Steven Nadler, Spinoza and Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 27: "Spinoza attended lectures and anatomical dissections at the University of Leiden..." Stefano Di Bella, Tad M. Schmaltz (eds.), The Problem of Universals in Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 64 "there is a strong case to be made that Spinoza was a conceptualist about universals..."

As with many of Spinoza's claims, what this means is a matter of dispute. Spinoza claims that the things that make up the universe, including human beings, are God's "modes". This means that everything is, in some sense, dependent upon God. The nature of this dependence is disputed. Some scholars say that the modes are properties of God in the traditional sense. Others say that modes are effects of God. Either way, the modes are also logically dependent on God's essence, in this sense: everything that happens follows from the nature of God, just like how it follows from the nature of a triangle that its angles are equal to two right angles. Since God had to exist with the nature he has, nothing that has happened could have been avoided, and if God has fixed a particular fate for a particular mode, there is no escaping it. As Spinoza puts it, "A thing which has been determined by God to produce an effect cannot render itself undetermined." Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" [Deus] to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional Judeo–Christian monotheism. "Spinoza expressly denies personality and consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence, feeling, nor will; he does not act according to purpose, but everything follows necessarily from his nature, according to law...." [132] Thus, Spinoza's cool, indifferent God differs from the concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly God who cares about humanity. [133] Baruch Espinosa [8] was born on 24 November 1632 in the Jodenbuurt in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was the third child and second son of Michael de Espinoza, a successful, although not enormously wealthy, Portuguese Sephardic Jewish merchant in Amsterdam, prominent in the community. [16] His mother, Hannah Déborah, Michael's second wife, died when Baruch was only six years old and Michael remarried to give his five children a mother figure; the third marriage was childless so that Spinoza and his siblings had no half- or step-siblings. [41] The family spoke Portuguese, as did other Sephardim. He studied Hebrew at school and heard it Jewish liturgy; he knew Dutch, which he likely learned informally. He learned Latin only later as a young man. [42] His name in contemporary documents before his 1656 expulsion from the Jewish community is given as the Portuguese "Bento"; his Hebrew name "Baruch" was used in the religious context. Following his expulsion at age 23, he used the Latinized version of his name, "Benedictus de Spinoza."Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas. Zweite, stark erweiterte und vollständig neu kommentierte Auflage der Ausgabe von Jakob Freudenthal 1899. M. e. Bibliographie hg. v. Manfred Walther unter Mitarbeit v. Michael Czelinski. 2 Bde. Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: frommann-holzboog, 2006. (Specula 4,1 – 4,2.) Erläuterungen. p. 98, 119. The Coherence Theory of Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)". Archived from the original on 1 November 2019 . Retrieved 1 November 2019.

See also: Epistolae (Spinoza) and List of Epistolae (Letters) of Spinoza Letter from Spinoza to Leibniz, with his BdS seal Meinsma, K.O. Spinoza et son cercle: Étude critique historique sur les héterodoxes hollandais. 1896; expanded French edn. Paris 1983. Van den Ven, Jeroen. Printing Spinoza: A Descriptive Bibliography of the Works Published in the Seventeenth Century. Leiden 2022.Jonathan Israel in his various works on the Enlightenment, Spinoza, Life & Legacy. Oxford:Oxford University Press 2023 Spinoza's contemporary, Simon de Vries, raised the objection that Spinoza fails to prove that substances may possess multiple attributes, but that if substances have only a single attribute, "where there are two different attributes, there are also different substances". [31] This is a serious weakness in Spinoza's logic, which has yet to be conclusively resolved. Some have attempted to resolve this conflict, such as Linda Trompetter, who writes that "attributes are singly essential properties, which together constitute the one essence of a substance", [32] but this interpretation is not universal, and Spinoza did not clarify the issue in his response to de Vries. [33] On the other hand, Stanley Martens states that "an attribute of a substance is that substance; it is that substance insofar as it has a certain nature" [34] in an analysis of Spinoza's ideas of attributes. Nadler, Steven (2011). A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13989-0. Archived from the original on 29 November 2019 . Retrieved 12 October 2011.

For Spinoza, reality means activity, and the reality of anything expresses itself in a tendency to self-preservation — to exist is to persist. In the lowest kinds of things, in so-called inanimate matter, this tendency shows itself as a "will to live". Regarded physiologically the effort is called appetite; when we are conscious of it, it is called desire. The moral categories, good and evil, are intimately connected with desire, though not in the way commonly supposed. Man does not desire a thing because he thinks it is good, or shun it because he considers it bad; rather he considers anything good if he desires it, and regards it as bad if he has an aversion for it. Now whatever is felt to heighten vital activity gives pleasure; whatever is felt to lower such activity causes pain. Pleasure coupled with a consciousness of its external cause is called love, and pain coupled with a consciousness of its external cause is called hate — "love" and "hate" being used in the wide sense of "like" and "dislike". All human feelings are derived from pleasure, pain and desire. Their great variety is due to the differences in the kinds of external objects which give rise to them, and to the differences in the inner conditions of the individual experiencing them. [18]

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to possess something which is encouraged by the memory of that thing while concurrently restrained by the memory of other things which exclude the existence of the thing wanted. Preface to the English Translation" reprinted as "Preface to Spinoza's Critique of Religion", in Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and Modern (New York: Basic Books, 1968, 224–59; also in Strauss, Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, 137–77). The fourth part analyzes human passions, which Spinoza sees as aspects of the mind that direct us outwards to seek what gives pleasure and shun what gives pain. The "bondage" he refers to is domination by these passions or " affects" as he calls them. Spinoza considers how the affects, ungoverned, can torment people and make it impossible for mankind to live in harmony with one another. Spinoza began publicly expressing radical religious views that were highly controversial. Spinoza biographer Steven Nadler wrote: "No doubt he was giving utterance to just those ideas that would soon appear in his philosophical treatises. In those works, Spinoza denies the immortality of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of a providential God—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and claims that the [Mosiac] Law was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews." [56] Spinoza argues through propositions. He holds the perspective that the conclusion he presents is merely the necessary logical result of combining the provided Definitions and Axioms. He starts with the proposition that "there cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute." [5] He follows this by arguing that objects and events must not merely be caused if they occur, but be prevented if they do not. By a logical contradiction, if something is non-contradictory, there is no reason that it should not exist. Spinoza builds from these starting ideas. If substance exists it must be infinite, [6] because if not infinite another finite substance would have to exist to take up the remaining parts of its finite attributes, something which is impossible according to an earlier proposition. Spinoza then uses the Ontological Argument as justification for the existence of God and argues that God (which should be read as "nature", rather than traditional deity) must possess all attributes infinitely. Since no two things can share attributes, "besides God no substance can be granted or conceived." [7]

Shortly after his death in 1677, Spinoza's works were placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Banned Books. Condemnations soon appeared, such as Aubert de Versé's L'impie convaincu (1685). According to its subtitle, in this work "the foundations of [Spinoza's] atheism are refuted". In June 1678 —just over a year after Spinoza's death—the States of Holland banned his entire works, since they “contain very many profane, blasphemous and atheistic propositions.” The prohibition included the owning, reading, distribution, copying, and restating of Spinoza's books, and even the reworking of his fundamental ideas. [27] Spinoza's ideas had an impact on the thinking of Hegel, Lessing, Moses Mendelsohn, and Kant on the so-called Jewish question, as well as on subsequent thinkers, including Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. [144] Hegel said, "The fact is that Spinoza is 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." [145] A Dutch commemorative coin issued on the 250th death anniversary of Spinoza, 1927. Spinoza Lyceum, a high school in Amsterdam South was named after Spinoza. There is also a 3 metre tall marble statute of him on the grounds of the school carved by Hildo Krop. [165] a b Dutton, Blake D. "Benedict De Spinoza (1632–1677)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Retrieved 7 July 2019. Spinoza's expulsion from the Jewish community did not lead to his conversion to Christianity. Spinoza used the Latinized name Benedictus de Spinoza and maintained a close association with the Collegiants (a liberal Protestant sect of Remonstrants) and Quakers, [65] even moved to a town near the Collegiants' headquarters, and was buried at the Protestant Church, Nieuwe Kerk, The Hague, since burial was a sectarian matter and he was ineligible to be buried in the Jewish cemetery. [66]

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It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe. He has therefore been called the "prophet" [137] and "prince" [138] and most eminent expounder of pantheism. More specifically, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg he states, "as to the view of certain people that I identify God with Nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken". [139] For Spinoza, the universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in the world. Ives, David (2009). New Jerusalem; The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation: Amsterdam, 27 July 1656. New York: Dramatists Play Service. ISBN 978-0-8222-2385-6. ) The Spinoza Foundation Monument has a statute of Spinoza located in front of the Amsterdam City Hall (at Zwanenburgwal) [167] It was created by Dutch sculptor Nicolas Dings and was erected in 2008. [168] [169]