Baruch Spinoza

Baruch de Spinoza (Philosopher 1632-1677)

➢ The time of Baruch de Spinoza’s first step in life:

Baruch Spinoza, also known under the names of Bento de Espinosa or Benedictus de Spinoza, was born on November 24th, 1632 in Amsterdam. He was descendant from a Jewish Family “ marrane” Portuguese (name of a kind of Jewish who come from of the Iberia peninsula) who had to run away the Inquisition. But before the time of exclusion, he started to learn in the elementary Jewish school, “the Talmud Torah”, of his community, thanks to he acquiring good bases of the Hebrew’s grammar and the rabbinical culture. In 1654 after his father’s death, he takes back the family company with his brother called Gabriel.

➢ The time of exclusion:

In 1656 the elders ex communicated Spinoza from the synagogue. Their reasons for his ex communication were “abominable heresies” and “monstrous deed”. In this time, the ex communication was called “ herem” but even today we do not know in details all the accusation reasons. The people of the synagogue were told to stop coming close to, communicating with, doing business with, and reading writings by Spinoza. In 1661 he settled in a town called Rijnsburg, very close to Leiden.

➢ The time of creation:

In 1670 Spinoza moved to The Hague for the remainder of his life. He was deeply saddened by the murder of the Grand Pensionary of Holland, Jan De Witt and his brother Cornelius. He began Hebrew Grammar and continued working on “The Ethics” but while it was finished in 1675 he decided against publishing it due to the negative response he was expecting it would receive. Around this time Spinoza was in bad health due to a respiratory illness and was spending most of the remaining years of his life writing a political philosophy piece titled his “Political Treatise”. The goal of his piece was to show how all forms of governments can better themselves and how democracy is the best form of a political organization overall, in the end his plan was to have this work published after his death. Before his death he finished this piece and was thought to be an “ astute analyst of diverse constitutional forms and an original thinker among liberal social contract theorists.” He passed away in The Hague in the year 1677. The only thing he left behind were the manuscripts of his unpublished works that included “ The Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, the Ethics, the Hebrew Grammar, and the Political Treatise”. These pieces were moved to Amsterdam for publication and did make a small appearance in print as B.D.S Opus Posthumous but were shortly banned throughout Holland in 1678 because controversy towards Spinoza still remained. Moreover, We know today, Spinoza as the first philosopher who develops the “ atheism “ the fact to not believe in god “ because for him “ god was the nature” he also debated on philosophic issues such as the meaning of life, veracity, and religion.

➢ The time of Baruch de Spinoza’s heritance and actuals debates:

A few times after his death, the movement spinozisme, condemned as atheistic doctrine (in large part because his pantheism goes

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