Baruch (de) Spinoza^[b] (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677),^[17][18][19] mostly known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza,^[20] was a leading seventeenth-century philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin,^[21] who was born in Amsterdam and lived in the Dutch Republic.

One of the foremost and seminal thinkers of the Age of Reason,^[18] modern biblical criticism,^[22] and 17th-century Rationalism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe,^[23] he came to be considered "one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period".^[24] He was influenced by Stoicism, Maimonides, Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, and a variety of heterodox Christian thinkers of his day. ^[19]

His controversial ideas challenged the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible, the nature of God, and the earthly power wielded by religious authorities, Jewish and Christian alike. He was frequently called an "atheist" by contemporaries, although nowhere in his work does Spinoza argue against the existence of a god.^[25][26] This can be explained by the fact that, unlike contemporary 21st century scholars, "When seventeenth-century readers accused Spinoza of atheism, they usually meant that he challenged doctrinal orthodoxy, particularly on moral issues, and not that he denied God’s existence."^[27] His theological studies were inseparable from his thinking on politics; he is grouped with Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz, and Kant, who "helped establish the genre of political writing called secular theology."^[28]