Baruch Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza also known as Benedict Spinoza (24 November 1632 in Amsterdam – 21 February 1677 in The Hague) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. He is considered to be one of the great Rationalist philosophers of the 17th century. Other famous rationalists include Gottfried Leibniz and René Descartes.

Baruch de Spinoza
Era	17th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Rationalism, founder of Spinozism
Main interests	Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics
Notable ideas	Pantheism, Conatus, Deism, neutral monism, intellectual and religious freedom / separation of church and state, Criticism of Mosaic authorship of certain books of the Hebrew Bible, Political society derived from power, not contract
Influences Hobbes, Descartes, Stoics, Avicenna, Maimonides, Nicholas of Cusa, Aristotle, Bacon, Plato
Influenced Hegel, Marx, Davidson, Schopenhauer, Deleuze, Einstein, Fichte, Leibniz, Goethe, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Althusser, Hardt, Negri, Fromm, Santayana, Schelling, Bookchin, Kant

Life

Spinoza's ideas were not cherished by the Jewish community in Amsterdam of the time, and Spinoza was excommunicated in 1656.

Key ideas

An important idea in Spinoza's philosophy is God and Nature (everything that exists) are the same thing. Opposing dualism and free will as determinist, Spinoza said that the body and the mind (soul) are two of God's infinite attributes.

There is no good or evil in Nature, and that these words only have meanings for human beings. For a person, an event that leads to happiness is good, and an event that leads to suffering is bad.

Spinoza describes two types of thoughts, or emotions:

• When a person acts from his own nature, he is said to be Active. The more you understand your actions, the more active you become. Active emotions lead to happiness and an understanding of God, as well as to Freedom.
• When a person is being influenced by another person, or a thing, he is said to be Passive.

The goal of every person is to intellectually love God (that is, understand Nature as much as humanly possible).

References

• Jewish Encyclopedia