Overview

Francois Zourabichvili (1965-2006) wrote two of the most important books on Spinoza in the past 20 years. The first book, Spinoza's Paradoxical Conservatism (EUP, 2023) focuses on Spinoza's political philosophy. This second book studies Spinoza's metaphysics and the way he uses it to produce a 'physics of thought'. Zourabichvili suggests that Spinoza completely revises the concept of form and develops a novel theory of individuation. He argues that Spinoza specifically focuses on the problem of the individuation of ideas, whereas most thinkers only consider the problem of the individuation of bodies. In turn, he draws out the ethical implications of these new Spinozist conceptions.

Full Product Details

Author:   Francois Zourabichvili ,  Eric Aldieri ,  Gil Morejón (Loyola University, Chicago)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781399548007

ISBN 10:   139954800
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   31 March 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Language:   French

Table of Contents

Reference Conventions Notes on Translation and Acknowledgments Introduction to Spinozist Modernism, by Eric Aldieri and Gil Morejón Introduction Chapter I: The New Concept of Form 1. Simultaneous Transport: The Inconsistency of the Cartesian Composite 2. The Piece of Wax: Quantity of Matter and Identity 3. Individual and Species in Spinoza 4. Chemical and Political Community 5. What Happens to the Notion of Form in Descartes CH 2: Chapter II: The Concept of ‘Relation of Motion and Rest’ and Its Polysemy 1. Which Relation between Motion and Rest? (the Short Treatise) 2. The Relation of Motion and Rest between Parts (the Ethics) 3. The Interpretation of the Four Lemmas Concerning the Conservation of Form 4. The Status of Sickness in the Ethics CH 3: Chapter III: Extension and Conatus (Power and Causality) 1. The Power of Essence 2. From Finite Forms to the Infinite Form; The Status of Transformation 3. Self-Affirmation and Exteriority 4. The Union of Conatus CH 4: Chapter IV: What is a Physics of Thought? 1. The Problem of the Status of the Infinite Idea 2. The Mirage of Splitting (The Relation between Essence and Existence) 3. The Thesis of the Real Identity of the Idea and Its Object, and Its Ambiguities 4. Lineaments of Cogitative Physics 5. Mental Transformations and a Hypothesis Concerning Amnesia 6. The Status of Sensation 7. The Unity of the Mind CH 5: Chapter V: Speaking Spinozan 1. What ‘Having’ Means in Spinozan 2. Ideal Composition: Genetic Definition 3. Sketch of a Grammar of the Idea 4. In What Sense Common Notions Are Ideas 5. Once Again, Concerning Essences, and Concerning Readers Afflicted by Double Vision CH 6: Chapter VI: Mental Transmutations, Eternity, and Death 1. In What Sense the Mind is Eternal (and, Once Again, In What Sense Common Notions are Ideas) 2. A Return to Two Sequences [Enchaînements], and the Case of Love CH 7: Chapter VII: The Dream of Supernatural Transformations 1. The Logic of the Chimera 2. The Paradox of the Being of Non-Being 2.1. The Power of Impotence: Confusion 2.2. Imaging a Negation? 3. Dreaming with Open Eyes 3.1 Don Quixote and the Rabbis 3.2. Spells of Ignorance (The Banality of Hallucination) 3.3. The Confusion between Affections and Things, and the Dream of Free Will Epilogue: Involving and Dying Conclusion Works Cited Index

Reviews

Many have turned to Spinoza for a theory of the body, restoring affects and desire to a philosophical tradition burdened by idealism. Zourabichvili demonstrates that Spinoza is also a thinker of the mind, of the production, generation, and transformation of ideas. A fundamental contribution to Spinoza scholarship and contemporary philosophy. -- Jason Read, University of Southern Maine A bold and original statement of Spinoza’s philosophy of the body through form and matter, motion and rest, sickness and health and – importantly – thought and ideas. With this book, available in English for the first time, French materialist Spinozism takes a new and unprecedented turn. -- Beth Lord, The University of Aberdeen

Author Information

François Zourabichvili was a director at the Collège international de philosophie in Paris from 1998 to 2004. He is the author of Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event (Edinburgh University Press, 2012) and Spinoza: Une physique de la pensée (Presses Universitaires de Paris, 2002) Eric Aldieri is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bridgewater State University. He has been published in Hypatia, Deleuze & Guattari Studies, and Derrida Today and The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. He has translated several works of French Spinozism into English, including Chantal Jaquet’s Time, Duration, and Eternity in Spinoza, published by Edinburgh University Press in 2023. His co-authored translation of François Zourabichvili’s Spinoza, A Physics of Thought: Form and Individuation will publish in March 2026, also with Edinburgh University Press. Gil Morejón is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and teaches at Loyola University Chicago. His research focuses on the history of ideas and contemporary political thought.

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