Abstract

The present paper addresses Baruch Spinoza’s radical affirmation of individual identity emergent from within the psychosocial tensions of group membership. Focusing upon psychological experience beginning with a lived history of fearful Inquisitional persecution, and continuing from conformity to rebellion within the constraints of the Amsterdam Jewish synagogue, we trace the psychological recognition of individual identity in Spinoza’s understanding of the self-determined, immanent acts of daily life. Spinoza’s multiple names are depicted as markers, corresponding to membership in mutually exclusive social groups, each constraining freedom of thought and action.

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