Formation of Ideas in Crisis A Critical Review on the Book: “Spinoza and Politics” by Etienne Balibar

The main focus of this article is a review of “Spinoza and Politics” by Etienne Balibar. Balibar's idea is that Spinoza's philosophy is essentially political. Balibar begins his study of Spinoza's philosophy with the argument that it cannot be understood as if it existed only on the transhistorical plane of pure theory and that, on the contrary, each of his major works must be understood as an intervention in a specific political and philosophical conjuncture. For this reason, according to Balibar, it is impossible to separate Spinoza's metaphysics from his politics, as if the latter were an application of the former. Instead, Spinoza's philosophy must be seen as political in its eternity, even its most speculative utterances constitute responses to certain political imperatives and are tied to specific historical stakes. It can be said that Balibar was influenced by Althusser in his study of ideas and uses Althusser's term "conjoncture". Accordingly, while examining innovation, methodological features, and Balibar's interpretation of Spinoza, we will point out the mistake of Persian translators in translating the "conjuncture" (conjoncture).