Correspondence

Baruch Spinoza anglicized to Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. One of the early 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 great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. Inspired by the groundbreaking ideas of René Descartes Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name which means Blessed varies among different languages.