num_pages: 144
description: Father of the Enlightenment and the last guardian of the medieval world, Spinoza made a brilliant attempt to reconcile the conflicting moral and intellectual demands of his epoch and to present a vision of man as simultaneously bound by necessity and eternally free. Ostracized by the Jewish community in Amsterddam to which he was born, Spinoza developed a political philosophy that set out to justify the secular state ruled by a liberal constitution, and a metaphysics that sought to reconcile human freedom with a belief in scientific explanation. Here, Roger Scruton presents a clear and systematic analysis of Spinoza's thought and shows its relevance to today's intellectual preoccupations.
language: English
title: Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction
titlecomplete: Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction
characters: Baruch Spinoza
genres: Jewish, Religion, Politics, Biography, Philosophy, Nonfiction, History
ratings_count: 718
publisher: Oxford University Press