Benedict (properly Baruch, more properly שפינוזה ברוך) Spinoza (1632 - 1677) is the honorary patron of this project, the thinker whom Gilles Deleuze has called "the complete philosopher" for the range of his thought, his inexhaustible curiosity, and the willingness to live out his scant 45 years as a heretic against the religious orthodoxies of his day.

We hope that this site will display some of the intellectual restlessness and breadth of interests that characterized Spinoza's life and work. Nature, being, religion, ethics, and politics, for starters.

You are invited to become part of the project. There are several ways in which to participate. In the Quod Libet (articles) section, we will publish short essays of under 750 words on any topic that falls within the editors' range of interest. We are an institute for humanist studies: Our interests are broad (like Baruch's). We solicit serious content or riveting well-written humor to maintain our interests. So keep contributions short, thought-provoking, or consistently funny. Above all, write well, show a sense of style, use lemon for tartness. You may go far, and it will all have begun here.

Second, send us a famed link for discussion. Quod Vide. These may be new or archival, but should be topical and (again) fall within our range of interests. Pieces slanted in a particular political direction probably won't interest us as much as pieces that cause us to question an under-assessed status quo. Part of our mission is to enliven the skeptical tradition within humanism. Serious and probing writing from other web sites, magazines, or journals will be reviewed here and posted if we think they merit the attention of the general readership of this soon to be prestigious site. You will receive, in return for your work, a very gracious thank you note.

The Vox Populi consists of elected bloggers who may also be article-writers. To blog, you should have something to say and say it well. We owe our readers more than Melba toast. But once we like what you have to say, we'll let you say it in regular patches.