Baruch Spinoza was a 17th century Dutch philosopher. His philosophy includes ideas from Cartesian metaphysical principles, Jewish rationalism, Stoicism, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes. But he is most often considered one of the major rationalists, along with Descartes and Leibniz Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Benedict de Spinoza (2006).

• God is nature.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)
• Nature is indivisible, uncaused and necessary.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)
• Nature does not exist for any purpose. God has no intentions.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)
• Mind and body are not two separate things, as Descartes argued. They are two expressions of a human.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)
• Humans are a part of nature or God. Thus, humans' thoughts are an extension of God; therefore, there is no free will.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)
• Humans will find happiness only through a rational understanding of their place within God's natural system.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)

• Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)
• That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts from the same necessity from which he exists.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Baruch Spinoza (June 29, 2001)
• The man who is subject to the [passive] affects is under the control, not of himself, but of fortune, in whose power he so greatly is that often, though he sees the better for himself, he is still forced to follow the worse.Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Benedict de Spinoza (2006)

• 1632: Born in Amsterdam

• 1638: Mother died

• 1656: Excommunicated by synogogue

• 1661: Moved to countryside, worked on Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being

• 1663: Settled near Hague, began work on Ethics

• 1670: Published Theological-Political Treatise

• 1670: Settled in Hague

• 1675: Completed Ethics, remained unpublished until after his death

• 1677: Died of respiratory illness

• 1678: Published works banned in the Netherlands