Spinoza

Modern philosophy

Spinoza was a seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher (1632-1677). He distanced himself from Judaism and was excommunicated as a result. He earned his living by cutting and polishing lenses for spectacles and microscopes. Faced with censorship and the risks it entailed, he chose not to publish his major work, the Ethics, during his lifetime. It did not appear until after his death, along with other works including On the Improvement of the Understanding and A Theologico-Political Treatise.

On this page dedicated to Spinoza, discover summaries of his works, a bibliography, videos, a detailed biography, and a list of his major works.

Spinoza's Works Summarised on This Site

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Ethics

Spinoza sets out in geometrical order, in the form of propositions that deduce from one another, his conception of the world and of the wise man

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Bibliography

Here are the essential books if you want to better understand this author's thought:

Scruton, Roger (2002). Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Koistinen, Olli, (ed.). 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Israel, Jonathan (2023). Spinoza, Life and Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Della Rocca, Michael (ed.) 2018. The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza. Cambridge: Oxford University Press
Stolze, Ted and Warren Montag (eds.), The New Spinoza, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997

Biography: Life of Spinoza

Childhood

Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632, into a Jewish family that had fled the persecution of the Inquisition. They were Marranos — Portuguese Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity but remained secretly attached to Judaism — who had taken refuge in the more tolerant Netherlands.

Baruch, meaning "blessed" in Hebrew, attended Jewish primary schools, where he studied both theology and business. He went on to deepen his knowledge of the Torah and the thought of Maimonides.

In 1654, his father died, and Spinoza took over as head of the family trading house.

The Discovery of Philosophy

At that time, a republican and freethinking philosopher, Franciscus van den Enden, had just founded a school in Amsterdam. Spinoza enrolled there, learnt Latin, and discovered the thought of Hobbes, Bacon and Machiavelli.

He apparently began to question the beliefs of his community, which earned him the hostility of certain members.

He survived an assassination attempt: a man lunged at him with a knife, and he is said to have kept the coat — holes and all — as a reminder of the madness that religion can provoke. Whether this is fact or legend, however, is uncertain.

What is certain is that in 1656, he was excommunicated for heresy by the highest authorities of his community. The exact statement that prompted the sentence is not known.

This appears to have troubled Spinoza little. He made no attempt to be readmitted — through an act of contrition, for instance — and chose instead to leave, making his way to Leiden to continue his philosophical studies.

He learnt to cut glass and specialised in making optical lenses for spectacles and microscopes — a rare case of a philosopher turning craftsman.

the statue of Spinoza in Amsterdam, the Netherlands — The statue of Spinoza in the Netherlands, Amsterdam

The Beginning of Writing

He moved to Rijnsburg, where he presented to friends the contents of what would become A Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being — a work that would not be published until the nineteenth century.

In 1661, he began writing On the Improvement of the Understanding, which he left unfinished, turning his attention to two other projects.

The first arose from private philosophy lessons he was giving at the time, through which he was introducing a pupil to Cartesian doctrine. This led to the publication of his first work, Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, in 1663.

The second was far more ambitious: the Ethics, his most celebrated work.

On the Improvement of the Understanding was accordingly set aside, its writing permanently interrupted despite later attempts to resume it.

Like the Short Treatise, it would never be published in his lifetime, appearing only posthumously.

In 1663, Spinoza moved to Voorburg, a small town on the outskirts of The Hague. He continued writing the Ethics and shared certain passages with friends, asking them to keep their knowledge of it quiet so as to avoid trouble with the authorities.

The Publication of the Treatise

This was a turbulent period in which two political factions were vying for power: the republican party of the De Witt brothers — progressive, committed to peace — and the Calvinist party of William of Orange, bellicose and reactionary.

Seeing the people rally to the Calvinist side, Spinoza chose to set aside The Ethics temporarily and embark on a new work: A Theologico-Political Treatise.

In it, he poses the question: why does a people choose servitude over freedom? What drives such irrationality?

The incendiary nature of the work inevitably exposed it to censorship. It was therefore published under a false name and a fictitious place of publication. The fact that it was written in Latin reduced the risk of legal proceedings.

Despite these precautions, Spinoza was soon identified as the true author. The work unleashed the fury of the authorities and met with near-universal condemnation from the intellectuals of the day — including Cartesians and certain free thinkers such as Leibniz. "Spinozist" became a term of abuse. He faced curses, threats and insults from the devout and the learned alike.

Later Life

With the assassination of the De Witt brothers, the outlook darkened further.

William of Orange put an end to the liberal spirit that had prevailed in the Netherlands — formerly the United Provinces — and to the relative tolerance that had made it distinctive, making it even harder for Spinoza to publish his work.

Any hope of publishing the Ethics had to be abandoned. An attempt in The Hague, swiftly abandoned after legal proceedings were opened, put paid to the idea.

Faced with the risks involved, he gave up and threw himself instead into his final work, the Political Treatise.

Yet although he seemed isolated, he began to receive visits from thinkers such as Leibniz, drawn by the boldness of his thought, and eager to learn the contents of the Ethics — even if it meant afterwards denying that the visits had ever taken place, to protect themselves from censorship.

He died in 1677 at The Hague. His manuscripts were carefully preserved by his friend Meyer and subsequently published — to a storm of public outrage.

Main Works

A Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being
On the Improvement of the Understanding
The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy
A Theologico-Political Treatise
The Ethics