On the Improvement of the Understanding, Classics To Go

Benedictus de Spinoza

Baruch (de) Spinoza, (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin. One of the foremost exponents of 17th-century Rationalism and one of the early and seminal thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered "one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period." Inspired by the groundbreaking ideas of René Descartes, Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure of the Dutch Golden Age.