“Spinoza, then, emerged as the supreme philosophical bogeyman of Early Enlightenment Europe. Admittedly, historians have rarely emphasized this. It has been much more common, and still is, to claim that Spinoza was rarely understood and had very little influence, a typical example of an abiding historiographical refrain which appears to be totally untrue but nevertheless, since the nineteenth century, has exerted an enduring appeal for all manner of scholars. In fact, no one else during the century 1650–1750 remotely rivalled Spinoza's notoriety as the chief challenger of the fundamentals of revealed religion, received ideas, tradition, morality, and what was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and non-absolutist states alike, as divinely constituted political authority.”

Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
G - L, Jonathan Israel

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Spinoza, then, emerged as the supreme philosophical bogeyman of Early Enlightenment Europe. Admittedly, historians have…" by Baruch Spinoza?
Baruch Spinoza photo
Baruch Spinoza 210
Dutch philosopher 1632–1677

Related quotes

“"All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare." These words which bring to a close Spinoza's masterpiece Ethics, after the manner of Geometry, sum up the experience of a life as rare as it was difficult.”

Edgar A. Singer, Jr. (1873–1954) American philosopher

Source: Modern thinkers and present problems, (1923), p. 37: Chapter 2. Benedict de Spinoza, 1632-1677

Baruch Spinoza photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth century, perhaps none have more relevance today than Spinoza.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Steven Nadler, in article Baruch Spinoza, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (First published Jun 29, 2001; substantive revision Jul 4, 2016)
M - R, Steven Nadler

Baruch Spinoza photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“No great philosopher has so much to offer in the way of clarification and articulation of basic ecological attitudes as Baruch Spinoza.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Arne Næss, Spinoza and Ecology
M - R

Hunter S. Thompson photo

“I've found, during my admittedly limited experience in political reporting, that power & honesty very rarely coincide.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Comments on Pat Buchanan in a letter to Garry Wills (17 October 1973); published in Fear and Loathing in America (2000)
1970s
Context: We disagree so violently on almost everything that it's a real pleasure to drink with him. If nothing else, he's absolutely honest in his lunacy — and I've found, during my admittedly limited experience in political reporting, that power & honesty very rarely coincide.

Baruch Spinoza photo

“The greatest philosophical genius Judaism has given to the world, Spinoza, is the only one of the great philosophers for whom, in reality, God is the sole subject of thought;…”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Martin Buber, in his Heruth: On Youth and Religion (1919)
A - F

Baruch Spinoza photo
Gertrude Stein photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“Spinoza (1634-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Bertrand Russell, in The History of Western Philosophy (1945) Ch. X.
M - R

Related topics