Philosophers
Baruch Spinoza
SPIN-oh-zuh
Also Known As Benedictus de Spinoza
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A Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish descent, born and raised in Amsterdam, where he ground optical lenses for a living after being placed under a writ of cherem, permanent excommunication, by the Amsterdam Jewish community in 1656 for views its leaders judged heretical. Spinoza's Ethics, written in a geometric method of definitions, axioms and propositions and published only after his death in 1677, argues that there is exactly one infinite substance, which can be called equally God or Nature, and that everything that exists is a necessary expression of that substance's own nature, leaving no room for a personal creator, a free will, or an objective good and evil apart from what increases or diminishes a thing's own power to persist. The Theological-Political Treatise (1670), published anonymously, argued for freedom of thought and a separation of religious authority from the state and was itself banned in several jurisdictions.
Facts
Cross-Tradition Connections
Critiqued Here
Leibniz met Spinoza in person at The Hague in November 1676 and read the not-yet-published Ethics, but rejected Spinoza single-substance monism in favor of an infinite plurality of individual monads, each a distinct created substance rather than a mode of one divine substance.
Associated With
In Branch
Influenced
Goethe read Spinoza's Ethics in the 1770s through the circle around Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and repeatedly called himself a pantheist, adopting Spinoza's identification of God with nature, though he told Jacobi his own conception of nature diverged from Spinoza's system.
Influenced By
Spinoza built his rationalist metaphysics in sustained critical dialogue with Descartes' dualism and method of doubt; this closes the gap of Spinoza carrying no founding figure on record for rationalism.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informations.v. Baruch SpinozaQuote, s.v. Baruch Spinoza
His thought combines a commitment to a number of Cartesian metaphysical and epistemological principles with elements from ancient Stoicism, Hobbes, and medieval Jewish rationalism into a nonetheless highly original system.
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationInfluenced By: Rene Descartes, entry: Rene DescartesView the Source 1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationAssociated With: Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizView the Source 1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationAssociated With: Philosophy of Religion, entry: Philosophy of Religion; Spinoza's Theological-Political TreatiseView the Source 1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationAssociated With: Metaphysics, entry: Baruch SpinozaView the Source 1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationAssociated With: Rationalism, entry: Continental RationalismView the Source Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyInfluenced: Johann Wolfgang von GoetheView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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