BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Introduction
Spinoza’s aims
The Theological-Political Treatise (1670) of Spinoza is not a work of
philosophy in the usual sense of the term. Rather it is a rare and interesting
example ofwhatwe might call applied or ‘practical’philosophy.That is, it is
a work based throughout on a philosophical systemwhich, however, mostly
avoids employing philosophical arguments andwhich has a practical social
and political more than strictly philosophical purpose, though it was also
intended in part as a device for subtly defending and promoting Spinoza’s
own theories. Relatively neglected in recent times, and banned and actively
suppressed in its own time, it is also one of the most profoundly in£uential
philosophical texts in the history of western thought, having exerted an
immense impact on thinkers and writers from the late seventeenth
century throughout the age of the Enlightenment down to the late
nineteenth century.
Spinoza’s most immediate aim in writing this text was to strengthen
individual freedom and widen liberty of thought in Dutch society, in
particular by weakening ecclesiastical authority and lowering the status of
theology. In his opinion, it was these forces which were chie£y responsible
for fomenting religious tensions and hatred, inciting political sedition
among the common people, and enforcing damaging intellectual
censorship on unconventional thinkers like himself. He tried to lessen
ecclesiastical power and the prestige of theology as he himself encountered
these in the Dutch Republic ^ or, as it was then more commonly known,
the United Provinces ^ partly as a way of opening a path for himself and
those who sympathized with his ideas, or thought in similar ways, to
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