https://www.deepecology.net/tags/enlightenment/Recent content in Enlightenment on deep ecologyHugoen-auThu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.deepecology.net/posts/profiles/baruch-spinoza/Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.deepecology.net/posts/profiles/baruch-spinoza/<p><img src="https://www.deepecology.net/images/profile_image_baruch_spinoza.jpg" alt="Baruch Spinoza portrait photograph" loading="lazy" decoding="async"> </p> <p>Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch philosopher whose pantheistic philosophy influenced Arne Naess&rsquo;s development of deep ecology. Writing in the 17th century, Spinoza proposed a monistic view of reality in which God and Nature are identified as one substance.</p> <p>In his major work <em>Ethics</em>, completed in 1677, Spinoza uses the formula &ldquo;Deus sive Natura&rdquo; (God or Nature). He proposes that only one infinite substance exists, and that everything we experience is a mode or expression of this single reality. This view dissolves distinctions between the divine and the natural world.</p>