Spinoza on philosophy, religion, and politics

Spinoza's Theologico-political treatise is simultaneously a work of philosophy and a piece of practical politics. It defends religious pluralism, a republican form of political organization, and the freedom to philosophize, with a determination that is extremely rare in seventeenth-century thought. But it is also a fierce and polemical intervention in a series of Dutch disputes over issues about which Spinoza and his opponents cared very deeply.