Investigating “Spinozism” teaches at least as much about interpretations of Spinoza by other movements - both those approving him and (more often) opposing him - as it does about Spinoza's thought itself. More than other philosophies, Spinoza's has been held up like a mirror to the great currents of thought, a mirror in which their distorted images can be seen. Its first reception was accomplished in the midst of polemics; the modalities of its influence have always suffered from this, so that, at every period, the recovery of the exact situation of Spinozism from under the accumulation of abuses and misunderstandings is an effective intellectual instrument for analyzing the disposition of forces within the domain of ideas, its dominant and dominated ideas, and the battle they wage against one another. In this way one can see Calvinism, Cartesianism, the Enlightenment, and other movements, look upon their reflections, and see their own contradictions revealed in it.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

For a century and a half after his life, the first figure Spinoza assumed was that of the atheist or impious person. Leo Back (1895), P. Verniere (1954), and W. Schroder (1987) have studied the formation of this image. For many years, Spinoza was discussed primarily for refutation; it was even asserted that he must be read only with that intention. Alternatively, if he awakened some positive interest, it was with thinkers who already looked upon official religion with a critical eye. Both the orthodox and the libertine, however, concurred in conceiving him as atheistic or impious.