The Feminist Conceptualization of ‘Imperceptibility’ and Spinoza: A Spinozist Objection to the Politics of Recognition/Representation

The philosophy of Spinoza has aroused interest again with the work of Australian feminist thinkers Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens and has been an important moment for contemporary feminist philosophy with thinkers such as contemporary sexual difference feminists Rosi Braidotti and Elizabeth Grosz following a Deleuzian-Spinozist theoretical line. The first Spinozist feminist debates were shaped around the problems of sexual difference feminism and Spinoza was considered as a philosopher who could be allied against the mainstream Western philosophical tradition, which was
criticized in terms of the pseudo-neutralization, the mind-body and nature-culture distinction, and the derogation of the body and emotions. Hasana Sharp, who is included in this tradition in the context of “the politics of imperceptibility” proposed by Elizabeth Grosz as opposed to the recognition/representation politics, has brought a new breath to the contemporary feminist philosophy. Sharp broadens the horizons of this debate by centering Spinoza’s naturalism and his ideas that criticize anthropocentrism. As a political project that takes into account the affects, capacities and powers of the body, instead of the legal subject model postulated by the politics of
recognition/representation, the politics of imperceptibility associate with the philosophical position of the sexual difference feminism. In this regard, the article aims to examine first Grosz’s project and then Sharp’s contribution to it, considering the common aspects mentioned.