Medieval & Early Modern
Baruch Spinoza
1632–1677 · Freedom of thought
A state that forbids thought is fighting itself.
In their words
“The true aim of government is liberty.”
Excommunicated from Amsterdam's Jewish community at twenty-three, Spinoza argued in the Theological-Political Treatise that a sovereign's power ends where judgment begins: no ruler can make people believe, and the attempt corrupts both faith and the state. Freedom of philosophizing, he wrote, is not merely compatible with public peace but required by it. It remains the clearest early defense of intellectual liberty.
Why it matters for freedom
He argued that a state which cannot tolerate free thought is not strong but frightened.
Who they stood against
the theologians who thought obedience was the whole point of religion