The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World by Matthew Stewart
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ISBN: 9780393058987
W. W. Norton & Company, 09 January 2006
Hardcover, 351 pages
In this richly detailed intellectual history, Matthew Stewart dramatizes the intense philosophical rivalry and personal interactions between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza in the late seventeenth century. The book contrasts Leibniz, the polished courtier and defender of orthodox belief, with Spinoza, the controversial thinker branded a heretic, tracing how their conflicting ideas about God, reason, and modernity shaped the intellectual landscape of the modern world. It unfolds as a narrative of attraction and repulsion, revealing how debates about religion, politics, and philosophy during this era continue to reverberate today.