Editing Baruch Spinoza (section)

==Other philosophical connections==
Many authors have discussed similarities between Spinoza's philosophy and Eastern philosophical traditions. A few decades after the philosopher's death, [[Pierre Bayle]], in his famous ''[[Dictionnaire Historique et Critique|Historical and Critical Dictionary]]'' (1697) pointed out a link between Spinoza's alleged atheism with "the theology of a Chinese sect", supposedly called "Foe Kiao",<ref>Pierre Bayle. ''[https://archive.org/details/dictionnairehis42unkngoog/page/96/mode/1up?view=theater Dictionnaire Historique et Critique]'', vol. 13 (in French). Libraire Desoer, Paris, 1820, p. 416</ref> of which he had learned thanks to the testimonies of the Jesuit missions in Eastern Asia. A century later, [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] also established a parallel between the philosophy of Spinoza and the thinking of [[Laozi]] (a "monstrous system" in his words), grouping both under the name of pantheists, criticizing what he described as mystical tendencies in them.<ref>Immanuel Kant. "[https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/f/106/files/2013/02/Kant-The-end-of-all-things.pdf The end of all things]", in: '' Religion and Rational Theology''. Transl. and edited by Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni. Cambridge University Press, p.228</ref>

In 1863, [[Elijah Benamozegh]] purported to establish that the main source of Spinoza's ontology is Kabbalah.<ref>Elijah Benamozegh, 'Spinoza et la Kabbale', in ''L'Univers Israélite'', Paris, 1863; eng. transl. ''Spinoza and Kabbalah'', Puyméras: éditions localement transcendantes, 2024, ISBN 9782383660378</ref> The most recent research in the field seems to vindicate that claim.<ref>Miquel Beltran, The Influence of Abraham Cohen de Herrera's Kabbalah on Spinoza's Metaphysics, Brill, 2016, ISBN 9789004315679</ref>

The 19th-century German Sanskritist [[Theodor Goldstücker]] was one of the early figures to notice the similarities between Spinoza's religious conceptions and the [[Vedanta]] tradition of India, writing that Spinoza's thought was "... so exact a representation of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected its founder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of his system from the Hindus, did his biography not satisfy us that he was wholly unacquainted with their doctrines..."<ref>Literary Remains of the Late Professor Theodore Goldstucker, W. H. Allen, 1879. p. 32.</ref>{{sfn|The Westminster Review|1862|pp=256–257}} [[Max Müller]] also noted the striking similarities between Vedanta and the system of Spinoza, equating the [[Brahman]] in Vedanta to Spinoza's 'Substantia.'<ref>Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy. F. Max Muller. Kessinger Publishing, 2003. p. 123</ref>