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Baruch Spinoza (Amsterdam, 1632; The Hague, 1677) was a Dutch philosopher, son of a family of Spanish Jews of Sephardic ethnicity. His family roots are in Espinosa de los Monteros, where his relatives’ last name was Espinosa de Cerrato.
He was also one of the main thinkers of the Enlightenment, modern biblical criticism and 17th century rationalism. Critical heir of Cartesianism, he is considered one of the three great rationalists of 17th century philosophy along with Descartes and Leibniz.
Inspired by stoicism, Jewish rationalism, the work of Hobbes, he became one of the main philosophical figures of the Dutch golden age.
He was educated in the Jewish community of Amsterdam. He studied Hebrew and Latin. He is self-taught in mathematics and Cartesian philosophy. He maintained contacts with the Christian humanist Franciscus Van den Enden.
He did not accept a professorship of Philosophy in Heidelberg that was offered to him because he was required not to disturb the publicly established religion. He also rejected other donations. The readings of Hobbes, Lucretius and Giordano Bruno distanced him from Jewish orthodoxy and he was expelled from the Jewish community.
He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the one divinity and questioned rabbinic authority. The Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem against him, which caused him to be expelled and rejected by Jewish society at age 24 (1656). He then resided in The Hague, where he dedicated himself to working as a lens polisher, collaborating on lens designs for microscopes and telescopes with Constantijn and Christian Huygens.
Spinoza rejected rewards and honors throughout his life, including prestigious teaching positions. He died at age 44, in 1677, of a lung disease, perhaps tuberculosis.
A particularly modest man, he had always been content with the little he had. He only wanted one thing, that he could transmit the integrity of his thought.
His life was very austere. He was only interested in philosophy which he was introduced to through passionate reading of Descartes’ work. With 160 books, which was his assets, he paid the doctor and buried him.
Spinoza’s philosophy covers almost all areas of philosophical discourse, including metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, and the philosophy of science. With it, Spinoza gained a lasting reputation as one of the most important and original thinkers of the 17th century.
Spinoza gained international fame with the publication of Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in 1670, beginning a long correspondence with different figures, including Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society of London.
Spinoza only published two books during his lifetime: The Principles of Descartes’ Philosophy and the Tractatus Theologico Politicus, published anonymously in Amsterdam, but which soon became very famous and which brought Spinoza much criticism once it was known that he was the author.
His manuscripts were removed from his house to prevent them from being destroyed and a group of collaborators prepared his posthumous work for publication in Latin and Dutch.
This posthumous work contained the Ethics, one of the most important and influential works of Western philosophy, as well as the unfinished Tractatus Politicus, some minor works, and important correspondence.
He is considered one of the main representatives of rationalism. His magnum opus, the Ethics, was published posthumously in the same year of his death (1677). The work is characterized by a rationalism that opposes the Cartesian dualism of body and mind.
It is divided into five parts: Of God, of the soul, of the passions, of human slavery and of human freedom. He said that “the ultimate foundation of ethics is the face in front of me.”
“The translucent hands of the Jew
they carve the crystals in the darkness
and the afternoon that dies is fear and cold
(evenings are the same)
Hyacinth hands and space
that pales in the confines of the ghetto
They almost do not exist for the still man
He is not disturbed by fame, that reflection
of dreams in the dream of another mirror
nor the fearful love of maidens
Free from metaphor and mythology
Carve a difficult crystal: infinity
map of Him who is all His stars
Spinoza”.
