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Hello, for the radical thinkers of the Enlightenment, Spinoza was the first man to have lived

and died as a true atheist.

For others, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he provides 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 despite numerous office, and he died, as did Socrates and Seneca, one of the, what's called

one of the three great deaths in philosophy. Baroque Spinoza, a Dutch Jewish philosopher of the

17th century, who changed his name to Benedictus Spinoza when he was

excommunicated by the Jewish community and fell among Christians can claim

influence on both the Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century and great minds of the 19th, notably Hegel.

His ideas were so radical that could only be fully published after his death.

What then were these ideas that caused such controversy in Spinoza's lifetime.

How do they influence the generations after?

And can Spinoza really be seen as the first philosopher of the Rational Enlightenment?

Joining me to discuss Phinoza, are the historian and philosopher Jonathan Ray visiting professor at

Rowhampan University, Sarah Hutton, professor of English at the University of Wales-Abriswith, and John

Cottingham Professor at Philosophy at the University of Reading.

Jonathan Ray Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632, a place we associate with Protestantism,

with trade, at the Holland of Rembrandt.

How did his family come to be living there?

They were Portuguese Jews, they got there in the 1590s or so, and they were part of a community

...