- Person
- Baruch Spinoza
- Lived
- 1632–1677
- Field
- Philosophy
- From
- Dutch
The story
In the 1660s the Dutch Republic, celebrated for tolerance, was growing less tolerant. War with England strained its prosperity, conservative leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church pressed the civil authorities to curb the circulation of ideas they disliked, and opponents of the tolerant statesman Johan de Witt sought to restore the House of Orange to power. Spinoza's friend Adriaan Koerbagh, who published books in Dutch criticising organised religion, was imprisoned and died in prison. Spinoza interrupted work on his Ethics to respond. The result was the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, or Theological-Political Treatise, begun in 1665 and published in Latin in 1670.
Its aim, in one scholar's words, was to free the individual from bondage to superstition and church authority. Its subtitle promised to show that the freedom to philosophise can be granted without harming piety or public peace, and that suppressing it endangers both. Spinoza read the Bible as a historical document, compiled by many authors over time, and argued that its core is a simple moral message, to love one's neighbour, so that faith and philosophy belong to separate spheres. He gave prophecy and miracles natural explanations.
On politics, he argued that the purpose of the state is to guarantee the freedom of its citizens, and that religious leaders should not interfere in politics. Democracy, in which people obey laws that come from the body of citizens as a whole, was in his view the most natural form of government, the least open to abuse, and the one most likely to keep the peace. Outward religious practice fell under the state's authority, but inner belief belonged to each individual alone.
Knowing the danger, he published anonymously, with Hamburg and a long-dead printer named on the title page instead of Amsterdam and the real publisher, Jan Rieuwertsz. He even stopped a Dutch translation to protect himself and his friends. One critic called it a book forged in hell. The Dutch Reformed Church condemned the book in 1673 and it was officially banned the next year.
Today the treatise is seen as laying groundwork for liberalism, secularism, democracy and modern biblical criticism. The historian Steven Nadler has called it one of the most important books of Western thought, and in 2014 a copy was placed in the Dutch Parliament.
Why it matters
Spinoza's case for free expression, secular government and democracy helped lay the intellectual groundwork for the liberal democracies of today.
About Baruch Spinoza
Amsterdam-born philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish descent, excommunicated at twenty-three, whose Ethics and Theological-Political Treatise helped lay the foundations of the Enlightenment.
More about Baruch Spinoza
Sources
- Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Wikipedia
- Baruch Spinoza Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.