Benedict de Spinoza

Spinoza (also known as Baruch later Benedict de Spinoza) was a Dutch male philosopher from Earth who lived from 1632 to 1677 and whose written work was considered highly intellectual.

As a lieutenant at Starfleet Academy, James T. Kirk was an enthusiast of Spinoza's thought. However, student Gary Mitchell considered it to be "longhair stuff." Only fifteen years into their friendship, shortly after a disastrous encounter with the galactic barrier that gradually mutated Mitchell, did his opinion of the writer change, at one point implying to now-Captain Kirk that he was getting "even better ideas" from the text than having set Kirk up with a female lab technician, years previously. Mitchell studied Spinoza's book The Ethics while confined to sickbay of the USS Enterprise, wherein he read the text on a reading viewer. Mitchell remarked of Spinoza, "Once you get into him, he's rather simple, though. Childish, almost. I don't agree with him at all." (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before")

In 2366, his book The Ethics was listed as the general knowledge file 3069 on philosophy and metaphysics on the library computer of USS Enterprise-D. The android Lal studied the book as part of her instruction into the nature of humanity. (TNG: "The Offspring")

External links

• Baruch Spinoza at Wikipedia
• Spinoza versus Mitchell at Orion Press