Book description
The seventeenth-century philosopher Spinoza was expelled from the
Jewish community of Amsterdam the age of twenty-four for 'horrendous
heresies', and was eventually reviled by all religious authorities for
claiming that human beings are parts of a single, unified nature, that
God is identical with nature, and that reason, not revelation, supplies
the truth of any aspect of God. Undeterred, he made this thesis the
basis for a rational crusade against superstition and prejudice. Dr
Gullan-Whur's biography, the first for twenty-eight years, shows how
Spinoza's central philosophical beliefs developed within the context of
his own life. Drawing on very recent scholary research and making
detailed reference to primary sources, some not previously explored, the
author focuses on the philosopher's attempt to act solely through reason
in the face of turbulent personal and national circumstances. This new
approach demolishes the myth that Spinoza was a lofty ascetic. It
exposes his emotional and sexual vulnerabilit arrogance and misogyny,
yet shows his living philosophical experiment to be shrply relevant
today.
