Baruch Spinoza

In the history of philosophy, Baruch (later Benedict) Spinoza (b. 1632–d. 1677) is best known as one of the great rationalists of the seventeenth century, alongside René Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Nicolas Malebranche. As such, Spinoza is recognized for employing a priori metaphysical reasoning as the basis for a philosophical system that spans the gamut of traditional philosophical topics: God, metaphysics, natural philosophy, psychology, ethics, and politics. However, there is more to be said regarding Spinoza’s historical significance. Spinoza did more than perhaps any philosopher of the seventeenth century to advance revolutionary ideas that paved the way for the important collection of intellectual and social changes in the eighteenth century that are loosely described as the Enlightenment. These ideas include defenses of democracy, toleration, freedom of thought, and the secularization of philosophy, ethics, and natural science. Partly for this reason, Spinoza has also been an important subject for work in history, political theory, religious studies, and literary theory. Given the logistical constraints of this bibliographical entry, it will focus primarily on the large and growing body of work on Spinoza by philosophers, though important works from other disciplines will be mentioned as well. I will also concentrate on scholarship that introduces the central topics in the literature, though I will provide references to some of the more influential scholarship that is geared primarily toward specialists. I will also tend to focus on English-language scholarship, with a few notable exceptions.