Theologico-Political Treatise - Definition and Overview

This article is about the treatise published by Baruch Spinoza. For the similarly-titled work by Ludwig Wittgenstein, see Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Written by the philosopher and pantheist Baruch Spinoza, the Theologico-Political Treatise or Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was an early criticism of religious intolerance and a defense of secular government. In particular, it was a preemptive defense of his later work, Ethics (published posthumously in 1677), for which Spinoza anticipated harsh criticism.

The text was published anonymously under the auspices of Dutch magistrate Jan De Witt in 1670, and was at first well-received within the secular community. Following De Witt's murder in 1672, political support for the treatise waned. In 1673, it was publicly condemned by the Synod of Dort and was banned officially the following year.

References

• Baruch Spinoza (http://www.newgenevacenter.org/biography/spinoza2.htm)
• Spinoza and Two Views of God (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance/spinoza/back1.html)

External links

• A Spinoza Chronology (http://frank.mtsu.edu/~rbombard/RB/Spinoza/chrono4.html)
• Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/spinoza.htm)