Baruch Spinoza
Dutch philosopher
Baruch Spinoza was a 17th-century philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin who lived in the Dutch Republic. He wrote Ethics, which appeared after his death.
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Dutch Born 1632 in Amsterdam Died 1677
Influenced by René Descartes, Aristotle, Plato, Niccolò Machiavelli
About Baruch Spinoza
Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632 to a family that had left Portugal for the Dutch Republic. He received a traditional Jewish education, but he was expelled from his community in 1656 after questioning its doctrines. He then earned his living by grinding lenses and gave his time to philosophy. He published little while he was alive, and friends brought out his works after his death in 1677. His Ethics treats God as identical with nature and looks at human freedom. He also wrote the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which doubted that the Hebrew Bible had a divine source.