The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World
Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages : 346
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780393071047
ISBN-13 : 0393071049
Rating : 4/5 (049 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World by : Matthew Stewart

Download or read book The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World written by Matthew Stewart and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-01-17 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Exhilarating…Stewart has achieved a near impossibility, creating a page-turner about jousting metaphysical ideas, casting thinkers as warriors." —Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review Once upon a time, philosophy was a dangerous business—and for no one more so than for Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher vilified by theologians and political authorities everywhere as “the atheist Jew.” As his inflammatory manuscripts circulated underground, Spinoza lived a humble existence in The Hague, grinding optical lenses to make ends meet. Meanwhile, in the glittering salons of Paris, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was climbing the ladder of courtly success. In between trips to the opera and groundbreaking work in mathematics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, he took every opportunity to denounce Spinoza, relishing his self-appointed role as “God’s attorney.” In this exquisitely written philosophical romance of attraction and repulsion, greed and virtue, religion and heresy, Matthew Stewart gives narrative form to an epic contest of ideas that shook the seventeenth century—and continues today.


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