Baruch Spinoza facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Baruch de Spinoza
Era	17th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Rationalism, founder of Spinozism
Main interests	Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics
Notable ideas	Pantheism, Conatus, Deism, neutral monism, intellectual and religious freedom / separation of church and state, Criticism of Mosaic authorship of certain books of the Hebrew Bible, Political society derived from power, not contract
Influences Hobbes, Descartes, Stoics, Avicenna, Maimonides, Nicholas of Cusa, Aristotle, Bacon, Plato
Influenced Hegel, Marx, Davidson, Schopenhauer, Deleuze, Einstein, Fichte, Leibniz, Goethe, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Althusser, Hardt, Negri, Fromm, Santayana, Schelling, Bookchin, Kant

Baruch Spinoza (24 November 1632 in Amsterdam – 21 February 1677 in The Hague) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. He is considered to be one of the great Rationalist philosophers of the 17th century. Other famous rationalists include Gottfried Leibniz and René Descartes.

Life

Spinoza's ideas were not cherished by the Jewish community in Amsterdam of the time, and Spinoza was excommunicated in 1656.

Key ideas

An important idea in Spinoza's philosophy is God and Nature (everything that exists) are the same thing. Opposing Dualism, Spinoza said that the body and the mind (soul) are two of God's infinite attributes.

There is no good or evil in Nature, and that these words only have meanings for human beings. For a person, an event that leads to happiness is good, and an event that leads to suffering is bad.

Spinoza describes two types of thoughts, or emotions:

• When a person acts from his own nature, he is said to be Active. The more you understand your actions, the more active you become. Active emotions lead to happiness and an understanding of God, as well as to Freedom.
• When a person is being influenced by another person, or a thing, he is said to be Passive.

The goal of every person is to intellectually love God (that is, understand Nature as much as humanly possible).

Images for kids

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  Statue (2008) of Spinoza by Nicolas Dings, Amsterdam, Zwanenburgwal, with inscription "The objective of the state is freedom" (translation, quote from Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1677)

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  Map by Balthasar Florisz van Berckenrode (1625) with the present location of the Moses and Aaron Church in white, but also the spot where Spinoza grew up.

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  Spinoza lived where the Moses and Aaron Church is located now, and there is strong evidence that he may have been born there.

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  Ban in Portuguese of Baruch Spinoza by his Portuguese Jewish synagogue community of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 6 Av 5416 (27 July 1656).

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  "Baruch Espinosa", son of Michael Espinosa was erased from the list of pupils of the school Ets Haim, Amsterdam, 17th century. His brother "Ishac" is registered just above.

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  Statue of Spinoza, near the Museum Het Spinozahuis in The Hague by Frédéric Hexamer [es]

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  Spinoza and the Rabbis by Samuel Hirszenberg (1907)

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  Spinoza's house in Rijnsburg from 1661 to 1663, now a museum

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  Study room of Spinoza

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  Spinoza House in The Hague, where Spinoza lived from 1670 until his death in 1677

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  Burial monument of Spinoza at the churchyard of the Nieuwe Kerk (The Hague)

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  The opening page of Spinoza's magnum opus, Ethics