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- Baruch de Spinoza or Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677), a highly controversial, influential and significant figure in the history of Western and Jewish thought, has been the subject of a vast amount of literature, including both philosophical and literary works in genres as diverse as fiction and nonfiction. His life and philosophy have long attracted the attention of multidisciplinary scholarship. Along with Hugo Grotius, Jan Amos Comenius, René Descartes and Pierre Bayle, Spinoza was one of the leading intellectual figures of the Dutch Golden Age and the early Age of Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic. A highly original and systematic thinker, he exerted a profound influence on philosophy in the Age of Reason, despite his status as an outcast and his early death at the age of 44. Also, it was the 17th-century arch-rationalists like Spinoza (along with Descartes and Leibniz) who have given the "Age of Reason" its name and place in history. In Steven Nadler's words, "Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth century, perhaps none have more relevance today than Spinoza." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001–2016). His thought was especially a vital force in the development of German philosophy (from the age of Leibniz–Wolff to Lessing–Mendelssohn–Jacobi–Herder to Fichte–Schleiermacher–Hegel–Schelling to Feuerbach–Hess–Marx–Engels to Nietzsche to Haeckel, his philosophy was especially both an immense source of inspiration and challenge for almost every major German thinker, including both the idealists and materialists) and culture in general (his significant influence on German literary luminaries from the age of Lessing to Goethe–Hölderlin–Novalis–Schlegel–Heine, particularly the Romantics, as well as on many German-speaking Jewish cultural figures) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The birth of two influential rationalistic philosophical systems of Descartes (who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic in the period 1628–1649 and despite frequent moves, he wrote all his major work during his 20-plus years in the United Provinces) and Spinoza – namely Cartesianism and Spinozism — are among the most remarkable philosophical breakthroughs of Dutch Golden Age and early modern Western thought. As Frederick C. Beiser (1987) noted, "The rise of Spinozism in the late eighteenth century is a phenomenon of no less significance than the emergence of Kantianism itself. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Spinoza's philosophy had become the main competitor to Kant's, and only Spinoza had as many admirers or adherents as Kant." And in own words of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Spinozism dominated the eighteenth century both in its later French variety, which made matter into substance, and in deism, which conferred on matter a more spiritual name.... Spinoza's French school and the supporters of deism were but two sects disputing over the true meaning of his system...." (The Holy Family, 1844). Of all the generally acknowledged great philosophers in history, Spinoza is among the least accessible authors and among the most puzzling to read, understand and interpret. There have been several historically remarkable movements/schools of Spinoza reception and interpretation in various countries, notably Germany, France, Italy, and Latin America (in particular Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico). In the history of Western thought, two well-known and highly significant Spinoza revivals include German-inspired Neo-Spinozism (of approximately the late 18th and early 19th centuries) and French-inspired Neo-Spinozism (of approximately the late 20th and early 21st centuries). There may be no philosopher in history (with the possible exceptions of Socrates and Nietzsche) who has received greater attention in artistic, literary and popular culture than Bento (Benedictus) de Spinoza (1632–1677). His life, ideas and influence have been the subject of numerous novels, plays, poems, paintings, sculptures, even musical pieces and opera. His name and his visage have been used in the marketing of various items in the worlds of entertainment, leisure and consumption, from cafés to rock bands to bagels. [...] A relatively simple explanation for Spinoza's unusually high profile outside the walls of academia is at hand. Spinoza was the most radical and iconoclastic thinker of his time. His ideas on religion, politics, ethics, human psychology and metaphysics, presented in difficult and sometimes mystifying treatises, lay the groundwork for much of what we now regard as "modern." Perhaps most enticing of all, he was excommunicated from the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community as a young man for reasons that remain obscure (although not hard to fathom). Everyone loves a rebel—especially one whose values they likely share and whom, they feel, was unjustly punished by those in power. — Spinoza scholar Steven Nadler, Jan 2017 For many, Spinoza is not only a pure philosophical author but also a unique source of literary inspiration, who—despite his notoriously difficult thought, highly abstract concepts, highly complex doctrines, highly rigid writing style, dry personality and intensely private life—has greatly influenced so many prominent literary writers, particularly poets and fiction authors. The following is a list of works about Spinoza. (en)
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- Baruch de Spinoza or Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677), a highly controversial, influential and significant figure in the history of Western and Jewish thought, has been the subject of a vast amount of literature, including both philosophical and literary works in genres as diverse as fiction and nonfiction. His life and philosophy have long attracted the attention of multidisciplinary scholarship. Along with Hugo Grotius, Jan Amos Comenius, René Descartes and Pierre Bayle, Spinoza was one of the leading intellectual figures of the Dutch Golden Age and the early Age of Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic. A highly original and systematic thinker, he exerted a profound influence on philosophy in the Age of Reason, despite his status as an outcast and his early death at the age of 44. Also, (en)
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