Spinoza's Paradoxical Conservatism

François Zourabichvili wrote two major contributions to Spinoza scholarship. While Une physique de la pensée (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.