Spinoza, Baruch (or Benedictus) (1632-77)

Dutch Jewish philosopher. Often viewed as a pantheist, or pure naturalist, and rigid determinist, he wrote of the single metaphysical substance (“God or nature”), or the one necessary being that is self-dependent and not distinct from the world. As a strict rationalist influenced by René Descartes (1596-1650), he also discussed how we may know this one reality by way of a kind of Euclidian reasoning that issues in an ethical appreciation of reality as it is known to the intellect.

Contributed by: Marty Maddox/CTNS