Spinoza

Book excerpt: Ostracized by the Jewish community in Amsterdam into which he was born, Spinoza developed a political philosophy that set out to justify the secular State, ruled by a liberal constitution, and a metaphysics, according to which everything exists in God as a 'mode' of the divine substance, that sought to reconcile human freedom with a belief in scientific explanation. In this book Roger Scruton presents a clear and systematic analysis of Spinoza's thought, and shows its relevance to today's intellectual preoccupations.