Spinoza and the Radical Enlightenment

In this video, I look at the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and the Historian Jonathan Israel's new interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment. Israel hopes to save the enlightenment from recent postmodern criticism by articulating the existence of a 'radical' movement, with Spinoza front and center, in which can be found the seeds of today's liberal-democracies.

Reading List:

This video is primarily based on Jonathan Israel's 'Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750'

Spinoza's 'Ethics' is a heavy and largely esoteric read. For an introduction to his thought in general, this very short introduction is very good:

Music:

Sonatina - Kevin MacLeod
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies - Kevin MacLeod
Wisps of Whorls - Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[AS-zzne]

Just donated to your patreon 😊❤️ keep it up buddy

[dionysianapollomarx]

I find Jonathan Israel to be an endlessly illuminating read.

[allseeingbot]

Atheist attempts to frame Spinoza as one of their own is really unbecoming and shows they either don't understand his work at all or are willfully misinterpreting it.