Spinoza and Sexuality

Abstract

In this striking chapter Matheron deals directly with the seemingly bizarre claims that Spinoza makes about women and sexuality in his writings. By reconstructing the context in which Spinoza makes seven at first glance prudish or scandalous claims about women and sexuality, Matheron effectively eliminates every misunderstanding and misreading that has arisen in the nearly 400 years since Spinoza published his major works. Spinoza’s radical anti-teleology and theory of desire lead Matheron to lay out the arguments for a number of memorable claims: that Spinoza might be the only early modern philosopher—and perhaps one of the rare philosophers from any period—whose views can ground the reality of non-genital sexuality, that the passions to which men are subject, and not women, are responsible for sexual drama, and that women are in no way incapable of becoming sages in the Spinozist sense.