Born: 11/24/1632   Died: 2/21/1677

Spinoza, a lens grinder by trade, was one of the great 17th century rationalists. His heterodox views about religion led to his excommunication from the Jewish community in his native Holland. Spinoza gained international notoriety with the publication of his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, a defense of freedom of thought and religion. Spinoza's most famous work, the Ethics, is written in the form of a geometrical demonstration and explores the nature of God, human psychology, mind and body, and the best way to live. Among Spinoza's conclusions are that there is only one substance, God or Nature, and that mind and body are but parallel aspects of this single substance. Spinoza's determinism led him to reject the traditional notion of free will, but he held that varying degrees of human freedom are possible depending on the degree to which we control our passions and reach genuine understanding.