To Conserve is To Create: a Review of Spinoza’s Paradoxical Conservatism

In this book, François Zourabichvili addresses three major themes of Spinoza’s philosophy, namely ethical emendation, childhood, and politics. Through the notion of transformation, the author argues that Spinozism is a “paradoxical conservatism” insofar as the Dutch philosopher develops a theory in which a transformation of the essence means death, and the main concern of this system is to create something that will be able to conserve itself. In this review, I argue that by linking together the problems of emendation, pedagogy, and political change, Zourabichvili grants a striking political relevance to both ethical emendation and pedagogy, introducing an alternative to revolutionary change without being less radical.