A chance and fateful meeting: author examines an epochal encounter between two philosophers.(The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World)(Book review)

From: National Catholic Reporter | Date: July 14, 2006| Author: Martin, Donna | Copyright information

THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC: LEIBNIZ, SPINOZA, AND THE FATE OF GOD IN THE MODERN WORLD

By Matthew Stewart

W.W. Norton & Company, 320 pages, $25.95

The two philosophers could hardly have been more different.

Baruch de Spinoza, born in Amsterdam in 1632, was a descendent of Jews who had fled the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions for the relative freedom of the Dutch Republic. A precocious student of the Jewish school at Amsterdam, fluen...

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