Baruch Spinoza - Great Philosophers Volume One: The Road to Inner Freedom, The Art of Philosophizing, and Pilgrimage to Humanity

Great Philosophers Volume One

The Road to Inner Freedom, The Art of Philosophizing, and Pilgrimage to Humanity

Baruch Spinoza, Bertrand Russell, and Albert Schweitzer

CONTENTS

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The Road to Inner Freedom Copyright 1957 by Philosophical Library, Inc.

The Art of Philosophizing and Other Essays Copyright 1968 by Philosophical Library, Inc.

Pilgrimage to Humanity Copyright 1961 by Philosophical Library, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-5040-5489-8

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BARUCH SPINOZA

FROM PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA

BERTRAND RUSSELL

FROM PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA

ALBERT SCHWEITZER

FROM PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA

Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jew-ish origin. Born Benedito de Espinosa; 24 November 1632 21 February 1677, in Amsterdam, the son of Portuguese Jewish refugees who had fled from the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition. Although reared in the Jew-ish community, he rebelled against its religious views and practices, and at the age of 24 was formally excommunicated from the Portuguese-Spanish Synagogue of Amsterdam. He was thus effectively cast out of the Jewish world and joined a group of nonconfessional Christians (although he never became a Christian), the Collegiants, who professed no creeds or practices but shared a spiritual brotherhood. He was also involved with the Quaker mission in Amsterdam. Spinoza eventually settled in The Hague, where he lived quietly, studying philosophy, science, and theology, discussing his ideas with a small circle of independent thinkers, and earning his living as a lens grinder. He corresponded with some of the leading philosophers and scientists of his time and was visited by Leibniz and many others. He is said to have refused offers to teach at Heidelberg or to be court philosopher for the Prince of Conde. During his lifetime he published only two works, The Principles of Descartes Philosophy (1666) and the Theological Political Tractatus (1670). In the first his own theory began to emerge as the consistent consequence of that of Descartes. In the second, he gave his reasons for rejecting the claims of religious knowledge and elaborated his theory of the independence of the state from all religious factions. It was only after his death (probably caused by consumption re-sulting from glass dust), that his major work, the Ethics, appeared in his Opera Posthuma