Benedictus de Spinoza

Biography

Family background

Spinoza's ancestors, adherents of crypto-Judaism, faced persecution during the Portuguese Inquisition, including torture and public displays of humiliation. In 1597, his paternal grandfather's family left Vidigueira for Nantes and lived outwardly as New Christians, eventually transferring to Holland for an unknown reason. His maternal ancestors were a leading Porto commercial family, and his maternal grandfather was a foremost merchant who drifted between Judaism and Christianity. Spinoza was raised by his grandmother from ages six to nine and probably learned much about his family history from her.

Spinoza's father, Michael, was a prominent and wealthy merchant in Amsterdam with a business that had a wide geographical reach. In 1649, Michael was elected to serve as an administrative officer of the recently united congregation Talmud Torah. He married his cousin Rachael d'Espinosa, daughter of his uncle Abraham d'Espinosa, who was also a community leader and Michael's business partner. Marrying cousins was common in the Portuguese Jewish community then, giving Michael access to his father-in-law's commercial network and capital. Rachel's children died in infancy, and she died in 1627.

After the death of Rachel, Michael married Hannah Deborah, with whom he had five children. His second wife brought a dowry to the marriage that was absorbed into Michael's business capital instead of being set aside for her children, which may have caused a grudge between Spinoza and his father. The family lived on the artificial island on the south side of the River Amstel, known as the Vlooienburg, at the fifth house along the Houtgracht canal. The Jewish quarter was not formally divided. The family lived close to the Bet Ya'acov synagogue, and nearby were Christians, including the artist Rembrandt. Miriam was their first child, followed by Isaac, who was expected to take over as head of the family and the commercial enterprise, but died in 1649. Baruch Espinosa, the third child, was born on 24 November 1632 and named as per tradition for his maternal grandfather.

Spinoza's younger brother, Gabriel, was born in 1634, followed by another sister, Rebecca. Miriam married Samuel de Caceres but died shortly after childbirth. According to Jewish practice, Samuel had to marry his former sister-in-law Rebecca. Following his brother's death, Spinoza's place as head of the family and its business meant scholarly ambitions were pushed aside. Spinoza's mother, Hannah Deborah, died when Spinoza was six years old. Michael's third wife, Esther, raised Spinoza from age nine; she lacked formal Jewish knowledge due to growing up a New Christian and only spoke Portuguese at home. The marriage was childless. Spinoza's sister Rebecca, brother Gabriel, and nephew eventually migrated to Curaçao, and the remaining family joined them after Spinoza's death.

School days and the family business

Spinoza attended the Talmud Torah school adjoining the Bet Ya'acov synagogue, a few doors down from his home, headed by the senior Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira. Instructed in Spanish, the language of learning and literature, students in the elementary school learned to read the prayerbook and the Torah in Hebrew, translate the weekly section into Spanish, and study Rashi's commentary. Spinoza's name does not appear on the registry after age fourteen, and he likely never studied with rabbis such as Manasseh ben Israel and Morteira. Spinoza possibly went to work around fourteen and almost certainly was needed in his father's business after his brother died in 1649.

During the First Anglo-Dutch War, much of the Spinoza firm's ships and cargo were captured by English ships, severely affecting the firm's financial viability. The firm was saddled with debt by the war's end in 1654 due to its merchant voyages being intercepted by the English, leading to its decline. Spinoza's father died in 1654, making Baruch the head of the family, responsible for organizing and leading the Jewish mourning rituals, and in a business partnership with his brother in their inherited firm. As Spinoza's father had poor health for some years before his death, he was significantly involved in the business, putting his intellectual curiosity on hold. Until 1656, he continued financially supporting the synagogue and attending services in compliance with synagogue conventions and practice. By 1655, the family's wealth had evaporated, and the business effectively ended.

In March 1656, Spinoza went to the city authorities for protection against debts in the Portuguese Jewish community. To free himself from the responsibility of paying debts owed by his father, Spinoza appealed to the city to declare him an orphan; since he was a legal minor, not understanding his father's indebtedness would remove the obligation to repay his debts and retrospectively renounce his inheritance. Though he was released of all debts and legally in the right, his reputation as a merchant was permanently damaged, in addition to violating a synagogue regulation that business matters are to be arbitrated within the community.

Expulsion from the Jewish community

Amsterdam was tolerant of religious diversity so long as it was practiced discreetly. The community was concerned with protecting its reputation and not associating with Spinoza lest his controversial views provide the basis for possible persecution or expulsion. Spinoza did not openly break with Jewish authorities until his father died in 1654 when he became public and defiant, resulting from lengthy and stressful religious, financial, and legal clashes involving his business and synagogue, such as when Spinoza violated synagogue regulations by going to city authorities rather than resolving his disputes within the community to free himself from paying his father's debt.

On 27 July 1656, the Talmud Torah community leaders, which included Aboab de Fonseca, issued a writ of herem against the 23-year-old Spinoza. Spinoza's censure was the harshest ever pronounced in the community, carrying tremendous emotional and spiritual impact. The exact reason for expelling Spinoza is not stated, only referring to his "abominable heresies", "monstrous deeds", and the testimony of witnesses "in the presence of the said Espinoza". Even though the Amsterdam municipal authorities were not directly involved in Spinoza's censure, the town council expressly ordered the Portuguese-Jewish community to regulate their conduct and ensure that the community kept strict observance of Jewish law. Other evidence indicates a concern about upsetting civil authorities, such as the synagogue's bans on public weddings, funeral processions, and discussing religious matters with Christians, lest such activity might "disturb the liberty we enjoy".

Before the expulsion, Spinoza had not published anything or written a treatise; Steven Nadler states that if Spinoza was voicing his criticism of Judaism that later appeared through his philosophical works, such as Part I of Ethics, then there can be no wonder that he was severely punished. Unlike most censures issued by the Amsterdam congregation, it was never rescinded since the censure did not lead to repentance. After the censure, Spinoza may have written an Apologia in Spanish defending his views, but it is now lost. Spinoza's expulsion did not lead him to convert to Christianity or belong to a confessional religion or sect. From 1656 to 1661, Spinoza found lodgings elsewhere in Amsterdam and Leiden, supporting himself with teaching while learning lens grinding and constructing microscopes and telescopes. Spinoza did not maintain a sense of Jewish identity; he argued that without adherence to Jewish law, the Jewish people lacked a sustaining source of difference and identity, rendering the notion of a secular Jew incoherent.

Education and study group

Sometime between 1654 and 1657, Spinoza started studying Latin with political radical Franciscus van den Enden, a former Jesuit and atheist, who likely introduced Spinoza to scholastic and modern philosophy, including Descartes, who had a dominant influence on Spinoza's philosophy. While boarding with Van den Enden, Spinoza studied in his school, where he learned the arts and sciences and likely taught others. He likely took part in the school's theatrical performances, which were used as a pedagogical tool in Van den Enden's curriculum. Many of his friends were either secularized freethinkers or belonged to dissident Christian groups that rejected the authority of established churches and traditional dogmas. Spinoza was acquainted with members of the Collegiants, a group of disaffected Mennonites and other dissenting Reformed sects that shunned official theology and must have played some role in Spinoza's developing views on religion and directed him to Van den Enden. Jonathan Israel conjectures that another possible influential figure was the atheist translator Jan Hendriksz Glazemaker, a collaborator of Spinoza's friend and publisher Rieuwertsz, who could not have mentored Spinoza but was in a unique position to introduce Spinoza to Cartesian philosophy, mathematics, and lens grinding.

After learning Latin with Van den Enden, Spinoza studied at Leiden University around 1658, where he audited classes in Cartesian philosophy. From 1656 to 1661, Spinoza's main discussion partners who formed his circle and played a formative part in Spinoza's life were Van den Enden, Pieter Balling, Jarig Jelles, Lodewijk Meyer, Johannes Bouwmeester and Adriaan Koerbagh. Spinoza's following, or philosophical sect, scrutinized the propositions of the Ethics while it was in draft and Spinoza's second text, Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. Though a few prominent people in Amsterdam discussed the teachings of the secretive but marginal group, it was mainly a testing ground for Spinoza's philosophy to extend his challenge to the status quo. Their public reputation in Amsterdam was negative, with Ole Borch disparaging them as "atheists". Throughout his life, Spinoza's general approach was to avoid intellectual battles, clashes, and public controversies, viewing them as a waste of energy that served no real purpose.

Career as a philosopher

Between 1660 and 1661, Spinoza moved from Amsterdam to Rijnsburg, allowing for a quiet retreat in the country and access to the university town, Leiden, where he still had many friends. Around this time, he wrote his Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, which he never published in his lifetime, thinking it would enrage the theologians, synods, and city magistrates. The Short Treatise, a long-forgotten text that only survived in Dutch translation, was first published by Johannes van Vloten in 1862. While lodging with Herman Homan in Rijnsburg, Spinoza produced lenses and instruments to support himself and out of scientific interest. He began working on his Ethics and Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, which he completed in two weeks, communicating and interpreting Descartes' arguments and testing the water for his metaphysical and ethical ideas. Spinoza's explanations of the essential elements of the Cartesian system helped many interested people study it, enhancing his philosophical reputation. This work was published in 1663 and was one of the two works published in his lifetime under his name. Spinoza led a modest and frugal lifestyle, earning income by polishing lenses and crafting telescopes and microscopes. He also relied on the generous contributions of his friends to support himself.

In 1663, Spinoza moved to Voorburg for an unknown reason. He continued working on Ethics and corresponded with scientists and philosophers throughout Europe. In 1665, he began writing the Theological-Political Treatise, which addresses theological and political issues such as the interpretation of scripture, the origins of the state, and the bounds of political and religious authority while arguing for a secular, democratic state.

Before the publication of the Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza's friend Adriaan Koerbagh published a book that criticized organized religion, denied the divine authorship of the Bible, and asserted that miracles were impossible—ideas similar to those of Spinoza. His work attracted the attention of the authorities, leading to his imprisonment and eventual death in prison. Around this time, Spinoza likely depicted himself as rebel fisherman Masaniello in a private sketchbook.

Anticipating the reaction to his ideas, he published his treatise in 1670 under a false publisher and a fictitious place of publication. The work did not remain anonymous for long. Samuel Maresius attacked Spinoza personally, while Thomas Hobbes and Johannes Bredenburg criticized his conception of God and saw the book as dangerous and subversive. Spinoza's work was safer than Koerbagh's because it was written in Latin, a language not widely understood by the general public, and Spinoza forbade its translation. The secular authorities varied in enforcing the Reformed Church in Amsterdam's orders to ban the distribution of the blasphemous book.

Philosophy

Ethics

Spinoza considered the Ethics his chief project and philosophical legacy. The work has been associated with that of Leibniz and René Descartes as part of the rationalist school of thought, which includes the assumption that ideas correspond to reality perfectly, in the same way that mathematics is supposed to be an exact representation of the world. The Ethics, a "superbly cryptic masterwork", contains many unresolved obscurities and is written with a forbidding mathematical structure modeled on Euclid's geometry. The writings of René Descartes have been described as "Spinoza's starting point". Spinoza's first publication was his 1663 geometric exposition of proofs using Euclid's model with definitions and axioms of Descartes's Principles of Philosophy. Following Descartes, Spinoza aimed to understand truth through logical deductions from 'clear and distinct ideas', a process which always begins from the 'self-evident truths' of axioms. However, his actual project does not end there: from his first work to his last, there runs a thread of "attending to the highest good" (which also is the highest truth) and thereby achieving a state of peace and harmony, either metaphysically or politically. In this light, the Principles of Philosophy might be viewed as an "exercise in geometric method and philosophy", paving the way for numerous concepts and conclusions that would define his philosophy (see Cogitata Metaphysica).

Spinoza writes in Part I that only one substance is absolutely infinite, eternal, and self-caused (causa sui): "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature"). The whole of the universe therefore consists of one substance (God, or, what is the same, Nature) in an example of substance monism. Spinoza's entire mature philosophy, including his views on the mind, knowledge (epistemology), psychology, ethics, politics, and religion, unfolds from this metaphysics.

Following Maimonides, Spinoza defined substance as "that which is in itself and is conceived through itself", meaning that it can be understood without any reference to anything external. Being conceptually independent also means that the same thing is ontologically independent, depending on nothing else for its existence and being the 'cause of itself' (causa sui).

A mode, or modification of this substance, is something that cannot exist independently but rather must be a part of something else on which it depends, including properties (for example color), relations (such as size) and individual things. Modes can be further divided into 'finite' and 'infinite' ones, with the latter being evident in every finite mode (he gives examples of "motion" and "rest").

Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

As the Second Anglo-Dutch War raged and Spinoza grew confident in the near completion of his ethical system, he shifted his intellectual focus from writing The Ethics to the urgent complexities of society, religion, war, and politics. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP, "Theologico-Political Treatise") explains the lessons of ancient Israelite history, the moral core of Jesus's teachings, and the purpose of God's commandments, all tailored to current Dutch politics. It relies on biblical commentary, interpretation, history, philology, philosophy, legal analysis, and more to make its points.

The work was published in 1670 and immediately caused an uproar across Europe. While Ethics is written for a narrow audience that the masses would not understand, the TTP audience includes theologians such as teachers on university faculties and religious leaders.

Tractatus Politicus

The unfinished treatise Tractatus Politicus (TP, "Political Treatise") in Latin expounds Spinoza's ideas about forms of government.

Spinoza maintained conventional views regarding women's societal role. In his Political Treatise he concludes tersely on the final page that women were naturally subordinate to men—a condition he attributed to inherent differences rather than societal structures, dismissing institutional explanations for their subordination. Biographer Jonathan I. Israel remarked that his views on women were universal for the time.

Pantheism, panentheism, atheism

Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" (Deus) to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional Jewish and Christian monotheisms. According to Frank Tilly, "Spinoza expressly denies personality and consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence, feeling, nor will; he does not act according to purpose, but everything follows necessarily from his nature, according to law". Thus, Spinoza's indifferent God differs from the concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly God who cares about humanity.

In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinoza's pantheism, after Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was thought to have confessed on his deathbed to being a "Spinozist", which was the equivalent in his time of being called an atheist. Jacobi claimed that Spinoza's doctrine was pure materialism, because all Nature and God are said to be nothing but extended substance. This, for Jacobi, was the result of Enlightenment rationalism, and it would finally end in absolute atheism. Moses Mendelssohn disagreed with Jacobi, saying that there is no actual difference between theism and pantheism. The issue became a major intellectual and religious concern for European civilization at the time.

Spinoza's philosophy was attractive to late 18th-century Europeans because it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism. Three of Spinoza's ideas strongly appealed to them: the unity of all that exists, the regularity of all that happens, and the identity of spirit and nature. By 1879, Spinoza's pantheism was praised by many, but was considered by some to be alarming and dangerously inimical.

Spinoza's "God or Nature" (Deus sive Natura) provided a living, natural God, in contrast to Isaac Newton's first cause argument and the dead mechanism of Julien Offray de La Mettrie's (1709–1751) work, Man a Machine (French: L'homme machine). Coleridge and Shelley saw in Spinoza's philosophy a religion of nature. Novalis called him the "God-intoxicated man". Spinoza inspired the poet Shelley to write his essay "The Necessity of Atheism".

It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe. He has therefore been called the "prophet", "prince", and most eminent expounder of pantheism. More specifically, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg he states, "As to the view of certain people that I identify God with Nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken." For Spinoza, the universe (i.e., the cosmos) is a mode under two of the infinitely many attributes, namely those of Thought and Extension, the latter meaning "three-dimensionality (that is, being spatial)". Steven Nadler writes, "The exact shape and size and color of a body are modes (or modifications) of that body; specific thoughts or ideas in a mind are modes of that mind".

Other philosophical connections

Many authors have discussed similarities between Spinoza's philosophy and Eastern philosophical traditions. A few decades after the philosopher's death, Pierre Bayle, in his famous Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697) pointed out a link between Spinoza's alleged atheism with "the theology of a Chinese sect", supposedly called "Foe Kiao", of which he had learned thanks to the testimonies of the Jesuit missions in Eastern Asia. A century later, Kant also established a parallel between the philosophy of Spinoza and the thinking of Laozi (a "monstrous system" in his words), grouping both under the name of pantheists, criticizing what he described as mystical tendencies in them.

In 1863, Elijah Benamozegh purported to establish that the main source of Spinoza's ontology is Kabbalah. The most recent research in the field seems to vindicate that claim.

The 19th-century German Sanskritist Theodor Goldstücker was one of the early figures to notice the similarities between Spinoza's religious conceptions and the Vedanta tradition of India, writing that Spinoza's thought was "... so exact a representation of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected its founder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of his system from the Hindus, did his biography not satisfy us that he was wholly unacquainted with their doctrines ...". Max Müller also noted the striking similarities between Vedanta and the system of Spinoza, equating the Brahman in Vedanta to Spinoza's 'Substantia.'

Legacy

Spinoza's ideas have had a major impact on intellectual debates from the seventeenth century to the current era. How Spinoza is viewed has gone from the atheistic author of treatises that undermine Judaism and organized religion, to a cultural hero, the first secular Jew. One writer contends that what draws readers to Spinoza today and "makes him perhaps the most beloved philosopher since Socrates, is his confident equanimity". He is not a despairing nihilist, but rather Spinoza says that "blessedness is nothing else but the contentment of spirit, which arises from the intuitive knowledge of God." One of his biographers, Jonathan I. Israel, argues that "No leading figure of the post-1750 later Enlightenment, for example, or the nineteenth century, was engaged with the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, Bayle, Locke, or Leibniz, to the degree leading figures such as Lessing, Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Heine, George Eliot, and Nietzsche, remained preoccupied throughout their creative lives with Spinoza." Hegel (1770–1831) asserts that "The fact is that Spinoza is made a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that it may really be said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all."

His expulsion from the Portuguese synagogue in 1656 has stirred debate over the years on whether he is the "first modern Jew". Spinoza influenced discussions of the so-called Jewish question, the examination of the idea of Judaism and the modern, secular Jew. Moses Mendelsohn, Lessing, Heine, and Kant, as well as subsequent thinkers, including Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud were influenced by Spinoza. The changing conception of Spinoza as "the First Modern Jew" has been explicitly explored by various authors. His expulsion has been revisited in the 21st century, with Jewish writers such Berthold Auerbach; Salomon Rubin, who translated Spinoza's Ethics into Hebrew and saw Spinoza as a new Maimonides, penning "a new guide to the perplexed"; Zionist Yosef Klausner, and fiction-writer Isaac Bashevis Singer shaping his image.

In 1886, the young George Santayana published "The Ethical Doctrine of Spinoza", in The Harvard Monthly. Much later, he wrote an introduction to Spinoza's Ethics and "De Intellectus Emendatione". In 1932, Santayana was invited to present an essay (published as "Ultimate Religion") at a meeting at The Hague celebrating the tricentennial of Spinoza's birth. In Santayana's autobiography, he characterized Spinoza as his "master and model" in understanding the naturalistic basis of morality.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein evoked Spinoza with the title (suggested to him by G. E. Moore) of the English translation of his first philosophical work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, an allusion to Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Elsewhere, Wittgenstein borrowed the expression sub specie aeternitatis from Spinoza (Notebooks, 1914–16, p. 83). The structure of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus does have some structural affinities with Spinoza's Ethics (though, admittedly, not with Spinoza's Tractatus) in erecting complex philosophical arguments upon basic logical propositions and principles. In propositions 6.4311 and 6.45 he alludes to a Spinozian understanding of eternity and interpretation of the religious concept of eternal life, contending, "If by eternity is understood not eternal temporal duration, but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present." (6.4311) "The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole." (6.45)

Modern era

Spinoza and Zionism

In the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Spinoza said, in passing, about the Jews that "were it not that the fundamental principles of their religion discourage manliness, I would not hesitate to believe that they will one day, given the opportunity, ... establish once more their independent state, and that God will again choose them". This comment, and Spinoza's general emphasis on the political-national aspects of Judaism, had inspired some of the secular forerunners of Zionism. Some Zionist leaders even described Spinoza as the first secular proto-Zionist. Some scholars agree (to various degrees) with the characterization of Spinoza as proto-Zionist, while other scholars are critical of it.

Reconsideration of Spinoza's expulsion

There has been a renewed debate in modern times about Spinoza's excommunication among Israeli politicians, rabbis and Jewish press, with many calling for the cherem to be reversed. A conference was organized at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York entitled "From Heretic to Hero: A Symposium on the Impact of Baruch Spinoza on the 350th Anniversary of His Excommunication, 1656–2006". Presenters included Steven Nadler, Jonathan I. Israel, Steven B. Smith, and Daniel B. Schwartz. There have been calls for Spinoza's cherem to be rescinded, but it can be done only by the congregation that issued it, and the chief rabbi of that community, Haham Pinchas Toledano, declined to do so, citing Spinoza's "preposterous ideas, where he was tearing apart the very fundamentals of our religion". The Amsterdam Jewish community organised a symposium in December 2015 to discuss lifting the cherem, inviting scholars from around the world to form an advisory committee at the meeting. However, the rabbi of the congregation ruled that it should hold, on the basis that he had no greater wisdom than his predecessors, and that Spinoza's views had not become less problematic over time.

Memory and memorials

Spinoza Lyceum, a high school in Amsterdam South was named after Spinoza. There is also a three-metre-tall marble statue of him on the grounds of the school carved by Hildo Krop.

The Spinoza Havurah (a Humanistic Jewish community) was named in Spinoza's honor.

The Spinoza Foundation Monument has a statue of Spinoza located in front of the Amsterdam City Hall (at Zwanenburgwal) It was created by Dutch sculptor Nicolas Dings and was erected in 2008.

Depictions and influence in literature

Spinoza's life and work have been the subject of interest for several writers. For example, this influence was considerably early in German literature, where Goethe makes a glowing mention of the philosopher in his memoirs, highlighting the positive influence of the Ethics in his personal life. The same thing happened in the case of his compatriot, the poet Heine, who is also lavish in praise for Spinoza on his On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany (1834).

In the following century, the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges famously wrote two sonnets in his honor ("Spinoza" in El otro, el mismo, 1964; and "Baruch Spinoza" in La moneda de hierro, 1976), and several direct references to Spinoza's philosophy can be found in this writer's work. Also in Argentina and previously to Borges, the Ukrainian-born Jewish intellectual Alberto Gerchunoff wrote a novella about philosopher's early sentimental life, Los amores de Baruj [sic] Spinoza (lit. "The loves of Baruj Spinoza", 1932), recreating a supposed affair or romantic interest with Clara Maria van den Enden, daughter of his Latin teacher and philosophical preceptor, Franciscus.

That is not the only work of fiction where the philosopher appears as the main character. In 1837 the German writer Berthold Auerbach dedicated to him the first novel in his series on Jewish history, translated into English in 1882 (Spinoza: A Novel). Some other novels of biographical nature have appeared more recently, such as The Spinoza Problem (2012; a parallel story between the philosopher's formative years, and the fascination that his work had on the Nazi leader Alfred Rosenberg) by psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom, or O Segredo de Espinosa (lit. "The Secret of Spinoza", 2023) by Portuguese journalist José Rodrigues dos Santos. Spinoza also appears in the first novel of the Argentinian activist Andres Spokoiny, El impío (lit. "The Impious", 2021), about the marrano physician and philosopher Juan de Prado, a key influence in Spinoza's biography.

Spinoza's Ethics play a central role in Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story, The Spinoza of Market Street. The main character, Dr. Nahum Fischelson, studies the book religiously, and holds Spinoza in divine esteem.

Works

Original editions

c. 1660. Korte Verhandeling van God, de mensch en deszelvs welstand (unpublished until the 19th century; A Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being; translated by A. Wolf. London, Adam and Charles Black Eds., 1910).

1662. Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (On the Improvement of the Understanding) (unfinished).

1663. Principia philosophiae cartesianae (The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, also contains Metaphysical Thoughts/Cogitata Metaphisica; translated by Samuel Shirley, with an Introduction and Notes by Steven Barbone and Lee Rice, Indianapolis, 1998).

1670. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (A Theologico-Political Treatise), TTP, published anonymously in his lifetime with a false place of publication.

1675–76. Tractatus Politicus (Political Treatise), TP (unfinished at his death), published posthumously.

1677. Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (The Ethics, finished 1674, but published posthumously, title added posthumously).

1677. Compendium grammatices linguae hebraeae (Hebrew Grammar, unfinished; translated with introduction by M. J. Bloom, London, 1963).

1677. Epistolae (The Letters, translated by Samuel Shirley, with an Introduction and Notes by S. Barbone, L. Rice and J. Adler, Indianapolis, 1995).

Last four were originally collected and published by Spinoza's friends briefly later his death, in: B. d. S. Opera Posthuma, Quorum series post Praefationem exhibetur. (Amsterdam: Jan Rieuwertsz, 1677; both publisher and place were purposely omitted). Simultaneously, Rieuwertsz also published a Dutch translation by Jan Hendriksz Glazemaker (who some years later translated the TTP): De Nagelate Schriften van B. d. S., without the Hebrew Grammar.

Contemporary editions

Morgan, Michael L., ed. (2002). Spinoza: Complete Works. Translated by Shirley, Samuel (1st ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. p. 992. ISBN 978-0-87220-620-5. OCLC 49775415.

Edwin Curley (ed.), 1985, 2016. The Collected Works of Spinoza (two volumes), Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Excludes the Compendium grammatices linguae hebraeae).

Spruit, Leen and Pina Totaro, 2011. The Vatican Manuscript of Spinoza's Ethica, Leiden: Brill. This is the only known surviving manuscript of Spinoza's Ethics, discovered in the Vatican archive and published in a bilingual Latin-English edition.