death_date death_place influenced era birth_place school_tradition influences image_size nationality main_interests notable_ideas birth_date residence image article_title name region
21 february 1677 the hague , dutch republic hegel davidson , deleuze , einstein , george eliot , fichte , , novalis , leibniz , goethe , nietzsche , wittgenstein næss , freud , althusser , hardt , negri , santayana , , coleridge , leo strauss , georges bataille marx , g. wagner , 17th-century philosophy amsterdam , dutch republic rationalism , founder of spinozism descartes , avicenna , averroes , aristotle , democritus , lucretius , , epicurus , niccolo machiavelli , thomas hobbes , giordano stoics bruno , franciscus van den enden , maimonides , abraham ibn ezra 225px dutch ethics , epistemology , metaphysics , hebrew grammar pantheism religious freedom , separation of church and state , criticism , of mosaic authorship of some books of the hebrew bible determinism , political society derived from power , not contract , neutral monism , intellectual and 24 november 1632 netherlands spinoza.jpg baruch spinoza
 baruch spinoza western philosophy
baruch spinoza

baruch spinoza -lrb- ; born benedito de espinosa ; 24 november 1632 -- 21 february 1677 , later benedict de spinoza -rrb- was a dutch philosopher of sephardi portuguese origin .
the breadth and importance of spinoza 's work was not fully realized until many years after his death .
by laying the groundwork for the 18th-century enlightenment and modern biblical criticism , including modern conceptions of the self and the universe , he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy his magnum opus , the posthumous `` ethics '' , in which he opposed descartes ' mind -- body dualism , has earned him recognition as one of western philosophy 's most important thinkers .
in the `` ethics '' , `` spinoza wrote the last indisputable latin masterpiece , and one in which the refined conceptions of medieval philosophy are finally turned against themselves and destroyed entirely . ''
hegel said , `` you are either a spinozist or not a philosopher at all . ''
his philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher gilles deleuze to name him `` the ` prince ' of philosophers '' .
spinoza 's given name varies between different languages : `` baruch spinoza '' , and ; in all these languages , the given name means `` blessed '' .
spinoza was raised in the portuguese jewish community in amsterdam .
he developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the hebrew bible and the nature of the divine .
the jewish religious authorities issued a `` cherem '' -lrb- hebrew : חרם , a kind of ban , shunning , ostracism , expulsion , or excommunication -rrb- against him , effectively excluding him from jewish society at age 23 .
his books were also later put on the catholic church 's `` index of forbidden books '' .
spinoza lived an outwardly simple life as a lens grinder , turning down rewards and honours throughout his life , including prestigious teaching positions .
spinoza died at the age of 44 allegedly of a lung illness , perhaps tuberculosis or silicosis exacerbated by fine glass dust inhaled while grinding optical lenses .
spinoza is buried in the churchyard of the christian nieuwe kerk in the hague .
