Baruch Spinoza
1632–1677 · Amsterdam
- First attested
- 1677Opera Posthuma (1677); Amsterdam Synagogue cherem document (1656).
True freedom is understanding the necessary causal order of nature and loving it without illusion.
Sephardic-Dutch philosopher excommunicated from the Portuguese-Jewish community of Amsterdam in 1656 for radical theological views. In his masterpiece Ethics (published posthumously in 1677 and laid out in geometric order), Spinoza proposed that God and Nature are identical (Deus sive Natura).
Light
Serene intellectual clarity, ethical equanimity, and profound reverence for the cosmos.
Shadow
Cold determinism, elimination of personal relationship with the sacred.