![]() ![]() France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire were gripped by wars and civil wars – fought in the name of religion – which led to the deaths of millions of people. The old order had been destabilised and in the 17th century, the major European monarchies transformed into absolutist regimes, with all power concentrated in the hands of the monarchical ruler, who balanced between the old, decrepit aristocracy and the ascending capitalist class.Ībsolutism was supported by the established Church, be it Catholic or Protestant, which maintained a dictatorship over all aspects of personal life, including people’s thoughts. The internal contradictions of the old European regimes had been exacerbated by the rise of the bourgeoisie. This was a period of extreme turbulence: of wars, civil wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions. The Enlightenment covers a period of intense cultural, scientific and intellectual turmoil, coinciding with the rise of capitalism in Europe, spanning from roughly the middle of the 17th century until the first decades of the 19th century. Those who attempted to explain nature by “the will of God”, he boldly accused of seeking “the sanctuary of ignorance.” In this quest for a rational approach, and an explanation of nature on the account of nature alone, he inescapably came into conflict with the ruling ideas of his time. This is why he freely set forth his doubts and his beliefs.” In doing so, we might add, he encapsulated the true spirit of his age.Įverywhere in Europe, Spinoza received notoriety for his unbending rational method, and his rejection of any recourse to traditions, emotions and empty morality when seeking to understand the nature of our world at its most fundamental level. matter or mind), had to admit that “he was a man who was averse to any constraint of conscience and a great enemy of dissimulation. ![]() a philosophy that considers the world to be composed of one substance e.g. In his famous Historical and Critical Dictionary published in 1697, even the theologian Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), who was an avowed opponent of Spinoza’s monism (i.e. Along with other early Enlightenment thinkers such as Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and René Descartes (1596-1650), he was one of those towering figures of history and a leading light at a time when humanity was fighting its way out of the gloomy morass of feudal society. Spinoza was an outstanding representative of his age. And the mind derives as much enjoyment in contemplating them aright as from the knowledge of things that are pleasing to the senses.” These things, though troublesome, are inevitable, and have definite causes through which we try to understand their nature. So I have regarded human emotions such as love, hatred, anger, envy, pride, pity, and other agitations of the mind not as vices of human nature but as properties pertaining to it in the same way as heat, cold, storm, thunder, and such pertain to the nature of the atmosphere. “I have taken great care not to deride, bewail, or execrate human actions, but to understand them. It was directly linked to the task of understanding nature and society, in order to change them for the benefit of mankind. For this great thinker, however, philosophy was no tame, speculative exercise. ![]() Such was the impact of his ideas, as Hegel explained, that “Spinoza made a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that it may really be said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all.” Coming from Hegel, these words are an undeniable testament to the influence of Spinoza’s ideas. The radical philosophy of the Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), played a seminal role in this development. It produced a multitude of thinkers whose struggle against ignorance, superstition and religious dogma played a key role in the fight against the feudal system and the dictatorship of the Church. The age of Enlightenment, also known as the age of Reason, was one of the most inspiring episodes in human history. As Hamid Alizadeh explains, Spinoza’s philosophy – which contained a materialist and atheistic kernel – represented a revolutionary challenge to the authority of both Church and state. Born in 1632 in the Dutch Republic, the rationalist philosopher Baruch Spinoza was one of the great fathers of Enlightenment thinking. ![]()
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