Spinoza'S Paradoxical Conservatism

A translation of one of Zourabichvili's two major books on Spinoza

Includes a substantive Introduction that situates and contextualises Zourabichvili's book, while laying out the major themes of his analysis
Includes a discussion of the text by Pierre Macherey and a direct response to it by Zourabichvili, an exchange they had in 2004
Zourabichvili was a student of Deleuze and his work on him is already highly celebrated. This book will be of interest to readers of Deleuze as well as Spinoza scholars

Fran ois Zourabichvili wrote two major contributions to Spinoza scholarship. While Une physique de la pens e (PUF, 2002) concerns Spinoza's epistemology and metaphysics of ideas, Spinoza's Paradoxical Conservatism focuses on his political philosophy. Zourabichvili's interpretation of Spinoza's political philosophy is radically unlike the established tradition. In this book he explores Spinoza's philosophical theory of change across three different studies. First, within ethical transition, secondly within the image of the infant in Spinoza's work and third dealing with absolute monarchy, which was dominant during Spinoza's time and provided his polemical writings with a concrete target.

The book's challenging and carefully-argued claims will be of serious interest to anyone working in political theory, early modern philosophy or contemporary French thought.