
Albert Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher
who exerted the most influence on his world
view (Weltanschauung). Spinoza equated God
(infinite substance) with Nature, consistent
with Einstein's belief in an impersonal deity.
In 1929, Einstein was asked in a telegram
by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed
in God. Einstein responded by telegram: "I
believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself
in the orderly harmony of what exists, not
in a God who concerns himself with the fates
and actions of human beings."
Spinoza's pantheism has also influenced environmental
theory; Arne Næss, the father of the deep
ecology movement, acknowledged Spinoza as
an important inspiration.
The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges was
greatly influenced by Spinoza's world view.
Borges makes allusions to the philosopher's
work in many of his poems and short stories,
as does Isaac Bashevis Singer in his short
story "The Spinoza of Market Street".
The title character of Hoffman's Hunger, the
fifth novel by the Dutch novelist Leon de
Winter, reads and comments upon the Tractatus
de Intellectus Emendatione over the course
of the novel.
Spinoza has been the subject of numerous biographies
and scholarly treatises.Spinoza is an important
historical figure in the Netherlands, where
his portrait was featured prominently on the
Dutch 1000-guilder banknote, legal tender
until the euro was introduced in 2002. The
highest and most prestigious scientific award
of the Netherlands is named the Spinozaprijs
(Spinoza prize). Spinoza was included in a
50 theme canon that attempts to summarise
the history of the Netherlands.
The 2008 play "New Jerusalem", by David Ives,
is based on the cherem (ban, shunning, ostracism,
expulsion or excommunication) issued against
Spinoza by the Talmud Torah congregation in
Amsterdam in 1656, and events leading to it.
Ives speculates that Spinoza was excommunicated
in order to appease Dutch authorities who
threatened to expel Amsterdam's Jews because
of Spinoza's anti-religious activities amongst
the city's Christian community.
In Bento's Sketchbook (2011), the writer John
Berger combines extracts from Spinoza, sketches,
memoir, and observations in a book that contemplates
the relationship of materialism to spirituality.
According to Berger, what could be seen as
a contradiction "is beautifully resolved by
Spinoza, who shows that it is not a duality,
but in fact an essential unity."
Leopold Bloom is shown several times to be
an admirer of Spinoza in James Joyce's Ulysses.
Thoughts from Spinoza, an anthology, is represented
on Bloom's bookshelf towards the end of the
novel.
== Bibliography ==
c. 1660. Korte Verhandeling van God, de
mensch en deszelvs welstand (A Short Treatise
on God, Man and His Well-Being).
1662. Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione
(On the Improvement of the Understanding).
1663. Principia philosophiae cartesianae (The
Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, translated
by Samuel Shirley, with an Introduction and
Notes by Steven Barbone and Lee Rice, Indianapolis,
1998). Gallica (in Latin).
1670. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (A Theologico-Political
Treatise).
1675–76. Tractatus Politicus (unfinished)
(PDF version)
1677. Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata
(The Ethics, finished 1674, but published
posthumously)
1677. Compendium grammatices linguae hebraeae
(Hebrew Grammar).
Morgan, Michael L. (ed.), 2002. Spinoza: Complete
Works, with the Translation of Samuel Shirley,
Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing
Company. ISBN 978-0-87220-620-5.
Edwin Curley (ed.), 1985–2016. The Collected
Works of Spinoza (two volumes), Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Spruit, Leen and Pina Totaro, 2011. The Vatican
Manuscript of Spinoza’s Ethica, Leiden:
Brill.
== See also ==
Criticism of Judaism
Pantheism
Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza
Plane of immanence
Spinozism
Uriel da Costa
== References ==
== Further reading ==
== 
External links ==
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
""Benedict de Spinoza"". Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy.
""Benedict de Spinoza: Epistemology"". Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
""Benedict de Spinoza: Metaphysics"". Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
""Benedict de Spinoza: Moral Philosophy"".
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
""Benedict de Spinoza: Political Philosophy"".
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"Spinoza" by Steven Nadler.
"Spinoza's Psychological Theory" by Michael
LeBuffe.
"Spinoza's Physical Theory" by Richard Manning.
"Spinoza's Political Philosophy" by Justin
Steinberg.
Dutton, Blake. "Benedict De Spinoza". Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Bulletin Spinoza of the journal Archives de
philosophie
Susan James on Spinoza on the Passions, Philosophy
Bites podcast
Spinoza and Spinozism - BDSweb
Spinoza, the Moral Heretic by Matthew J. Kisner
Immortality in Spinoza
BBC Radio 4 In Our Time programme on Spinoza
Spinoza: Mind of the Modern - audio from Radio
Opensource
Infography about Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza at Find a Grave
The Escamoth stating Spinoza's excommunication
Gilles Deleuze's lectures about Spinoza (1978-1981)
Spinoza in the Jewish Encyclopedia
Audio interview with Steven Nadler on Spinoza
- Minerva podcast
Video lecture on Baruch Spinoza by Dr. Henry
AbramsonWorks
Spinoza Opera Carl Gebhardt's 1925 four volume
edition of Spinoza's Works.
Works by Benedictus de Spinoza at Project
Gutenberg
Works by or about Baruch Spinoza at Internet
Archive
Works by Baruch Spinoza at LibriVox (public
domain audiobooks)
Works by Baruch Spinoza at Open Library
Refutation of Spinoza by Leibniz In full at
Google Books
More easily readable versions of the Correspondence,
Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order and
Treatise on Theology and Politics
EthicaDB Hypertextual and multilingual publication
of Ethics
A Theologico-Political Treatise – English
Translation
A Theologico-Political Treatise - English
Translation (at sacred-texts.com)
A letter from Spinoza to Albert Burgh
Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata et in
quinque partes distincta, in quibus agetur
Opera posthuma – Amsterdam 1677. Complete
photographic reproduction, ed. by F. Mignini
(Quodlibet publishing house website)
