O presente texto procura trabalhar algumas acepções do conceito de corpo em Espinosa atendendo aos seus aspectos físicos, psíquicos, metafísicos e políticos. Também toma em conta a dupla condição do corpo - enquanto existente na duração e enquanto pensado por Deus. A noção de "conatus", presente em todos os corpos, é pretexto para lembrar a recente obra de António Damásio, A Estranha Ordem das Coisas e para comparar a potencia individual que habita os indivíduos com a potencia política que existe (...) nas sociedades. é nessa perspectiva que se analisa o modo como o lósofo considera a condição feminina. tentando-se perceber a severidade com que ele encara a actuação das mulheres no corpo político. Sobre esta temática apresentam-se os posicionamentos de algumas lósofas feministas apreciando- se criticamente as suas teses. O texto termina com a interrogação "Estará vedado às mulheres o "amor intellectualis Dei"?", sustentando que no livro V da ética encontramos elementos que asseguram às mulheres uma salvação de pleno direito, sem que para tal tenham que renunciar ao seu corpo. (shrink)

The “black page” in Spinoza’s Political Treatise has been much discussed and interpreted. These can be roughly divided into three groups: Approaches that see the “black page” as an extension of Spinoza’s theory of the passions and imagination; approaches that maintain that Spinoza excluded women from politics not because of their innate weaknesses but because of their social conditions; approaches that maintain that he excluded women because he saw them as weaker beings, but this contradicts his certain accounts, especially in (...) the Ethics. In this paper, I take the latter view. My contribution is to argue that this contradiction is not unique to the Ethics. I pursue my reading along two lines, one ontological and one political. In the first, I focus on the continuity between the Ethics and the Political Treatise and show that the “black page” is also inconsistent with the ontology and methodology of the Political Treatise itself. In the second, I argue that the exclusion of women also contradicts the concept of the political absolute developed in this last work, since this concept problematizes any kind of exclusion and provides for political stability the strategic principle of increasing the number of decision-makers as much as possible. (shrink)

In his final, incomplete Tractatus Politicus (1677), Spinoza’s account of human power and freedom shifts towards a new, teleological interest in the ‘highest good’ of the state in realising the freedom of its subjects. This development reflects, in part, the growing influence of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Dutch republicanism, and the Dutch post-Rampjaar context after 1672, with significant implications for his view of political power and freedom. It also reflects an expansion of his account of natural right to include independence of mind, (...) a model of autonomy that in turn shapes the infamous sui juris exclusions of his unfinished account of democracy. This article focuses specifically on the Tractatus Politicus, a hitherto under-addressed work in Spinoza’s corpus and one too often considered indistinct from his earlier Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670). It argues for a reconsideration of its importance to early modern political thought, particularly regarding the role of the state in realising the freedom and harmony of its subjects through reasonable laws. (shrink)

El texto interpreta, desde distintas perspectivas posibles, la polémica proposición XI, 4 del último capítulo del Tratado Político de Baruj de Spinoza, donde se sostiene, en el marco de la explicación de distintas formas de democracia, por qué las mujeres estarían excluidas de la participación política. Se remite esta exclusión a la noción de naturaleza en la obra y a su justificación por la historia acaecida, que resultan insatisfactorias, y se propone una conjunción y una superación de ambas interpretaciones, en (...) pos de una lectura posible derivada: la de la producción de la división sexual como régimen político/discursivo; una producción entre develada y consentida por el filósofo. (shrink)