Benedict Spinoza is a foundational, pivotal figure in the history of world philosophy. Spinoza's teachings continue the revolutionary movements of thought initiated by Descartes in European philosophy, rejecting the values of past centuries, medieval religious dogma, and the unquestionability of authorities. Spinoza was a philosophical rebel of his time; his community turned away from him for his freethinking and free thought. Spinoza became an outcast, persecuted by the church, which, however, did not shake either his views or the components of his teachings. In world philosophy, there were thinkers distinguished by poetic style; there were those who were characterized by elevated pathos; there were those whose presentation of material was characterized by simplicity or, on the contrary, complexity. However, there has never been in the history of philosophy such an argued, "mathematical" philosopher. Spinoza's "Ethics" is as if it were not a book, but a set of infinitely strict equations, formulas, causes, and effects. For Spinoza, philosophy is something greater than man, his thoughts, and feelings, and therefore there is no place for humanity in philosophy. Spinoza deliberately ignores any humanity in his works, leaving only bare, geometrically precise, refined proofs, scholia, and corollaries, from which one of the most astonishing philosophical systems in history is formed.
