"...For, in fact, it is impossible to name another philosopher whose impact on the entire range of intellectual debates of the Enlightenment was deeper or more far-reaching than Spinoza's or whose Bible criticism and theory of religion was more widely or obsessively wrestled with, philosophically, throughout Europe during the century after his death. If the great EncyclopĂ©die of Diderot and d'Alembert allocates twenty-two columns of text to Spinoza, the longest entry for any modern philosopher, in its entry about him, as against the remarkably low figure of only four to Locke and three to Malebranche, in their corresponding entries, this was assuredly not because the editors of the EncyclopĂ©die were so utterly unaware of what was relevant to their Enlightenment that they got their editorial priorities stupendously wrong or owing to some wholly inexplicable aberration that historians can in no way account for. The simple fact isâhowever much this runs counter to certain commonplace notionsâthat Spinoza was deemed by them to be of greater relevance to the core issues of the EncyclopĂ©die not just than Locke and Malebrance but also Hobbes or Leibniz."
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Jonathan Israel, The early Dutch and German reaction to the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus: foreshadowing the Enlightenment's more general Spinoza reception?. In Yitzhak Y. Melamed & Michael A. Rosenthal (eds.), Spinoza's 'Theological-Political Treatise': A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza
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Baruch Spinoza
philosopher, Bible translator, grinder of lenses
1632 â 1677 · Dutch Republic
Benedictus de Spinoza (24 November 1632 â 21 February 1677) was a social and metaphysical philosopher known for the elaborate development of his monist philosophy, which has become known as Spinozism. Controversy regarding his ideas led to his excommunication from the Jewish community of his native Amsterdam. He was named Baruch ("blessed" in Hebrew) Spinoza by his synagogue elders and known as Bento de Spinoza or Bento d'Espiñoza, but afterwards used the name Benedictus ("blessed" in Latin) de
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