Baruch Spinoza
1632 – 1677 · Netherlands · Philosophy
Ethics identified God with Nature and grounded secular democratic thought.
Index entry
Baruch Spinoza is currently a short index entry. The research desk can draft the full profile — achievements, works, living legacy and what is documented about the family line.
Expand this profileContinuity of ideas
Who shaped Baruch Spinoza, and who they shaped
Inherited from2
- Maimonides
1138 – 1204 · Philosophy, Medicine
Spinoza reads and then breaks with the Guide of the Perplexed on prophecy and scripture.
- René Descartes
1596 – 1650 · Philosophy, Mathematics
Spinoza's Ethics is written in and against Cartesian substance dualism.
Passed the work to2
- Albert Einstein
1879 – 1955 · Physics
Einstein professed 'Spinoza's God' — lawful nature rather than a personal deity.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749 – 1832 · Literature, Biology
Goethe called the Ethics the book that steadied him; its immanent God shapes his nature writing.
Sources and references
Numbered markers in the text above point to the entries below. Each links to a primary document, archival collection or scholarly reference where the claim about Baruch Spinoza can be checked.
- 1.Primary texts and first editions by or about Baruch Spinoza
Internet Archive · Primary source
- 2.Catalogued holdings and archival finding aids for Baruch Spinoza
WorldCat (OCLC) · Archive
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334 BCE – 262 BCEFounded Stoicism in the Athenian Stoa Poikile.
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50 – 135Enslaved teacher whose Discourses fixed the dichotomy of control at the heart of Stoic practice.