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Melvyn Bragg discusses the Dutch Jewish Philosopher Spinoza. For the
radical thinkers of the Enlightenment, he was the first man to have lived
and died as a true atheist. For others, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
he provides perhaps the most profound conception of God to be found in
Western philosophy. He was bold enough to defy the thinking of his time,
yet too modest to accept the fame of public office and he died, along
with Socrates and Seneca, one of the three great deaths in philosophy.
Baruch Spinoza can claim influence on both the Enlightenment thinkers
of the 18th century and great minds of the 19th, notably Hegel, and his
ideas were so radical that they could only be fully published after his
death. But what were the ideas that caused such controversy in Spinoza’s
lifetime, how did they influence the generations after, and can Spinoza
really be seen as the first philosopher of the rational Enlightenment? With
Jonathan Rée, historian and philosopher and Visiting Professor at
Roehampton University; Sarah Hutton, Professor of English at the
University of Wales, Aberystwyth; John Cottingham, Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Reading.