
By: Todd Rourke
Re: Baruch Spinoza

SPINOZA,  Baruch  (1632-77). When asked about the  value  of
his  life's work, Baruch Spinoza replied, "I do not  presume
that  I  have  found  the best philosophy,  I  know  that  I
understand    the   true   philosophy."   The   Dutch-Jewish
philosopher met with tremendous resistance among many groups
in his day, but his work provided one of the bases for 17th-
century  rationalism.  He was strongly  influenced  by  Rene
Descartes, the founder of rationalism; and late in  life  he
befriended  Gottfried  Wilhelm  Leibniz,  the  other   great
rationalist of the time.

   Spinoza was born on Nov. 24, 1632, to a Portuguese family
living  in  Amsterdam,  the Netherlands.  His  parents  were
crypto-Jews  people  forced by the  Spanish  Inquisition  to
embrace  Christianity, but who secretly  held  on  to  their
Jewish faith. In Amsterdam they became members of the Jewish
community,  and  young Spinoza probably attended  the  local
school  for  Jewish  boys. After school he  had  lessons  in
Latin,   several  European  languages,  and  other   secular
subjects.

    Spinoza  began to discuss with his fellow  students  his
skepticism  about such religious doctrines as the authorship
of the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible, and
the  existence of God. The Jewish religious leaders  in  the
city  were worried that his heretical ideas might  harm  the
Jewish  community,  since  Jews were  not  yet  accepted  as
citizens.  Because  Spinoza  was  unwilling  to  recant  his
statements,  he  was excommunicated in July  1656,  and  the
civil  authorities banished him from Amsterdam for  a  short
time.

    Baruch  Spinoza  changed his first  name  to  its  Latin
equivalent,  Benedictus,  and  earned  his  living  grinding
lenses  for eyeglasses and microscopes. In 1660 he moved  to
Rijnsburg,  a small village on the Rhine River  to  practice
his  trade  and  read.  Three  years  later  he  settled  in
Voorburg,  near The Hague, where he worked on his 'Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus'.   In   May   1670   Spinoza   settled
permanently in The Hague. He continued to study  and  write,
insisting  on  reasoned  approaches  to  religion   in   his
philosophy.  He  believed in one God,  and  that  everything
depended on God, but his view of a deity was so far  removed
from the philosophy that preceded him that some philosophers
branded him an atheist.

    Writers  including Samuel Taylor Coleridge,  Johann  von
Goethe,  and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing admired his  work  and
helped  to  render  his  philosophy respectable.  His  other
writings   include  the  unfinished  'Tractatus  Politicus',
published in 1677, 'Ethics' (1677), and an unfinished Hebrew
grammar. Spinoza died on Feb. 21, 1677.
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Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia
Copyright c 1993, 1994 Compton's NewMedia, Inc.

