Benedikt Spinoza

Baruch (de) Spinoza, also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a Jewish Dutch philosopher. As a prominent thinker of the Age of Reason, Spinoza significantly influenced modern biblical criticism, 17th-century Rationalism, and contemporary conceptions of the self and the universe, establishing himself as one of the most important and radical philosophers of the early modern period. He was influenced by Stoicism, Maimonides, Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, and a variety of heterodox Christian thinkers of his day.