Timeline Baruch Spinoza

The life and work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) — Dutch rationalist philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, excommunicated lens grinder and author of the Ethics, a foundational figure of the Enlightenment.

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Baruch Spinoza 10

1632 Baruch Spinoza born in Amsterdam 24 November 1632 Baruch Espinosa is born on 24 November 1632 in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, the third child of a Portuguese Sephardic merchant family that had fled the Iberian Inquisitions.
1639 Talmud Torah education Jewish education in Amsterdam Spinoza attends the Talmud Torah school of the Amsterdam Sephardic community, studying Hebrew and Jewish philosophy including Maimonides. He is regarded as an outstanding student.
1649 Joins the family business After the death of his brother After the death of his elder brother Isaac, the teenage Spinoza cuts short his formal studies to help run the family importing business, trading dried fruit on an Amsterdam canal.
1656 Excommunication (herem) Excommunicated, July 1656 In July 1656 the Amsterdam Jewish community issues a writ of herem against Spinoza for his radical, unorthodox views, banning him from the community. He never recants and leaves Judaism behind.
1661 Settles in Rijnsburg Beginning of his philosophical work By 1661 Spinoza is living in Rijnsburg near Leiden, working as a lens grinder and writing the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and the Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being.
1663 Principles of Descartes' Philosophy Only work published under his own name Spinoza publishes his critical exposition of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy — the only work he ever published under his own name. He has by now moved to Voorburg, outside The Hague, and is at work on the Ethics.
1670 Moves to The Hague Den Haag Around 1670 Spinoza settles in The Hague, where he spends the rest of his life, declining a professorship at Heidelberg in 1673 to preserve his philosophical independence.
1670 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Anonymous and controversial Spinoza anonymously publishes the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, arguing for freedom of thought and a historical-critical reading of Scripture. It is widely condemned and soon banned.
1677 Ethics published (posthumous) Opera Posthuma Later in 1677 Spinoza's masterpiece, the Ethics (Ethica), is published posthumously by his friends as part of the Opera Posthuma — laying out his geometric method, monism and determinism.
1677 Baruch Spinoza dies in The Hague 21 February 1677 Spinoza dies on 21 February 1677 in The Hague, aged 44, probably of a lung illness aggravated by years of inhaling glass dust from lens grinding.