Irigaray,HeideggerandtheQuestionofSexualDifference:An

ExaminationofthePhenomenologicalStakesofIrigarayslaterwork









by


AnneVanLeeuwen





April2010

SubmittedtotheNewSchoolforSocialResearchoftheNewSchoolinpartial
fulfillmentoftherequirementsforthedegreeofDoctorofPhilosophy.

DissertationCommittee:
Dr.ClaudiaBaracchi
Dr.SimonCritchley
Dr.TinaChanter

 UMI Number: 3413260

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TABLEOFCONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTERONE:LuceIrigarayandtheQuestionofSexualDifference
Overview 10
PartI:IrigaraysEssentialism 15
PartII:IrigaraysStrategicEssentialism 23
PartIII:IrigarayandtheMetaphysicsofSexualDifference 34
Conclusions 41

CHAPTERTWO:TheNeglectofLoubliinIrigaraysLoublidelair
Overview 43
PartI:ThePhenomenologicalLineageofNeglect
Introduction 47
SectionI:HusserlsCritiqueofNaturalism 49
SectionII:HeideggersCritiqueofHusserl 57
PartII:TheNeglectofAir
Introduction 72
SectionI:IrigaraysEngagementwithPsychoanalysis 73
SectionII:TheNeglectofLoubli 81
Conclusions 90

CHAPTERIII:TheWayofLove:BetweenIrigarayandHeidegger
Overview 92
PartI:IdentityandDifference 97
PartII:HeideggerandtheQuestionofSexualDifference
Introduction 108
SectionI:TheEndofMan? 109
SectionII:Geschlecht
PartIII:Identityand(Sexual)Difference 125
Conclusions 135

CHAPTERIV:TowardaSexuatePhenomenology
Overview 137
PartI:HeideggerandtheQuestionofTranscendence 142
PartII:IrigaraysApocalypticIntervention 149
Conclusions 154

CONCLUSION 157

BIBLIOGRAPHY 162

ii
Introduction

Toacknowledgeandrespectconsistsinlettingeverythinkers
thoughtcometousassomethingineachcaseunique,neverto
berepeated,inexhaustibleandbeingshakentothedepthsof
what is unthought in his thought. What is unthought in a
thinkersthoughtisnotalackinherentinhisthought.Whatis
unthought is there in each case only as the unthought. The
moreoriginalthethinking,thericherwillbewhatisunthought
in it. The unthought is the greatest gift that thinking can
bestow.
Heidegger,WhatisCalledThinking?

In This Sex Which is Not One, Irigaray insists that [s]peaking (as) woman is not

speaking of woman. It is not a matter of producing a discourse in which woman

would be the object, or the subject. That said, by speaking (as) woman, one may

attempt to provide a place for the other as feminine.1 With this seemingly

innocuous remark, Irigaray gestures toward the radical transformation of the

theoretical parameters of feminism that is implicitly at stake in her invocation of

sexualdifference:heretofore,accordingtoIrigaray,feministshavespokenofwoman

by theorizing sexual difference; eschewing this theoretical move, Irigaray instead

seeks to speak as woman, to reveal sexual difference as inscribed in speaking as

such.Herinvocationofsexualdifference,therefore,concomitantlygesturestoward

thistransformation.

It is the elucidation of this thought that delimits the parameters of this

project: on one hand, it is intended as a work of Irigaray scholarship, one which

attempts to contribute specifically to debates surrounding the meaning and

significance of sexual difference in her work. On the other hand, it is a project in

1
Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 135.
1
feministphilosophy,onethat,throughIrigaraysthought,seekstocriticallyexamine

whatitmeansto philosophizeasafeminist.Inthisproject,Iwillattempttoshow

that Irigarays invocation of sexual difference tacitly provides the occasion for but

alsonecessitatesthesebroadermetatheoreticalreflections.Indeed,myclaimisthat

Irigarays invocation of sexual difference confounds traditional paradigms of

feminist philosophy by demonstrating the constitutive complicity of these two

discourses,namelyphilosophyandfeminism.Forthisreason,whilethequestionof

sexual difference delimits the problematic, these broader metatheoretical

questions are always implicitly at stake. My project oscillates, then, between two

registers,namelythesubstantivequestionconcerningthemeaningandsignificance

ofsexualdifferenceandthemetatheoreticalquestionconcerningtheparametersof

feministphilosophy.

To suggest that sexual difference delimits the problematic is, on one hand,

merely to reiterate that the meaning and significance of sexual difference remains

among the most contentious questions in Irigaray scholarship. Consequently,

althoughsexualdifferenceiswidelyrecognizedasthelinchpinofIrigaraysthought,

itsmeaningandsignificanceremainsessentiallycontested.Ifthemeaningofsexual

difference is the perennial question of Irigaray scholarship, on the other hand, my

work seeks to pose this question anew. In order to accomplish this renewal,

however, it is necessary to interrogate those presuppositions that are implicitly

inscribedinthequestionitself.Atstake,then,isnotmerelythequestionofsexual

2
difference but the question of the question:2 how are we to broach the question of

sexualdifferenceinawaythatdoesnotconstitutivelydisfiguretheverythingweare

seeking?3

By merely holding in abeyance at the outset of this inquiry the set of

philosophical assumptions that tend to insidiously install themselves the very

momenttheissueofsexualdifferenceisintroduced,Iambeginningwiththemost

minimalthoughultimatelyfarreachingofassumptions.Thatis,Iamattemptingto

approachIrigaraysworkinawaythatwouldallowtounfold,whatis,perhaps,the

most exciting possibility that it heralds, namely the possibility that philosophical

discoursecanspeak(as)woman,withoutpresumingthatwealreadyknowwhatit

means to philosophize in the feminine.4 To allow for this possibility, however,

implies that we cannot presume from the very beginning that the philosophical

parametersofIrigaraysinvocationofsexualdifferenceareobviousorimmediately

transparent. Instead, we must leave open the possibility that this invocation is

2 This is Simon Critchleys phrase in his essay, The Question of the Question: An Ethico-Political
Response to a Note in Derridas De lesprit, Of Derrida, Heidegger, and Spirit, ed. David Wood
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993).
3
Tina Chanter has already emphasized this necessity by drawing our attention to the way in which
Irigarays formulation of the question of sexual difference is deeply Heideggerian, and thus deeply self-
referential: [r]eaders of Being and Time will have recognized more than a fleeting resemblance between
the way in which Irigaray articulates the question of sexual difference and the procedure that Heidegger
employs in posing the question of the meaning of Being (Chanter, Ethics of Eros: Irigarays rewriting of
the philosophers [New York: Routlegde, 1995], 127). As Heidegger expresses in the History of the Concept
of Time, the question is here itself co-affected by what it asks for, because the question is after being and
questioning is itself an entity. This affectedness of the questioning entity by what is asked for belongs to the
ownmost sense of the question of being itself (Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, trans. Theodore
Kisiel [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992], 148).
4
Of course, this is an allusion to the title of Whitfords ground-breaking book, which, in many ways
attempted to demonstrate the need to approach Irigarays work in a way that allowed for this possibility.
See Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine (New York: Routledge, 1991).
3
inseparable from a radical transmutation of its most readily recognizable form or

expectedphilosophicalmilieu.5

Consequently,atametatheoreticallevel,myclaimisthatifwearetobegin

elucidatingthemeaningandsignificanceofsexualdifference,wemustexaminethe

way in which this invocation arises autochthonously in each text from her

engagement with a specific philosophical or set of philosophical interlocutor(s).6

Onlybycarefullyattendingtothephilosophicalstakesofthisengagementwillwebe

able to begin to unpack its significance in a way that grants precisely the

philosophical weight that Irigaray has claimed for it. Given this methodological

commitment,alongwiththeparticularurgencysurroundingthequestionofsexual

difference in Irigarays later work,7 I focus my attention on three texts that span

thepasttwentyfiveyearsofherwork:Loublidelair,TheWayofLoveandSharing

theWorld.ByexaminingherengagementwithHeideggerinthesetexts,Iattemptto

bringIrigaraysinvocationofsexualdifferenceintoviewwithoutpresumingthatits

significancecanbearticulatedinoneunified,synopticaccount.

5
We are reminded of the question that Derrida poses to his would-be Heideggerian interlocutors in his first
Geschlecht essay: in which signs will you recognize his speaking or remaining silent about what you
nonchalantly call sexual difference? (Derrida, Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological difference,
Research in Phenomenology 13 [1983], 66). I will return to Derrida in the third chapter. For now, however,
I merely want to suggest that it evinces a pernicious nonchalance to assume that the philosophical
parameters that delimit the significance of Irigarays invocation of sexual difference are immediately
evident from the outset. Indeed, the presumption always already forecloses the possibility of speaking
philosophically (as) woman.
6
The cultural and political climate in which Irigaray writes is permeated with an intellectual history that
blends phenomenology with psychoanalysis and post-structuralism. If we fail to make some attempt to
appropriate this heritage in reading Irigarays texts, we will also fail to understand a considerable amount of
their significance and meaning (Chanter, Ethics of Eros, 11).
7
Irigarays so-called early work, roughly delineated as those texts preceding her 1983 text Loubli de
lair, has received the bulk of the attention in Irigaray scholarship and is generally regarded as articulating
the most philosophically compelling moments of her thought. Her later work is often viewed as less
theoretically rigorous and more politically conservative insofar as it often appears as essentialist, in the
sense of eliding important differences between women, as well as being heternormative. I will address
specific articulations of these criticisms in the first chapter.
4
 Substantively, my claim is that Irigaray invokes sexual difference in each of

these texts as the unthought in Heideggers work.8 That is, in each case, Irigaray

stages a dialogue with Heidegger, unearthing the question of sexual difference

within the interstices of his thought. On one hand, her invocation of sexual

difference as this unthought incites a disruption that radically destabilizes the

parametersofhisthought.Ontheotherhand,herinvocationofsexualdifferenceas

this unthought simultaneously signals the way in which her work remains

profoundlyindebtedtohim.9Byinvokingsexualdifferenceasitisunthoughtwithin

theintersticesofHeideggerianphenomenology,Irigaraytherebydemonstratesthe

deep complicity of these two seemingly antithetical or at least fundamentally

separable domains of inquiry, namely feminism and phenomenology.

Concomitantly,whatweseeisthatthemeaningandsignificanceofsexualdifference

designatesexactlythisineluctablecomplicity.

ChapterOverview

Inthefirstchapter,Iattempttoidentifyasetofcommitmentsthathaveimplicitly

delimited Irigaray scholarship and that tacitly subtend debates surrounding her

alleged essentialism. That is, I will argue that the ostensibly acrimonious debates

surroundingIrigaraysessentialismarebeliedbythesharedpresumptionthatany

8
Of course, I am using this term in the same sense that Heidegger alluded to in the passage that I cited in
the epigraph. See Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, trans. J. Glenn Gray [New York: Perennial, 1976],
76.
9
Following Taminiauxs description of Heideggers own commitment to Husserl, we might describe it is a
debt that is nonetheless devoid of servility, an affinity not exempt from divergence (Taminaux,
Dialectic and Difference, trans. Robert Crease and James T. Decker [New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1985],
92).
5
account of sexual difference is legible within naturalistic parameters, or at least

invokesanaturalisticaccountofsexualdifferenceasitsreferentialcounterpart.10In

thissense,IwillattempttoshowthatthedebateconcerningIrigaraysessentialism

ismerelyaloversquarrelsthatispremiseduponamorefundamentalagreement

concerningthetheoreticalparametersofIrigaraysproject.11

By turning to Irigarays persistent engagement with Heidegger in the

following three chapters, I attempt to undermine the adequacy of this naturalistic

assumption. What we see is that to broach the question of sexual difference is

necessarilytoconfrontaseriesoftextswhereweexplicitlyencounterHeideggeras

Irigaraysmostsalientinterlocutor.Andyet,ineachcase,whatweseeisthatifwe

aretomakesenseofthisengagement,thenthisnaturalisticpresuppositionmustbe

held in abeyance: to interpret Irigarays critical engagement with Heidegger as a

naturalistic critique delimits her critical gesture in such a way that it radically

missesitsmark.Ratherthanimposingthispresumption,ineachofthesechaptersI

10
Throughout this dissertation, I will use the term naturalism in a specifically Husserlian sense. In his
essay, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, Husserl describes naturalism as any philosophical position that
models its methods and normative standards on the exact or natural sciences. In other words, for Husserl,
naturalism designates a philosophical position wherein the binding character of its claims are ostensibly
secured through an appeal to the things in themselves or through an appeal to the givenness of an object
that is not in question. Husserls point is that insofar as philosophical naturalism transmutes into an
epistemological standard what, for the natural scientist, is a tacit certitude in the givenness of its objects,
then naturalistic philosophies are inscribed with the same kind of nivet that is endemic to, though
unproblematic for, these sciences. As Husserl puts it, [a]ll natural science is nave in regard to its point of
departure. The nature that it will investigate is for it simply there (Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous
Science, in Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, ed. and trans. Quetin Lauer [New York: Harper
& Row, 1965], 85). While I will develop Husserls objections to naturalism in the first section of the
second chapter, here I merely want clarify my use of this term. Of course, the point is not that any of these
interpretations are explicitly committed to a naturalistic interpretation of Irigarays work; instead, the point
is that Husserls notion of naturalism provides a useful way of identifying the tacit presumption that unifies
these seemingly divergent and antithetical positions.
11
As Heidegger puts its, strife among thinkers is the lovers quarrel concerning the matter itself. It
assists them mutually toward a simple belonging to the Same (Heidegger, Letter on Humanism,
Pathmarks, trans. William McNeill [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 256).
6
attempttorestagethedialoguebetweenIrigarayandHeideggerinawaythatallows

themeaningandsignificanceofsexualdifferencetounfoldwithintheparametersof

thisengagement.

In the second chapter, I focus on elucidating Irigarays dialogue with

HeideggerinLoublidelair.Inthischapter,ononehand,Iattempttoshowhowthe

naturalistic presumption has facilitated a certain neglect of the significance of

loubli.Ontheotherhand,Iarguethatamoresustainedinvestigationofthestakes

ofIrigaraysengagementwithHeideggerrevealsatoncethecentralityoftheissueof

loublianddemonstratesthatthiscentralityisradicallyimplicatedinherinvocation

of air. Through this interpretive shift, I show that Irigaray broaches the issue of

sexualdifferenceinthistextinordertoreinhabitaclaimthatHeideggerarticulates

but that nevertheless remains unthought in his work, namely that care defends

itselfagainstwhatitneglects.12

Inthethirdchapter,IturntoIrigaraysdialoguewithHeideggerinTheWay

ofLove.RelyingonDerridasengagementwithHeideggertomediatethisdialogue,I

argue that Derridas work provides the backdrop against which we can begin to

register the force of Irigarays intervention. According to Derrida, Heideggers

phenomenologicalcommitmentsaremarkedbyanundecidableoscillationbetween

acritiqueoftheincursionofanthropologywithinthedomainofphilosophyandan

insidiousreinscriptionoftheanthropic.13Yet,ifwejuxtaposethisdiagnosiswithhis

12
Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2005), 63.
13
Derrida, The Ends of Man, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1982), 119.
7
Geschlecht essays, the suggestion arises that insofar as Heideggers thought

asymptotically approaches the articulation of sexual difference, this possibility

wouldmarkthedissolutionofthisotherwiseineluctableoscillation.Bydiagnosing

sexualdifferenceasthismomentofrupture,alwaysimmanenttobutneverrealized

within Heideggers work, Derrida unwittingly articulates the stakes of Irigarays

intervention. Within these parameters, we are able to see that Irigaray invokes

sexual difference in The Way of Love, seemingly paradoxically, in order to

reformulate Heideggers phenomenological interpretation of identity in a way that

beliestheseanthropicvestiges.

In the final chapter, I turn to Irigarays engagement with Heidegger in her

most recent monograph, Sharing the World. In this text, Irigaray invokes sexuate

difference as the unthought in Heideggers phenomenological account of

transcendenceandthusasinscribedinthestructureofbeingintheworld.Sharing

the World thus becomes visible as the nascent articulation of Irigarays sexuate

phenomenology, one that is already prefigured in Loubli de lair and becomes

conspicuousinTheWayofLove.Whatwesee,however,isthatthisinterventionin

thephenomenologicaltraditionmustbeunderstoodinaspecificsense:hertaskis

not to offer a phenomenological account of sexual difference, but rather to reveal

phenomenologyasitselfsexuate.

Concomitantly, by attempting to reinhabit the interstices of Heideggers

thought, we see that Irigaray is able to take up this unthought in a way that

transformsanddestabilizesitsparameters.InadecisivelyHeideggeriangesture,her

invocation of sexual difference appears at once as an expression of her most

8
profoundcommitmenttoHeideggerianphenomenologyand,simultaneously,asher

mosthereticaltransformationofitsstakes.Inthissense,then,weseethatIrigarays

invocationofsexualdifference,herattempttoelicitthisunthoughtfromHeidegger,

signalspreciselytheconstitutivecomplicityofphenomenologyandfeminism.14

14
By invoking sexual difference as this unthought, we indeed see a positive moment of Irigarays work.
But we also see that this cannot be understood in naturalistic terms as the retrieval or recuperation of
something extant, the retrieval of sexual difference understood as the thing-in-itself that is ineluctably
given.
9
ChapterOne:LuceIrigarayandthequestionofsexualdifference

Weneedtorememberthatsexualdifferenceisnottobe
recognized only from signs or signifiers that have
alreadybeencodedandwhichare,inanycase,farfrom
unchanging. Sexual difference also corresponds to the
possibilityofdifferentperceptionsandcreations.
LuceIrigaray,SexesandGenealogies

Overview

Readers of Irigaray are by now familiar with the way in which existing divisions

withincontemporaryfeministthought,divisionsthatcanbetracedtothespecterof

essentialism,15 have been reproduced in the reception of her work. Indeed, the

initiallyunfavorablereceptionofIrigaraysearlyworkwaslargelyaresultofwhat

these critics identified as her essentialist invocation of sexual difference. By

ostensibly invoking an account of sexual difference as something given or extant,

these critics viewed Irigarays work as both politically reactionary and

philosophically nave.16 While these early dismissals are now widely regarded as

15
As Naomi Schor puts it, just as Irigarays writings have evolved over time, her reception has moved
through different stages, appealed to different disciplinary constituencies, been taken up by differently
situated communities of readers. This multilayered reception gives rise to several combinatories: e.g., the
early reception of the early works, the delayed reception of the early work, the contemporary reception of
the later work (Naomi Schor, Previous Engagements, in Engaging with Irigaray, ed. Carolyn Burke,
Naomi Schor and Margaret Whitford [New York: Columbia University Press, 1994], 5). Allison Stone,
writing twelve years later, suggests that the question of Irigarays essentialism has long been at the
centre of controversy over the value of her work to feminist theory (Allison Stone, Luce Irigaray and the
Philosophy of Sexual Difference [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006], 18).
16
Rosi Braidotti, for example, clearly articulates the concerns underlying this dismissal. As she puts it,
given that patriarchy has been haunted by the political necessity to make biology coincide with
subjectivity, the anatomical with the psycho-sexual, and therefore reproduction and sexuality, this forced
unification of nature with culture [which] has been played out mostly on womans body has served to
naturalize the patriarchal family structure as well as the practice of compulsory hetero-sexuality
(Braidotti, The politics of ontological difference, in Between Feminism and Psychoanalysis, ed. Teresa
Brennan [New York: Routledge, 1990], 97).
10
founded upon an insufficient scholarly engagement with Irigarays work,17 they

remain instructive insofar as they have been consequential for subsequent

scholarship. That is, these early critiques of Irigarays alleged essentialism

galvanized,roughly,twotypesofresponse:ononehand,weseetheemergenceof

attempts to defend a qualified version of this essentialism, what has sometimes

been described as Irigarays strategic essentialism;18 on the other hand, we also

see attempts to defend Irigarays alleged essentialism as ontological or

metaphysical.19 By carefully examining these early critiques as well as the

subsequentdefenses,wecanelucidatetheparametersandstakesoftheproblemof

essentialismthathasdelimitedthehorizonofIrigarayscholarship.

17
For example, Schor argues that basing themselves unapologetically on a partial knowledge of her work,
notably Speculum and This Sex Which is not One, and even more specifically on a few essays in This Sex,
an astonishing variety of critics, many with little or no knowledge of French and of French culture, almost
immediately and roundly condemned Irigaray (Schor, Previous Engagements, 5). Helen Fielding
suggests that Irigaray scholars now agree, for the most part, that her work is not essentialist, in other
words, that this difference is not grounded in biology (Fielding, Questioning nature: Irigaray, Heidegger
and the potentiality of matter, Continental Philosophy Review 36 [2003]: 1).
18
According to Margaret Whitford, what has enabled a shift in the rather monolithic essentialist readings
of Irigaray is, first, a climate in which the binary pair essentialism/antiessentialism has been put into
question. This enables essentialism to be interpreted as a position rather than as an ontology, and Irigaray to
be interpreted as a strategist (even a postmodernist) rather than as an obscurantist prophet of essential
biological or psychic difference (Whitford, Reading Irigaray in the Nineties, in Engaging with Irigaray,
ed. Carolyn Burke, Naomi Schor and Margaret Whitford [New York: Columbia University Press, 1994],
16).
19
Given that Allison Stone and Elizabeth Grosz are perhaps the two most influential proponents of this
latter reading, I use this term that they invoke in order to characterize this type of interpretation. According
to Stone, Irigaray invokes sexual difference as ontological, which means that sexual difference exists at
the level of being (Stone, Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference, 14). For Grosz, to
claim that sexual difference is ontological is to posit it as preceding and exceeding the socio-cultural
realm. Understood in this sense, Irigarays ontological invocation of sexual difference just is a new
metaphysics or a new understanding of the real (Grosz, Irigaray and the Ontology of Sexual
Difference [paper presented at the Luce Irigaray Circle Conference, New York, NY, September 6-7,
2007], 2-3). Both Stone and Grosz, then, understand the terms ontology and metaphysics as synonymous
and they use these terms interchangeably in their interpretation of the meaning and significance of sexual
difference in Irigarays work. To describe Irigarays invocation of sexual difference as ontological, in this
sense, is to invoke it as a fundamental and ineluctable fact about the nature of reality.
11
 In the first part of this chapter, I begin by examining three critiques of

Irigarays early work. While these critiques explicitly take issue with what they

identify as Irigarays purported essentialism, the actual target of their criticism is

whattheyonlytacitlydiagnoseashercommitmenttoanaturalisticinterpretationof

thegivennessofsexualdifference.20Inthissense,thechargeofessentialismserves

as a redherring: according to these critics, the problem with Irigarays alleged

essentialism is that it evinces the same kind of epistemological naivety that is

endemic to naturalistic philosophy, namely the uncritical acceptance of the

givennessofitsobjects.Inotherwords,forthesecritics,theproblemwithIrigarays

invocationofsexualdifferenceisthatitisostensiblyparasiticupontheassumption

thatsexualdifferenceisgiven,thatitissomethingextant,whichistherebyavailable

to be recovered or recuperated. By examining these critiques of Irigarays early

work,then,weseethatthecrucialinterpretivequestionsurroundingthemeaning

andsignificanceofherinvocationofsexualdifferenceiswhetherthisinvocationis

legiblewithinnaturalisticparameters.

However,whilethequestionofnaturalismisimplicitlycentraltotheseearly

dismissals of Irigarays work, its salience is obfuscated within subsequent debates

surrounding Irigarays essentialism. In the second part of this chapter, I turn to

three socalled strategic defenses of Irigarays essentialism. On one hand, we see

thatthesedefensestacitlyacknowledgethecentralityofthequestionofnaturalism

20
As I mentioned in the introduction, I will use the term naturalism in a specifically Husserlian sense. In
his essay, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, Husserl describes naturalism as any philosophical position
that models its methods and normative standards on the exact or natural sciences. In other words, for
Husserl, naturalism designates a philosophical position wherein the binding character of its claims is
ostensibly secured through an appeal to an object whose givenness is not in question.
12
insofarastheyfunctionbydecouplingessentialism,understoodastheaffirmationof

feminine specificity, from any commitment to the ineluctable fact or reality of its

givenness. That is, proponents of the strategic interpretation argue that Irigarays

essentialismisdefensibleifitcanbearticulatedinnonnaturalisticterms.Irigarays

affirmationofsexualdifference,then,istobeunderstoodasapoliticalratherthan

ontological claim.21 On the other hand, we will see that the force of the strategic

defense is parasitic upon the very naturalistic affirmation of sexual difference that

itsproponentsdisavow.Indeed,anaturalisticinvocationofsexualdifferenceisthe

necessary correlate to or referential counterpart of strategic essentialism. For this

reason, the strategic defense of Irigarays essentialism is entirely selfeffacing: it

succeeds in quelling the anxiety surrounding the charge of essentialism only by

tacitlyandineluctablyinscribingherworkwithintheparametersofnaturalism.

Finally, in the third part of the chapter, I argue that recent defenses of

Irigarays allegedly metaphysical essentialism are squarely situated within the

termsoftheseearlierinterpretationsinsofarastheyuncriticallyreinscribethesame

naturalistic interpretation of her invocation of sexual difference that is visible in

boththeearlycritiquesaswellasthestrategicdefenses.Accordingtoproponentsof

thismetaphysicalinterpretation,Irigaraysinvocationofsexualdifferencemustbe

understood as the affirmation of an ineluctable fact, not merely as a political

maneuver. In other words, by invoking sexual difference, Irigaray is making an

21
As Dianna Fuss, for example, puts it [i]n what follows it will become clear that I do believe that there
are such ways to elaborate and to work with a notion of essence that is not, in essence, ahistorical,
apolitical, empiricist, or simply reductive (Fuss, Essentially Speaking: Luce Irigarays Language of
Essence, Hypatia 3 [1983]: 62-63). Fuss strategic defense of Irigarays essentialism is premised upon the
ability to distance essentialism from metaphysical realism. I will return to this claim in the first part of the
chapter.
13
ontologicalclaimaboutthenatureofrealityorwhatis.Whattheproponentsofthis

interpretation simply assume, then, is that any invocation of sexual difference as

real,i.e.,asontological,canonlybeunderstoodinnaturalisticterms.Inthissense,

theontologicalormetaphysicaldefenseisvisibleastheculminatingarticulationof

the tacit presumption of Irigarays commitment to naturalism that has structured

theinterpretiveparameterssurroundingthequestionofsexualdifferencefromthe

initialreceptionofherwork.

Whatwesee,then,isthatwithinaninterpretativeparadigmstructuredbya

tacit commitment to naturalism, apparent disagreements are belied by a shared

fidelity to a set of insufficiently examined philosophical commitments.22

Consequently,withintheacrimoniousdebatessurroundingIrigaraysessentialism,

the status of naturalism in her work has gone virtually unquestioned. My claim is

that we must interrogate this presupposition if we are to begin to engage with

Irigaray and if we are to begin to broach the meaning and significance of her

invocationofsexualdifference.Inthischapter,Imerelyattempttoinitiatesuchan

interrogationbyidentifyingandmakingexplicitwhatwasheretoforecoveredover.

That is, identifying the specter of naturalism underlying the debates surrounding

Irigaraysessentialismispropaedeutictothelargerprojectofposingthequestionof

sexualdifferenceanew.

22
As Irigaray puts it, essentialism offers one such instance, deriving from a theoretical conflict which is
contained within that traditional order of philosophical discourse which I have from the beginning worked
to deconstruct critically (Irigaray, Why Different?, A Culture of Two Subjects, ed. Luce Irigaray and
Sylvre Lotringer, trans. Camille Collins [New York: Semiotext(e), 2000], 141).
14
PartI:IrigaraysEssentialism

Between the late seventies and the midnineties Christine Delphy, Monique Plaza

andTorilMoieacharticulatedpowerfulcritiquesofIrigaraysearlywork,primarily

focusingtheirattentiononSpculumdelautrefemmeandCesexequinenestpasun.

Instead of evaluating the adequacy of their interpretations, I will focus on

elucidatingthephilosophicalstakesoftheirrespectivecritiques.Throughthisfocus,

Iwilldemonstratethatwhatisatstakeinthechargeofessentialismleveledagainst

Irigarayisreallytheindictmentofwhatappearstothesecriticsasthenaturalistic

tenorofherproject.23Inotherwords,theseearlycritiquesrevealthattheproblem

of Irigarays alleged essentialism, what they diagnose as her attempt to theorize

womansspecificity,ismerelysymptomaticofherallegednaturalism,andthather

elaboration of this specificity is founded upon her commitment to the ineluctable

factofsexualdifferenceoritsunproblematicgivenness.

Beginning with Delphy, her polemic against French Feminism in general

and Irigaray by extension offers a classic formulation of this critical reception.24

Indeed,hercriticalresponseisemblematic,ifnotthehyperbolicexpression,ofthe

hostilitythatcharacterizedtheinitialreceptionofIrigaraysearlywork.25According

23
For this reason, Naomi Schors claim that it is specifically a feminist critique of essentialism against
which Irigarays work must be defended, a critique wherein the problem of essentialism is its false
universalism, simply misunderstands what is primarily at stake in the charge of essentialism leveled
against Irigaray. See Schor, This Essentialism Which Is Not One: Coming to Grips with Irigaray,
Engaging with Irigaray, ed. Carolyn Burke, Naomi Schor and Margaret Whitford (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994), 60-62.
24
Delphy, The Invention of French Feminism: An Essential Move, Yale French Studies, 87 (1995): 190-
221.
25
Christine Faur similarly interprets Irigarays work as reifying the feminine through a naturalistic
invocation of womens anatomical specificity. According to Faur, Irigaray outlines the philosophical
basis for [a] modern presentation of the eternal feminine decreed by anatomy (Faur, Twilight of the
Goddesses, or The Intellectual Crisis of French Feminism, Signs 7 [1981]: 84).
15
to Delphy, French Feminism emerged as a reactionary, ideological vehicle of

AngloAmerican (anti)feminists. Anxious about the incursion of social

constructivism and its radically destabilizing implications, these AngloAmerican

theorists attempted to lend legitimacy to and absolve themselves of responsibility

for a politically conservative and epistemologically nave essentialist position by

erroneouslydesignatingitasFrench.26

While Delphys critique is far from a nuanced interpretation of Irigarays

work, it is instructive insofar as what she problematizes under the auspices of

essentialism is in fact Irigarays alleged naturalism. Indeed, the problem with

Irigaraysallegedessentialism,onDelphysreading,isthatitcommitshertoasetof

untenable epistemological claims.27 Irigarays essentialism is problematic, in other

words, because it implicates her project in what Delphy identifies as the

epistemologically nave claim that we have adequate epistemic access to sexual

difference as it is in itself. In this sense, it is Irigarays claim to have unmediated

access to the preexistent reality of sexual difference, what we could call the

naturalisticpresupposition,28thatenableshertotheorizewomansspecificityorto

giveanaccountofitsessence.29Thecrucialpoint,then,isthatDelphyscritiqueof

26
As Delphy puts it, I submit that the imperialism exhibited in the invention of French Feminism was
necessary both to produce a particular brand of essentialism, and in order to pass off as feminist a theory
in which feminism and feminists need not figure any longer (Delphy, The Invention of French
Feminism, 195).
27
According to Delphy, the problems most apparent in that approach [French Feminism], such as the
reclaiming of the feminine or a definition of sexuality that leaves no room for lesbianism, are not the
source of its inadequacy. I propose instead that these claims, which are problematic for a feminist politics,
are a consequence of adopting an outdated epistemological framework (Ibid., 194).
28
On Delphys reading, what I am identifying as her critique of naturalism is equally legible as a kind of
nave external realism.
29
According to Delphy, essentialism implies that parts of social systems exist before the whole, have a
meaning, and indeed a naturean essenceof their own. It implies furthermore that the parts that make up
16
Irigarays essentialism is more fundamentally a critique of her purported

commitmenttonaturalism.

In her essay Phallomorphic Power and the psychology of woman,

MoniquePlazaoffersacritiquethatismorenuanced,thoughnolessvitriolicthan

Delphys. According to Plaza, French Feminism in general and Irigarays work in

particularbeginswiththequestion:Whatarewe,whatwouldwebewithoutthis

socialmould[sic.]?What,basically,isawoman?30Itisthisquestion,Plazasuggests,

that implicitly delimits the theoretical stakes of Irigarays work. Indeed, with this

question,IrigaraysprojectiscircumscribedwithinwhatPlazatacitlyidentifiesasa

naturalisticlogicofdiagnosisandrecuperation.Thatis,accordingtoPlaza,inposing

thisquestion,ononehand,Irigarayidentifiesthewayinwhichthenatureofwoman

has been radically shaped by patriarchal discourse and, on the other hand, she

purportedlypresumesthattheessenceofwomancannonethelessberetrievedand

reclaimedoutsideofthisdiscourse.31

Consequently, we see that although Plaza seems to locate the problem of

essentialism in the very formulation of the question What is woman?, in fact we

seethatitistheseeminglynaturalistictenorofthisquestionthatPlazahasinher

any realitythe physical, social or psychic worldare always the same, in number and in content, and are
there to stay (Ibid., 201). For this reason, Delphy argues that Irigarays sexual difference approach is
theoretically flawed on a basic level by the very premises it incorporates, and which are a throwback to
epistemological postures that cannot be taken seriously today (Ibid., 200).
30
Plaza, Phallomorphic Power and the psychology of woman, Ideology and Consciousness 4 (1978):
5.
31
As Plaza puts it, woman is to be sought, discovered, brought into the open (Ibid., 6).
17
sights.32 In other words, the problem with the question What is woman?,

according to Plaza, is that by posing this question, Irigaray allegedly seeks to

recuperate something that is posited as unproblematically given, preceding and

exceedingtheboundariesofthepatriarchaldiscoursethathascolonizedit.

Indeed,asshegoesontoemphasize,itisthisdesiretoelaborateanaccount

of womans essence that is uncontaminated by patriarchy which implicates

Irigarays project in a form of covert and specious naturalism. On Plazas

interpretation,Irigarayseekstoreturntothebodyaspreciselythesiteofwomans

specificity, as the material substratum that precedes and exceeds its patriarchal

disfiguration.Assheputsit,forIrigaray,thepotentialexistenceofwomandepends

thereforeonthediscoveryofheressence,whichliesinthespecificityofherbody.33

ForPlaza,itispreciselythispostulatethatisuntenable34fornaturedoesnotspeak

the difference, it supplies indications which we interpret as a function of social

relations. The individual does not have a natural existence, he is alwaysalready

socialised, including his biological irreducibleness.35 In other words, for Plaza,

giventhatfeministinquiryisconstitutivelyimplicatedinthepatriarchaldiscourseit

seeks to challenge, the question What is woman? and the answer it demands

cannot but bear the vestigial traces of this same discourse. Insofar as Irigaray

supposedly presumes that it is possible to let the body speak in a way that

32
Given these parameters, on Plazas interpretation of Irigaray, our task as women is to delineate our
subjective position, to discover our relationship with the world, to seek our essence. In short, to promote
our specificity (Ibid., 6).
33
Ibid., 7.
34
To let the body speak for itself..That is precisely the proposition that arouses our critical attention.
Would not womans specificity derive in the last instance from her body, supposed be the natural site of sex
differences? (Ibid., 6).
35
Ibid., 7.
18
eschewsthetracesofpatriarchy,herappealtoessencesandtonatureconstitutesa

blind spot, from which the oppressive shackles of patriarchal discourse, once

again,gaintraction.36

The essential point, for Plaza, then, is that Irigarays allegedly naturalistic

appeal to the body as the prediscursive and thus prepatriarchal ground of

womans specificity simply reinscribes a set of philosophical commitments that

arealwaysalreadycomplicitwiththeboundariesofpatriarchy.AsPlazaputsit,

Luce Irigaray pursues her construction, cheerfully prescribing

womanssocialandintellectualexistencefromhermorphology.[]

Certainlyforherownpart,sheprivilegestheconceptofmorphology

overthatofanatomy,seeminglywishingtorefertosomethingwhich

would be more empirical, less of a construction? Despite this

distinction, her method remains fundamentally naturalist and

completelyundertheinfluenceofpatriarchalideology.Foronecannot

describe morphology as though it presented itself to perception,

without ideological mediation. The positivism of the Irigarayan

constructionisherematchedbyflagrantempiricism.37

Positivism,empiricismandnaturalism,aretheepithetsPlazainvokestoindict

the logic underlying Irigarays alleged essentialism. The crucial point, then, is that

within her critique of Irigarays essentialism, Plaza in fact has Irigarays alleged

naturalisminhersights.

36
Ibid., 28.
37
Ibid., 31.
19
 TurningtoTorilMoisengagementwithIrigarayinherbookSexual/Textual

Politics,38sheoffersamoresympatheticbutultimatelycriticalreadingofSpculum

delautrefemme.AccordingtoMoi,atstakeinIrigaraysearlyworkisacritiqueof

thespecularlogicanimatingWesternphilosophicaldiscourse.ForIrigaray,

specularizationsuggestsnotonlythemirrorimagethatcomesfrom

thevisualpenetrationofthespeculuminsidethevagina;italsohints

at the basic assumption underlying all Western philosophical

discourse: the necessity of postulating a subject that is capable of

reflectingonitsownbeing.39

Irigarayscritiqueofphilosophicaldiscourseasspecular,accordingtoMoi,isbased

on her identification of it as fundamentally narcissistic or selfreflexive.40

Narcissism or selfreflexivity demands the elision of difference: the subject of this

discourseiscapableofachievingthisreflexivityonlysolongasheispositionedat

its referential center, only so long as all representations refer back to him.41

Specularity, therefore, refers to the underlying structure of a philosophical

discoursethatisimpervioustodifference.

Though it remains underdeveloped in her interpretation, Moi implicitly

showsthatIrigaraysdiagnosisofthespecularstructureofphilosophicaldiscourse

coincides with a critique of naturalism. That is, on Mois interpretation, what

38
Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, New York: Routledge, 1985.
39
Ibid., 132. I will return extensively to the question of specularization in the second chapter.
40
Ibid., 132.
41
It is important to keep in mind that Mois text was published in 1985, only two years after Irigaray
published Loubli d lair. The English translation of this text was published sixteen years later.
Unsurprisingly given this chronology, Moi does not refer to Heidegger nor does she seem to have Irigarays
engagement with Heidegger in mind. Nonetheless, Mois reading of Speculum already gestures towards the
importance of Heidegger within Irigarays project. I will return to this point in the second chapter.
20
Irigarayshowsisthatthesubjectspositionasthereferentialcenterissecuredonly

throughthecorrelativeinvocationofakindofnaturalism.Weseethecorrelativity

ofthesetwocritiques,forexample,inIrigaraysengagementwithFreud.Although

psychoanalysis is a discourse that ostensibly decenters the subject,42 Irigarays

deconstructive engagement with Freud reveals his implicit fidelity to a specular

logic.43 Here, Irigaray diagnoses the specular structure of his discourse by

deconstructinghistheoryoffemalesexuality.44Hisreductionofsexualityassuchto

masculine parameters has as its correlate a tacit commitment to a kind of nave

naturalism.Thisisclear,forexample,whenIrigarayreinhabitsFreudsdiscussion

ofcastrationanxiety.AsIrigarayputsit,therealityofthegirlscastrationcouldbe

summed up as follows: you men can see nothing, can know nothing of this; can

neither discover nor recognize yourselves in this.45 Here, Irigaray is drawing our

attention to the tacit commitment to naturalism that is coincident with Freuds

elision of difference. Indeed, what she shows is that the selfreflexivity of his

discoursereliesontherealityoffemalecastration,onthefactofsexualindifference.

Thepoint,then,isthatspecularityandnaturalismarecorrelative.

42
For example, as Rosi Braidotti puts it, psychoanalysis as theory and practice is highly representative of
this historical double shift, which opens the age of modernity simultaneously onto the crisis of the classical
vision of the subject and the proliferation of images of other as signs of difference. (Braidotti, The
Politics of Ontological Difference, 89).
43
If Freudian theory indeed contributes what is needed to upset the philosophic order of discourse, the
theory remains paradoxically subject to that discourse where the definition of sexual difference is
concerned [] Freuds contribution remains, in partand precisely where the difference between the
sexes is concernedcaught up in metaphysical presuppositions (Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not one, 72-
73).
44
Irigarays argument is that Freud was forced into developing this incoherent, contradictory and
misogynist theory of femininity by his unwitting subservience to the specular logic of the same (Moi,
Sexual/Textual Politics, 133).
45
Irigaray, Speculum, 50.
21
 While Moi offers a compelling account of the parameters of Irigarays

diagnosisofthisspecularlogic,sheisultimatelycriticalofIrigarayforfailingtolimit

hercritiquetothisdeconstructivegesture.AsMoiputsit,havingshownthatsofar

femininity has been produced exclusively in relation to the logic of the Same, she

falls for the temptation to produce her own positive theory of femininity.46 The

crucialpointisthathavingimplicitlyinterpretedIrigarayscritiqueofspecularityas

simultaneouslyevincingacritiqueofnaturalism,Moicannotbutbecriticalofwhat

sheidentifiesasIrigaraysattempttotheorizethefeminine,forshehasshownthat

thisrecuperativemove,theappealtothegivennessorthefactofsexualdifference,

is ineliminably inscribed in the same specular logic.47 Consequently, according to

Moi,insofarasIrigarayscritiqueofFreudmovesbeyondacritical,deconstructive

position,itmerelyreinscribestheverylogicthatitattemptedtosubvert.

Like Plaza, then, we see that Moi identifies the problem of essentialism in

Irigaraysworkasmerelysymptomaticofatacitcommitmenttonaturalism.Indeed,

although Moi criticizes Irigarays attempt to formulate a general theory of

femininity as essentialist,48 her objection is that Irigarays alleged essentialism

evinces an appeal to the givenness of sexual difference that inevitably reinscribes

thelogicofthespecular.Moispoint,then,isthatifIrigaraysworkoffersapositive

46
Moi, 139.
47
As Moi puts it, if, as Derrida has argued, we are still living under the reign of metaphysics, it is
impossible to produce new concepts untainted by the metaphysics of presence. [] Deconstruction is in
other words self-confessedly parasitic upon the metaphysical discourse it is out to subvert. It follows that
any attempt to formulate a general theory of femininity will be metaphysical (Ibid., 139, my italics). The
problem, of course, is that Moi does not notice the crucial slip her argument between the question of
essentialism and the question of naturalism because she fails to see that Irigarays invocation of sexual
difference can potentially be understood otherwise than within naturalistic parameters.
48
But, as we have seen, to define woman is to essentialize her (Ibid., 139).
22
theory of femininity, if Irigaray is attempting to specify what woman is, then her

work remains within the very specular logic that she seeks to displace. Holding in

abeyanceanyevaluationoftheadequacyofMoisinterpretation,whatweseeisthat

underlying her critique of Irigarays essentialism is an indictment of what she

identifiesasitsnaturalisticvestiges.

Having identified this moment of continuity in these three critiques of

Irigaraysearlywork,wecannowturntothelaterdefensesofIrigaraysproject.It

willbecrucialtokeepthesecritiquesinmind,however,inordertotracethewayin

which the implicit critique of naturalism becomes obfuscated in subsequent

scholarship. Indeed, as we will see in the following section, it is only once the

questionofnaturalismisobfuscatedthatthestrategicinterpretationofIrigarays

essentialismcangaintractionasaplausibledefenseofherwork.

PartII:IrigaraysStrategicEssentialism

Inthissection,IexamineDianaFusss,NaomiSchorsandRosiBraidottisrespective

attemptstodefendanessentialistinterpretationofIrigarayswork.Ineachoftheir

accounts,theyidentifythewayinwhichwidespreadhostilitytoessentialisminthe

eighties and nineties within feminist scholarship has prevented a measured and

nuanced engagement with Irigaray. By complicating what has become a stagnant

and vacuous debate between essentialists and antiessentialists,49 Fuss, Schor

49
As Schor puts it, what revisionism, not to say essentialism, was to Marxist-Leninism, essentialism is to
feminism: the prime idiom of intellectual terrorism and the privileged instrument of political orthodoxy.
Borrowed from the time-honored vocabulary of philosophy, the word essentialism has been endowed
within the context of feminism with the power to reduce to silence, to excommunicate, to consign to
23
and Braidotti each attempt to show how Irigarays work offers a rehabilitation of

essentialism, thereby vitiating what now appear to be facile dismissals of

essentialismassuchandherworkbyextension.

Whatwewillsee,however,isthat,withvariousdegreesofexplicitness,these

strategic interpretations proceed by decoupling Irigarays alleged essentialism

from naturalism, while at the same time insidiously reinscribing her work within

the parameters of naturalism. For Fuss, this reinscription is wholly unintentional:

unwittingly, she demonstrates that the strategic interpretation of Irigarays appeal

tofemininemorphologyreliesonanaturalisticappealtothegivennessofthesexed

body as its referential counterpart. Schor, more explicitly, argues that Irigarays

strategictransvaluationofthecomplicitybetweenfemininityandfluidityinvokesa

naturalistic appeal to the fluidity of reality for its force.50 Finally, Braidotti is

explicitly committed to the strategic value of naturalistic philosophy for feminism,

andsheinvokesIrigaraysworktocorroboratethisclaim.Paradoxically,then,what

wewillseeisthateachofthesedefensesofIrigaraysstrategicessentialismoperate

intheserviceofnaturalism.Consequently,theyhavetheinsidiouseffectofquelling

theanxietiessurroundingthespecterofessentialism,whilefirmlyentrenchingher

thoughtwithinthepurviewofnaturalism.

Twenty years ago, in her article Essentially Speaking: Luce Irigarays

Language of Essence, Fuss initiated a defense of what is now widely accepted as

oblivion. Essentialism in modern feminism is anathema (Schor, This Essentialism Which Is Not One,
59).
50
Schor describes this as Irigarays materialist invocation of a physics of the fluid (Ibid., 71).
24
Irigarays strategic essentialism.51 Clearly responding to Delphy as well as other

feministcriticsforwhomtheverydiagnosisofessentialisminIrigaraysworkwas

simultaneously grounds for its rejection, Fuss suggests that essentialism as such

neednotbeautomaticallytreatedasananathemawithinfeministtheory.ForFuss,

the defensibility of Irigarays essentialism hinges on whether it is possible to

decouple essentialism from naturalism. Fuss argument, then, relies on her claim

thatitispossibletoelaborateandtoworkwithanotionofessencethatisnot,in

essence, ahistorical, apolitical, empiricist, or simply reductive.52 That is, the

demarcation of a politically and epistemologically mature strategic form of

essentialism from its conservative and naturalistic counterpart, according to Fuss,

opens up the possibility of considering how essentialism might operate in the

serviceofLuceIrigaraysfeministtheoryandpolitics.53Inotherwords,forFuss,the

veryideathatheressentialismisstrategicopensupthepossibilitythatitneedno

longerbeconceivedasautomaticgroundsforherdismissal.

51
As Fuss puts it, The idea that men and women, for example, are identified as such on the basis of
transhistorical, eternal, immutable essences has been unequivocally rejected by many anti-essentialist
poststructuralist feminists concerned with resisting any attempts to naturalize human nature. And yet one
can hear echoing from the corners of the debates on essentialism renewed interest in its possibilities and
potential usages [] Essentialism has been given new life by these invitations to consider a possible
strategic deployment of essence (Fuss, Essentially Speaking, 62). Seventeen years after the publication
of this essay the very institutionalization of this strategic reading seems to have motivated Allison Stones
attempt to reinterpret Irigarays alleged essentialism in realist terms. As Stone puts it, recent scholars have
reinterpreted Irigaray as employing traditional essentialist notions of women merely strategically []
Most scholars have assumed that this position, being realist, is unacceptably nave epistemologically. In
contrast, I will argue that Irigarays later realist essentialism (as I will call it) is more coherent than
merely strategic essentialism (Stone, Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference, 13). I will
return to Stones work in the third part of this chapter.
52
Ibid., 62-63.
53
Fuss, Essentially Speaking, 62.
25
 By invoking the idea of strategic essentialism, Fuss specifically attempts to

recasthowweunderstandIrigaraysinvocationofthesexedbody.54Hertaskisto

demonstrate that it is possible to distance Irigarays invocation of female

morphological specificity from a naturalistic appeal to the sexed body as

unproblematically given. As Fuss puts it, [t]he debate over Irigarays essentialism

inevitably comes down to the question of whether the body stands in a literal or

figurativerelationtolanguageanddiscourse:arethetwolipsametaphorornot?55

A strategic interpretation of Irigarays essentialism implies that it is possible to

distinguishherinvocationofthesexedbodyfromanaturalisticorliteralone.

According to Fuss, however, Irigarays invocation of this morphological

specificityisnotmerelymetaphoricalbutrathermetonymical.JuxtaposingIrigarays

critique of the Lacanian phallus with her own invocation of the two lips,56 Fuss

suggests that the lips operate within Irigarays work as a metonymical trope for

parler femme.57 Disrupting the Lacanian tropic economy of metaphor, which, for

Fuss, operates according to an indifferent logic of substitution, her claim is that

metonymy operates in Irigarays work through the association and contiguity

betweenmorphologicalformandthespeakingsubject.Thatis,onFussreading,the

54
Here, again, we might recall Plazas critique from the previous section: one cannot describe morphology
as though it presented itself to perception, without ideological mediation. The positivism of the Irigarayan
construction is here matched by flagrant empiricism (Plaza, Phallomorphic Power and the psychology
of woman, 31).
55
Fuss, Essentially Speaking, 68.
56
Here, Fuss has in mind texts like This Sex Which Is Not One: As for woman, she touches herself in and
of herself without any need for mediation, and before there is any way to distinguish activity from
passivity. Woman touches herself all the time, and moreover no one can forbid her to do so, for her
genitals are formed of two lips in continuous contact. Thus, within herself, she is already twobut not
divisible into one(s)that caress each other (Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, 26).
57
As Fuss puts its, [t]hough Irigaray disparages what she calls the masculine game of tropes and
tropisms, she is not without her own favorite tropes, chief among them the figure of metonymy (Fuss,
Essentially Speaking, 69).
26
twolipsarecontiguouswithfemininemorphologicalspecificitybutnotreducible

tothisspecificity.Throughheruseofmetonymy,FussarguesthatIrigarayisableto

showatoncethatthespeakingsubjectisneverneutralandhowispossibletospeak

(as) woman without her essentialism simply devolving into anatomical

determinism,orwithoutsimplyinvolvinganaturalisticappealtothesexedbody.

Yet, if it is the case that these tropisms, including both metonymy and

metaphor,requireliteralismornaturalismastheirreferentialcounterpart,thenitis

unclearthatFusssinvocationofmetonymydemonstratesthedistanceofIrigarays

strategic essentialism from a naturalistic version. Indeed, unwittingly, Fuss has

revealed that a figurative invocation of the body gains traction only if it is

metaphorically juxtaposed (in the case of Lacan) or metonymically contiguous (in

the case of Fuss Irigaray) with the literal body, understood within the guise of

naturalism, as given. In this sense, what Irigaray herself has identified as the

masculine games of tropes and tropisms,58 which includes both metaphor and

metonymy, is merely the correlate of this literal or naturalistic invocation of the

sexed body. To interpret Irigarays invocation of the two lips metonymically,

therefore,istocommitIrigaraytoastrategicessentialismthatisalwaysalready

permeatedbynaturalism.

Indeed,FusssowninterpretationoftheoperationofmetonymyinIrigarays

workalreadyunwittinglyevincesthiscorrelativecommitmenttonaturalism.While

she invokes the idea of metonymy in order to distinguish Irigarays strategic

58
Irigaray, Speculum of the other woman, trans. Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985),
140. As I have mentioned already, Fuss herself cites this passage.
27
essentialismfromanaturalisticaccount,shetacitlyreliesonanaturalisticappealto

bodily specificity in order to articulate the strategic status of the two lips.

Irigarays use of metonymy achieves traction, on Fuss reading, precisely because

thesymbolicsubstituteiscontiguouswiththeliteralbodythatitreplaces.Inother

words,Fussaccountofmetonymypresumesthatthesymboliclipsarecontiguous

with the unproblematically given body to which they refer. Thus, on Fuss

interpretation,whilethetwolipsarenottobereadliterally,theynonethelessrefer

to the body as available within the guise of naturalism. To hold in abeyance the

claim that Irigarays work makes any reference to the body as unproblematically

given or as something extant, then, would be to problematize the operation of

metonymyanditsexplanatoryforcewithinIrigarayswork.

WhenweturntoSchorsessayThisEssentialismWhichIsNotOne,wesee

thatthecomplicityofstrategicessentialismandnaturalism,unwittinglyrevealedin

Fuss account, becomes explicit. In this essay, she corroborates Fuss call for a

reconsideration of essentialism in the context of Irigarays work. Moreover, like in

Fuss account, Schors interpretation centers on Irigarays controversial discussion

of parler femme.59 Rather than signaling merely an invocation of the sexed body,

accordingtoSchor,thenotionofparlerfemmedesignatesIrigaraysbroaderattempt

tothinkfemininespecificityaccordingtoalogicoffluidity.ForSchor,itisprecisely

59
Few claims Irigaray has made for feminine specificity have aroused more virulent accusations of
essentialism than her outrageous claim that woman enjoys a special relationship with the fluid (Schor,
This Essentialism Which Is Not One, 68).
28
thisinvocationofthefeminineasfluidthatmustbeunderstoodasakindofstrategic

essentialism.60

AccordingtoSchor,however,Irigaraysstrategicinvocationoffluidityoccurs

withinanaturalisticcritiqueofWesternmetaphysics.Ononehand,Irigarayinvokes

fluidity,toborrowFussterm,metonymically:thefluidityofparlerfemmestandsin

continguity with feminine morphological specificity.61 Through her invocation of

fluidity, Schor argues that Irigaray is able to strategically valorize that which had

heretoforebeenrepressedanddevaluedwithinpatriarchaldiscourse.Ontheother

hand,accordingtoSchor,Irigaraysvalorizationoffluidityoperatesnotmerelyasa

reversalwithinametaphysicsthatprivilegessolids,butchallengesthetruthofthat

metaphysicalaccount.Thus,whileitisthecasethatIrigaraysinvocationoffluidity

functionsasastrategy,morefundamentally,Schorarguesthatthistransvaluationof

fluidityisfoundeduponherinterpretationofrealityasfluid.

Consequently, Schors ostensibly stragetic defense thus demonstrates the

correlativity of strategic essentialism and naturalism. While, according to Schor,

Irigaraysultimategoalisnot,sotospeak,toputthephysicsbackinmetaphysics,

but rather the ruining of the metaphysics of being through the substitution of a

physics of the liquid for a physics of the solid,62 it is clear that within Schors

description,Irigaraysphysicsisequallylegibleasakindofnaturalism.Assheputs

it,thereferentialrealitythatIrigaraymostardentlyinvokestogroundherassertions

60
Where then does this notion of the fluidity of the feminine, when not the femininity of the fluid, come
from? Undeniably it is appropriated from the repertory of misogyny (Ibid., 68).
61
As Schor puts it, unquestionably then Irigarays linking up of the fluid and the feminine rests on a
reference to the female body (Ibid., 68).
62
Ibid., 71.
29
is not so much physiological as physical.63 In other words, it is precisely the

ineluctablefactofthefluidnatureofrealitythatprovidesthenormativegroundfor

Irigaraystrategictransvaluation.64Yet,onSchorsreading,ifIrigarayisofferinga

physicsoffluidsinplaceofametaphysicsofsolids,thenherstrategicessentialism,

her transvaluation and metonymical invocation of fluidity, is subtended by a

commitmenttonaturalism.65

By juxtaposing these two texts, then, we see that what was only implicit in

FussinterpretationhasbecomeexplicitinSchorsaccount,namelythecomplicityof

strategicessentialismandnaturalism.66AccordingtoSchor,thebivalentmovement

of diagnosis and recuperation that is revealed in Irigarays invocation of fluidity

characterizes her mimetic style more broadly. Irigarayan mimesis, Schor argues,

operates through the retrieval of a positive difference within the indifference or

bogus difference of misogyny.67 Mimesis occurs not just as the disruptive,

hyperbolicparodyofthisbogusdifferencebutalsoasitstransvaluation,through

whichapositivesenseofdifferencemayberetrieved.68Inthissense,accordingto

this defense, strategic essentialism and naturalism operate together in Irigarays

63
Ibid., 69, my emphasis.
64
Indeed, as Schor argues explicitly, [t]he real in Irigaray is neither impossible, nor unknowable: it is the
fluid (Ibid., 69).
65
Schors essay has implicitly paved the way for later interpretations that make this claim explicitly. For
example, Ellen Mortensen ascribes to Irigaray a material ontology (Mortensen, Touching Thought:
Ontology and Sexual Difference [Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2003], 94) and Helen Fielding
offers a materialist interpretation of The Forgetting of Air (Fielding, Questioning nature: Irigaray,
Heidegger and the potentiality of matter, Continental Philosophy Review 36: 1-26, 2003).
66
To deconstruct the strategic defense is neither to claim that there is no invocation of essence operative in
Irigarays work nor that it is impossible to articulate a notion of essence that is not complicit with
naturalism. I have merely attempted to point out this complicity.
67
Ibid., 66.
68
As Schor puts it, Irigarays wager is that there is (la/une femme) woman in femininity (Ibid., 66).
30
workinordertorecuperatewhatwasalwaysalreadythere,thatwhich,asgiven,we

arecompelledtoacknowledge.

TurningtoRosiBraidottisessayThepoliticsofontologicaldifference,we

seethatherinterpretationofIrigaraycanbeseenastheculminatingarticulationof

the logic underlying the previous two strategic defenses. Indeed, while Fuss

attemptedtodistanceessentialismfromnaturalism,andwhileSchormaintainedthe

distinctness of strategic essentialism and naturalism while tacitly relying on their

complicity, Braidotti attempts to defend an explicit commit to their complicity. In

other words, rather than decoupling essentialism and naturalism, she argues that

essentialism is unavoidable precisely because feminist discourse is always already

circumscribed within naturalistic parameters. Moreover, Braidotti insists that

essentialism, couched within the guise of naturalism, is not only unavoidable but

alsostrategicallyefficaciousandshecitesIrigaraysworkasillustrativeofprecisely

theefficacyofthisstrategy.69

For Braidotti, the strategic value of essentialism is endemic to the very

parameters of feminist discourse, insofar as it begins with the question of sexual

difference.Essentialism,whichBraidottiinterpretsasanappealtothebodilysexed

reality of the female70 is both expedient as the epistemological basis for feminist

theory and the ground of political legitimation71 and unavoidable given that in

69
In this sense, Braidottis position is almost identical with that of the critics of Irigaray early work, with
two important exceptions: first, Braidotti insists that this position is the only tenable one for feminists;
second, and relatedly, Braidottis maintains the designation strategic, though her essentialism is identical
with the non-strategic or naturalistic version criticized by the critics of Irigarays early work since part of
her point is to emphasize the political and theoretical efficacy essentialism.
70
Ibid., 93.
71
Ibid., 93.
31
thinkingaboutsexualdifferenceoneisled,bytheverystructureoftheproblemto

thequestionofessence.72Braidottisclaimisthreefold:first,thequestionofsexual

differenceinvolvesanappealtobodilysexedreality.Theparametersofnaturalism,

then, are from the very beginning implicated in posing the question of sexual

difference. Second, in this appeal to sexed reality, to extant sexual difference, we

cannot avoid making essentialist claims. This is because, third, according to

Braidotti,allontologicalclaimsareconstitutivelyessentialist:tosaythatsomething

is,forBraidotti,justistosaywhatitis.73Essentialism,then,emergesasaninevitable

consequenceofthefactthatfeminism,byposingthequestionofsexualdifference,is

alwaysalreadysubsumedwithintheparametersofnaturalism.

Although Braidotti spends little time arguing for her interpretation, she

invokes Irigarays work as evidence for the strategic value of essentialism.74

According to Braidotti, Irigarays invocation of the bodily sexed reality of the

female operates as a strategic intervention within the parameters of Western

metaphysics.75 The crucial point, for Braidotti, is that if Irigaray begins from an

appealtobodilysexedreality,thenshealwaysalreadyfindsherselfinthemidstof

making naturalistic and thus essentialist claims. As she puts it, once feminists

situatetheproblematicofthebodilyrootsofsubjectivitybackintothestructureof

metaphysical thought where it belongs, the whole question of essences becomes

72
Ibid., 93.
73
ontology being the branch of metaphysics that deals with that which essentially is, or that which is
implied in the definition of an entity (Ibid., 93).
74
As Braidotti puts it, [i]t is precisely this notion of the body that is at work, with varying degrees of
coherence, in Luce Irigarays texts (Ibid., 99).
75
Irigaray takes quite literally the position to which the feminine has been assigned by centuries of
patriarchal thoughtas the eternal other of the system (Ibid., 99).
32
both crucial and inevitable.76 Irigarays work, then, appears as the paradigmatic

exampleoftheefficacyandineluctabilityofanessentialistappealtothegivenness

ofsexualdifference.

Ofcourse,whatweseeisthattheinexorabilityofthelinkbetweenIrigarays

invocation of sexual difference and her allegedly naturalistic appeal to and

essentialist invocation of bodily sexed reality hinges on a series of stipulations.

BraidottisstrategicdefenseofIrigaraysallegedlynaturalisticinvocationofsexual

differencerelies,first,ontheclaimthatthequestionofsexualdifferencecanonlybe

understood naturalistically and, second, the claim that this naturalistic appeal

bringsusbeforeanaccountofsexualdifferenceunderstoodasanextantobject.Her

defenseofIrigaraysstrategicessentialism,then,isvisiblemerelyastheeffectofthe

seriesofstipulationsthatframetheinterpretiveparametersofIrigarayscholarship

precedingherworkand,consequently,hertext.77

With Braidottis account in view, we can begin to trace the way in which

strategicinterpretationshavebeenconsequentialfortheemergenceoftworecent

interpretationsofIrigarayswork.TurningtoAllisonStonesandElizabethGroszs

workinthefinalpartofthischapter,weseethatthereceptionofIrigaraysthought

has come full circle since its initial dismissal: the very naturalistic invocation of

sexual difference that implicitly subtended her hasty dismissal, commitments that

we have just seen are insidiously reinscribed in later strategic defenses of her

76
Ibid., 99.
77
While this is a fine point, as Braidotti herself insists, unless we feminists are happy to go on giving
political answers to theoretical questions, in fact, we need to face up to the theoretical complexities that we
have helped to create. The problem of essence is one such problem, and in order to deal with it properly
we feminists cannot do without in-depth analysis of the very conceptual schemes in which, even today, is
caught the representation of women (Ibid., 100)
33
work, are now lauded as the site of her most profound contribution to feminist

philosophy. Yet, having uncovered the specter of naturalism that animates these

strategic defenses, we are now in a position to diagnose this same specter as

operative in recent ontological or metaphysical defenses of Irigarays

essentialism.

PartIII:IrigarayandtheMetaphysicsofSexualDifference

Challenging the dominance of strategic interpretations of Irigarays essentialism,

Allison Stone and Elizabeth Grosz both attempt to defend a metaphysical or

ontological interpretation of Irigarays invocation of sexual difference.78 While

their respective accounts ostensibly break with both the critiques as well as the

strategicdefenses,inactuality,theyremainweddedtothesamebasicinterpretive

commitmentsthattacitlystructuretheinterpretiveparametersthattheypurportto

challenge.Fromtheverybeginning,whatwehaveseenisthatthetacitassumption

underlyingIrigarayscholarshipistheclaimthatherinvocationofsexualdifference

is unintelligible apart from the parameters of naturalism. While the critics of her

early work condemned her invocation of sexual difference on the basis of this

assumption,andwhilethestrategicdefensesattempttodistanceherworkfromthis

commitment while nonetheless tacitly reinscribing it, we will see that Stone and

Grosz now attempt to defend her work on the very same grounds. That is, what

78
If the strategic reading is now the dominant one, Stone and Grosz have both recently begun to disrupt this
consensus. As Stone puts it, earlier debates have inspired a now-widespread assumption that no realist
form of essentialism is acceptable and that, accordingly, Irigaray can only be read as essentialist in some
distinctively non-realist sense (Stone, Luce Irigaray and the philosophy of sexual difference, 18).
34
these defenses reveal is that it is that presumption of the naturalistic tenor of

Irigarays invocation of sexual difference that allows both Stone and Grosz to

conflate the inadequacy of the stragetic interpretation with the necessity of

defendingametaphysicalorontologicalaccountofsexualdifference.

In her recent book, Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference,

Stone attempts to defend what she describes as a realist interpretation of

Irigaraysessentialism.79WhileStoneacknowledgesthatthestrategicinterpretation

hasgainedcurrencywithinIrigarayscholarship,herclaimisthatthisinterpretation

isbothhermeneuticallyfalseaswellasphilosophicallyandpoliticallyuntenable.80

According to Stone, not only does the strategic interpretation fail to adequately

accountforIrigaraysinvocationofsexualdifferenceinherlaterwork,81moreover,

by revaluing female identity and bodies only as imagined and symbolised, this

strategic transvaluation implicitly reinforces conceptual hierarchies that privilege

theimaginaryandthesymbolicoverthematerialandthenatural.82

While in the following chapters we can begin to assess the adequacy of

Stones interpretation, for now the task is merely to identify those philosophical

assumptions that underlie her interpretation of Irigarays invocation of sexual

79
By realism, I mean the view that we can know about the world as it is independently of our practices
and modes of presentation. I therefore understand a realist form of essentialism to consist of the view that
male and female bodies can be known to have essentially different characters, different characters which
really exist, independently of how we represent and inhabit these bodies. Realist essentialism, then, can
equally be expressed as the view that natural differences between the sexes exist, prior to our cultural
activities (Ibid., 18-19).
80
Ibid., 13.
81
As Stone puts it, recent scholars have reinterpreted Irigaray as employing traditional essentialist notions
of woman merely strategically, to transform their meaning and revalue female identity. These
reinterpretations make good sense of her earlier texts but are less well supported by her later writings,
which claim that men and women naturally have different characters and abilities which deserve realisation
and expression through a culture of sexual difference (Ibid., 13).
82
Ibid., 13.
35
difference.AccordingtoStone,inherlaterwork,Irigarayespousesanontologyof

sexualdifferenceandofbodilymatter,thatis,atheoryofwhatsexualdifferenceand

bodily matter really are like.83 Clarifying this claim, Stone tells us that in her use

andtheusethatsheattributestoIrigaray,thetermsontologyandmetaphysics

aresynonymous:[a]nontology,inthemoregeneralsenseinwhichIusetheterm

here,isequallyametaphysicsanaccountofthenatureofreality.84Accordingto

Stone, Irigarays ontology of sexual difference, then, is equally legible as a realist

metaphysics or a theory of what exists of what kinds of entities populate the

world.85

In this seemingly innocuous definition of terms, we see a series of

equivocations that speak voluminously of the presuppositions that delimit Stones

interpretation. First, she simply conflates ontology and metaphysics. Through this

stipulation,StoneconstrainsustointerpretIrigaraysinvocationoftheexistenceor

reality of sexual difference within the parameters of something extant. Second,

Stoneconflatesrealityortherealwithakindofnaverealism.Asaconsequence,we

are compelled to understand the reality of sexual difference as something

unproblematically given. Together, these two equivocations constitute a slippage

within Stones account that her allow to suggest that a defense of Irigarays

ontologicalinvocationsexualdifferencenecessitateswhatisnowvisiblepreciselyas

a naturalistic appeal to sexual difference understood as something extant,

something unproblematically given. Through these stipulations, in other words,

83
Ibid., 94.
84
Ibid., 21.
85
Ibid., 94.
36
Stone insidiously circumscribes the question of sexual difference within a false

dichotomywhereinwemustconcludethattodefendIrigaraysinvocationofsexual

difference in nonstrategic terms just is to defend a naturalistic appeal to sexual

difference. The problem is that Stones subsequent defense of a naturalistic

interpretation of sexual difference simply presumes that Irigarays ontology of

sexualdifferencenecessitatesthisdefense.

The dominance of this set of presuppositions, namely the presumption of

naturalism, is even more striking in Elizabeth Groszs recent work.86 Grosz, like

Stone, attempts to elucidate what she identifies as the least understood, the most

controversial and yet the most philosophically interesting dimension of Irigarays

work, namely the idea of sexual difference as ontological.87 In her attempt to

elucidate the stakes of this claim, Grosz argues that Irigarays invocation of sexual

differencemustbeunderstoodmetaphysically,ratherthanmerelyaccordingtoan

ethical or political register. As Grosz puts it, hers is not simply the project of

restoring female subjectivity or femininity to where it should belong [] rather it

aims at reformulating the real in terms that bring with it a transformation in the

waysinwhichweunderstandepistemology,ethicsandpolitics.88Thatis,according

toGrosz,unlikethemajorityoffeministswhoseorientationisdirectedtowardthe

86
Elizabeth Grosz generously sent me a copy of her essay, Irigaray and the Ontology of Sexual
Difference, that was her keynote address at the Luce Irigaray Circle in New York on September 6-7, 2007.
I am very grateful to Professor Grosz for allowing me to read this text, that to my knowledge, has not yet
been published.
87
Sexual difference is the question of our age: if we had to reduce philosophy to a single question, a
question that would shake ontology and bring with it a striking transformation of epistemology, ethics,
aesthetics and politics, it would be the question of sexual difference, the first philosophy, the philosophy
that founds all others (Ibid., 7).
88
Ibid., 3.
37
transformation of empirical reality,89 feminists who are concerned with political,

economicandsocialtransformations,Irigarayswork,suggestsGrosz,isprimarilyor

in the first instance oriented toward an intervention in the ontological and

metaphysical.90 Through her elaboration of a new understanding of the real,91

Grosz suggests that Irigaray is able to subsequently incite these other secondary,

merelyempiricaltransformations.

In order to elucidate the register of Irigarays thought, Grosz transposes

Irigarays metaphysical account of sexual difference into a quasiDarwinian

framework. On this reading, sexual difference is the condition of all other living

differences,92 the operation by which all other differences exist. Through such an

account, Grosz argues that we must understand sexual difference as the primary

mechanism of differentiation, the very locus of difference as such. It is for this

reason,accordingtoGrosz,thatIrigarayspeaksofsexualdifferenceasuniversaland

fundamental,ostensiblyprivilegingthisdifferenceaboveallother(inGroszsterms,

merelyempirical)differences,suchasdifferencesofraceorclass.

OnGroszsreading,then,sexualdifferencejustisontologicaldifference.93As

Groszcontends,Irigaraysparticularcontributiontometaphysicsisherinsistence

thatdifference,ifitisatallanditsnotclearthatdifferencehasabeing,ifbythatis

meantanidentityorstabilitythenitsisprimarily,orinthefirstinstance,sexual

89
Ibid., 3.
90
Ibid., 3.
91
Ibid., 3.
92
Ibid., 7.
93
Ibid., 11.
38
difference.94 Sexual difference, on Groszs reading, is the very instantiation of

differenceassuch,theconditionandlocusofallotherlivingdifferences.Thisiswhat

itmeansforGrosztoarguethatsexualdifferenceisontological:ifdifferenceassuch

exists,ifdifferenceis,thenitexistsinandthroughsexualdifference.

Yet while Groszs quasiDarwinian reading of Irigaray seems to provide a

comprehensive explanatory framework within which to make sense of some of

Irigaraysmostobscureandcontroversialremarksaboutsexualdifference,wemust

alsoconsiderthecogencyoftheseriesofexclusivedisjunctionsthatframeGroszs

account. Indeed, her paper begins with a series of disjunctions that structure her

interpretation of Irigarays work. First, Grosz frames the paper by asking the

question whether sexual difference [is] ontological or sociocultural?95 Second,

GroszinsiststhatIrigaraymustbe

acknowledged as a philosopher of great originality, a major thinker

whoseprimarycontributionsmaybebestunderstood,notintermsof

a theory of the subject, a field already well established through

phenomenology and psychoanalysis, but rather, in terms of her

transformationsofontology.96

Ofcourse,hereweseethespecterofnaturalismthatsubtendsGroszsdiscussionof

Irigarays account of sexual difference as ontological: the very separation of

94
Ibid., 7. While in the following three chapters I will implicitly criticize the account of sexual difference
that Grosz offers in this essay insofar as it fails to adequately acknowledge the phenomenological
commitments of Irigarays work. Nevertheless, Grosz remark here is very insightful and anticipates a
claim to which I will return in the third chapter when I examine Irigarays engagement with Heideggers
interpretation of identity.
95
Ibid., 1, my italics.
96
Ibid., 2, my italics.
39
ontology from phenomenology and psychoanalysis, the separation of the objective

fromthemerelysubjective,betraysanunquestionedcommitmenttonaturalism.

What we see, then, is that these sets of oppositions are both ineliminably

intertwined and decisive for Groszs reading of Irigaray. Indeed, we see that all of

these oppositions are coextensive: phenomenology, navely construed as an

elaboration of experience, and psychoanalysis, conceived as an elaboration of the

constitution of subjectivity, are both merely subjective discourses, while ontology,

understood as realist metaphysics, is the objective articulation of that which

transcends subjective experience and is unconditioned by the subject. By framing

her interpretation of Irigarays work in terms of the opposition between the

ontologicalandsocioculturalandidentifyingtheformerastheadequateregisterof

Irigarays thought, Grosz implicitly circumscribes Irigarays interventions in

ontology within the domain naturalism, a claim that, later in the paper, she will

explicitlyarticulate.Thatis,bypresupposinganoppositionalrelationshipbetween

the ontological and the sociocultural, or the phenomenological or psychoanalytic

and real, Grosz constrains us to understand Irigarays new understanding of the

real as a new metaphysics.97 These oppositions constitute a network of

interpretive and methodological presuppositions that fundamentally structure

Groszs engagement with Irigaray and prevent us from considering whether

Irigarays work is at once ontological as well as phenomenological and

97
Ibid., 2.
40
psychoanalytic or whether her work offers a new theory of subjectivity that

simultaneouslyimpliesanewunderstandingofthereal.98

In both cases, we see that the metaphysical or ontological defense of

Irigarays essentialism operates within an interpretative paradigm structured by a

tacit commitment to naturalism. Ostensibly offering an interpretation that

challengesboththecriticsofherearlyworkaswellasstrategicdefenses,infact

these apparent disagreements are belied by an unquestioned fidelity to the

adequacy of naturalism as a hermeneutic for Irigarays work. It is the assumption

thatifthestrategicinterpretationisinadequate,ifsexualdifferenceisontological,

then we are constrained to understand it in naturalistic terms. Consequently, it is

through this fundamental fidelity to naturalism that these acrimonious debates

surrounding essentialism reveal themselves as merely a lovers quarrel, a

disagreement premised upon a more fundamental agreement concerning the

philosophicalparametersdelimitingIrigarayswork.

Conclusions

By tracing the way in which debates surrounding Irigarays essentialism are

buttressed by a tacit agreement concerning Irigarays naturalism, my intention, in

part,istocircumventthequestionofIrigaraysessentialismentirely.Indeed,ifwhat

we have seen is that the question of her essentialism emerges only once we have

accepted that Irigarays work operates within the parameters of naturalism, the

morefundamentalquestioniswhetherthisnaturalisticpresumptionisjustified.In

98
Ibid., 3.
41
other words, to hold in abeyance the presumption of naturalism is to suspend the

theoreticalparameterswithinwhichthequestionofessentialismgainstraction.

Diagnosingthetacitcommitmenttonaturalismthatimplicitlysubtendsthe

debatessurroundingIrigaraysessentialism,however,isnotyettoproblematizethe

adequacy of this commitment as a hermeneutic for her work. In the next three

chapters,IconsiderthestakesofIrigaraysprotractedengagementwithHeidegger

in Loubli de lair, The Way of Love, and Sharing the World, respectively. By

attempting to elucidate this engagement throughout the past twentyfive years of

herwork,Iwilltrytodemonstratethatitispreciselythepresumptionofnaturalism

thatmustbesuspendedifwearetobegintobroachthemeaningandsignificanceof

Irigarays invocation of sexual difference. Concomitantly, by demonstrating the

necessityofrelinquishingthisassumption,wewillsimultaneouslywitnessIrigarays

metatheoreticaltransformationoftheveryparametersoffeministinquiry.

42
ChapterTwo:TheneglectofLoubliinIrigaraysLoublidelair

Neglectisnotsomehowlikeforgetting.Wewillseethatwhat
isneglectedisneglectedinthesenseofthecare.Theneglected
isnotforgottenbutvirtuallybanished.Thecaredefendsitself
againstwhatitneglects.
Heidegger,IntroductiontoPhenomenologicalResearch

Overview

Scholars generally agree that Irigarays later work is committed to some form of

philosophical naturalism.99 Loubli de lair, moreover, is often cited as the locus of

this naturalistic turn.100 If we understand naturalism, broadly construed, as any

philosophicalpositionthatgroundsepistemologicalnormsinthecompulsionofthe

facts,101thenIrigarayscritiqueofHeideggerinthistextappearslegibleinprecisely

these terms: what Heidegger has forgotten is that which is always already there,

namelythefactthatair,initsmanifoldresonances,is.102Moreover,accordingtothis

interpretation, it is the ineluctable thereness of air that ostensibly secures the

normativeforceofIrigarayscritique.Inotherwords,Heideggerignoreswhatisan

incontrovertible fact: that she who gives air (mother, nature) is the material and

matricalgroundofbothBeing[Sein]andbeings[Seiendes].103

99
Again, I am relying on Husserls definition of naturalism in order to delimit what I take to be the central
commitment that underlies standard interpretations of both Loubli de lair as well as Irigarays later work
as a whole.
100
Ann Murphy, for example, makes precisely this claim. According to Murphy, Loubli de lair is the
incipient articulation of what is visible in Irigarays later work as an increasingly (and problematically so)
descriptive and speculative relation to the natural (Murphy, The Enigma of the Natural in Luce Irigaray,
Continental Philosophy Review 45 [2001], 75).
101
Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, 53.
102
According to Helen Fielding, Irigaray accuses Heidegger of not trusting in his perception of what is
there, namely sexual difference (Fielding, Questioning nature: Irigaray, Heidegger and the potentiality of
matter, 4, my italics).
103
Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, trans. Mary Beth Mader (USA: University of Texas Press, 1999), 28.
Ellen Mortensen, for example, has argued that Irigaray invokes air in order to undermine the ontological
difference in Heideggers phenomenological ontology. As she puts it, in [Irigarays] material ontology, air
43
 Whiletheseinterpretationsseemtoofferaplausibleaccountofthemeaning

and significance of air within Irigarays text, I will attempt to show that their

explanatoryforcereliesonaneglectofloubli.Thatis,whilethesignificanceofair

hasbeenfetishizedwithinthesecondaryliterature,whathasbeenneglectedisthe

philosophical weight of Irigarays invocation of loubli itself.104 When we turn to

Loubli de lair, we will see that the precarious and subtle engagement with both

phenomenology and psychoanalysis that delimits this text is visible in Irigarays

invocationoftheconceptloubli.

Ononehand,bydiagnosingHeideggersloublidelair,Irigaraydemonstrates

theproximityofherthoughttothephenomenologicaltradition.Shebeginsthetext,

of course, by citing the final passage of Heideggers 1964 essay The End of

constitutes the ontological foundation of all that is, and it is at the same time an ontic entity, namely, the
living material air which we breathe and in which we as human beings dwell on earth (Mortensen,
Touching Thought, 94). Joanna Hodge offers a similar reading of this text. According to Hodge, Irigaray
rewrites Heideggers ontological difference as sexual difference; the forgetting of being and of the earth
becomes the forgetting of woman and the death of the mother; and in place of Heideggers technical term
Dasein Irigarays text cumulatively establishes the necessity of thinking the apparently paradoxical sensible
transcendental (Hodge, Irigaray Reading Heidegger, in Engaging with Irigaray, ed. Carolyn Burke,
Naomi Schor and Margaret Whitford [New York: Columbia University Press, 1994], 196). Murphy also
argues that Irigaray will name the materiality of air as that which serves as Beings constitutive outside,
and makes possible Beings very emergence, an emergence enabled by an ontology that is created to erase
and obscure an originary debt to the mother (Murphy, The enigma of the natural in Luce Irigaray, 77).
Maria Cimitile, on the other hand, has argued that air operates as a metonymical trope that refers to woman,
mother and nature. While Cimitiles account seems to challenge the naturalistic reading, even this symbolic
reading of air remains consonant with the naturalistic interpretation since, as we saw in this first chapter,
the very operation of metonymy functions only through the contiguity between the symbolic and the real,
understood naturalistically. See Maria Cimitile, The Horror of Language: Irigaray and Heidegger,
Philosophy Today 45 (2001): 66-74.Stacy Keltner has argued that Irigaray does not place her description,
however, outside the Heideggerean text by leaping to a pre-linguistic, pre-metaphysical, pre-culture
description of nature (Keltner, The ethics of air: Technology and the question of sexual difference,
Philosophy Today 45 (2001), 60). Keltner, however, repeatedly invokes the materiality of air and remains
unclear that she understands this materiality otherwise than in naturalistic terms. I will turn to these
readings in the second half of this chapter.
104
Here Heideggers caution is apt: Erst von da aus werden wir sehen, da das Versumnis nicht so etwas
ist wie ein Vergessen (Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe Band 17: Einfhrung in die phnomenologische
Forschung, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrman [Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994], 86). Only from
this perspective will we see that the neglect is not somehow like forgetting (Heidegger, Introduction to
Phenomenological Research, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005],
62).
44
PhilosophyandtheTaskofThinking.Immediatelyfollowingthispassage,Irigaray

articulates the parameters of the problematic that will circumscribe the entire

trajectoryofhercriticalengagementwithHeideggerinthistext.Hertask,shetells

us, is to identify the neglect (loubli) that subtends (soustend) Heideggers

articulation of the es gibt (il y a).105 While the content and force of this criticism

remains to be elaborated, already her invocation of neglect intimates that her

criticalengagementwithHeideggershouldbeinterpretedasanimmanentcritique.

That is, by invoking the notion of neglect, Irigaray takes up the same concept that

plays a central role in Heideggers critique of Husserls 1911 essay Philosophy as

Rigorous Science, both in The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking but

alsofortyyearsearlierinIntroductiontoPhenomenologicalResearch.Moreover,itis

adiagnosisofneglectthatHusserlhimselfmobilizesinhis1911essayasthebasisof

hiscritiqueofnaturalism.Consequently,fromtheveryopeninglinesofthetext,we

alreadyseethatthemanifoldresonancesofIrigaraysinvocationofthetermloubli

bearsthemarkofthisphenomenologicallineagefromHusserltoHeidegger.

Ontheotherhand,Loublidelairisalsocircumscribedbyanappropriation

of Lacan that mediates Irigarays critical engagement with Heidegger. Throughout

her early work, scholars have identified the ubiquitous influence of Lacanian

105
Que le il y a de la clairire nait jamais t interrog par la pense, alors quil en serait la condition
ultime de possibilit [] telle serait loubli qui sous-tend lhistoire de la mtaphysique, entranant ainsi le
destin de ltre comme etant(s) (Irigaray, Loubli de lair [Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1983], 9). That
the there is of the clearing has never been questioned by thought, although it would be the ultimate
condition of possibility for thought [] such would be the forgetting that subtends the history of
metaphysics, thus entailing the destiny of Being as being(s) (Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 1-2).
45
psychoanalysis.106Thisinfluence,however,hasreceivedlessattentioninLoublide

lair and her subsequent work.107 Nonetheless, we will see that Irigarays

appropriation of Lacans account of the mirror phase facilitates her critical

interpolation of Heideggerian phenomenology. For Lacan, of course, the mirror

phaseprovidesanaccountofegoformation.Whatthisphasedescribesisthewayin

whichtheegoisprecipitatedthroughitsfictiveidentificationwithaspecularimage,

wherein the fictive quality of the identification is ineliminably tied to its complex

temporalstructure.108Themirrorphase,toputitveryschematically,thusoffersan

accountoftheconstitutiveroleofthetemporallysaturatedstructureofmisprision

(mconnaissance)intheformationoftheego.

By appropriating Lacans account, Irigarays transmutes the mirror phase

into a critical diagnosis of the operation of what she describes as specularization

and matricide within philosophical discourse:109 while specularization designates

the temporal structure of misprision, matricide designates the correlative neglect

106
Here I am following Margaret Whitfords interpretation of those texts predating Loubli de lair in her
book Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine.
107
Krzysztof Ziarek, for example, in the context of elucidating Irigarays engagement with Heidegger in
Loubli de lair, suggests that Lacan and Heidegger are constantly, if not always explicitly, present in her
texts as both targets of critique and partners in dialogue (Ziarek, Proximities: Irigaray and Heidegger on
difference, Continental Philosophy Review 33: 133-158, 2000, 133). Ziarek, however, does not elaborate
this intersection in his essay.
108
My interpretation of Irigarays commitment to Lacan in Loubli de lair is indebted to Jane Gallops
interpretation of the mirror stage. For Gallop, as we will see, what is crucial in Lacans account is not
merely the founding role that he grants to misprision or misrecognition (mconnaissance) in the formation
of the ego but also the temporal dialectic of a moment [of identification as misrecognition] that is at once
anticipatory and retroactive (Gallop, Reading Lacan [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987], 81). I will
return this point at length in the second half of this chapter.
109
Here I am closely following Whitfords interpretation of Irigarays early work, though she does not offer
this account as an interpretation of Loubli de lair: Irigarays method of approach to philosophy is to
psychoanalyse the philosophers, to look for the phantasies that haunt philosophical discourse. Her method
is indebted to Lacans account of the mirror stage [] These two principles: to look for the specular
relationship, to uncover the buried mother, underlie all her analyses of the philosophers (Whitford, Luce
Irigaray Philosophy in the Feminine, 34, my italics).
46
(loubli) of the infrastructure that subtends this fictive identification. The crucial

point, for Irigaray, is that Heideggers account of the es gibt evinces precisely this

twofoldoperation:thespecularstructureoftheesgibthasasitscorrelateaneglect

oftheinfrastructurethatsubtendsit.110

Consequently,weseethatitisonlybyattendingtothesignificanceofloubli

thatthephilosophicalstakesofIrigarayscriticalengagementwithHeideggercome

intofocus.Returningtotheepigraphofthischapter,weseethatwhatisatstakein

theLoublidelairisthearticulationofathoughtthatHeideggerhimselfexpressed

but nonetheless, in a certain sense, left unthought, namely that care defends itself

against what it neglects.111 By diagnosing Heideggers loubli de lair, Irigaray

attempts to elicit the latent psychoanalytic resonances of this claim from the

interstices of his thought and to think through the consequences of these

resonances within Heideggers own project. Her task in Loubli de lair, then, is to

showthatHeideggersformulationoftheesgibthasasitscorrelatetheneglectofair

understoodasthedefensiveconsignmentofairtooblivion.

PartI:ThephenomenologicallineageofNeglect

BeforeofferinganinterpretationofIrigarayscriticalengagementwithHeideggerin

the second half of this chapter, I will first attempt to bring into view the

philosophical stakes of those texts that directly and indirectly mediate this

110
In this sense, we will see that the neglect-of-air (loubli de lair) designates a unitary phenomenon that
Irigaray will also describe as matricide, which, as we will see, must be understand precisely as the
constitutive neglect that subtends the specular.
111
We will see that what is neglected is neglected in the sense of the care (Heidegger, Introduction to
Phenomenological Research, 62-63, my italics).
47
engagement. To this end, I will focus Heideggers sustained engagement with

Husserls essay Philosophy as Rigorous Science. In the first section, I turn to

Husserlscritiqueofnaturalisminthis1911essay.Inthesecondsection,Iexamine

Heideggers critique of Husserl, both in The End of Philosophy and the Task of

Thinking along with his much earlier lecture course published under the title

Introduction to Phenomenological Research, along with Being and Time, which

providesabridgebetweenthesetwotexts.

By considering this constellation of texts, what we see is that while each of

thesetextsofferanaccountofphenomenologyasguidedbythethingsthemselves

(denSachenSelbst),themeaningofthisphenomenologicalprinciplesimultaneously

emergesasthelocusofadebate.InPhilosophyasRigorousScience,Husserloffers

a phenomenological critique of naturalism precisely in order to articulate an

accountofarigorouslyscientificphilosophythatisguidedbythethingsthemselves.

The things themselves, for Husserl, are given to us as binding, as compelling, and

thusasnormativeground.Heideggerarticulatesthestakesofthisdebatewiththe

followingquestion:Whenceandhowisitdeterminedwhatmustbeexperiencedas

the things themselves in accordance with the principle of phenomenology?112

HeideggersclaimisthatHusserlsaccountconstitutesanevasionoftheexistential

ontological structure of questionability. For Heidegger, the things themselves are

112
Heidegger, My Way to Phenomenology, On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1972), 79.
48
revealed not as the terminus of investigation; rather, they bring us before an

unremittingquestionability.113

SectionI:HusserlsCritiqueofNaturalism

Asoneofthecentraltasksinhis1911essay,Husserlarticulatesasustainedcritique

ofnaturalisminordertoshowhowitmasqueradesastherealizationofarigorously

scientificphilosophy.114Hemotivatesthiscritiquebydrawingourattentiontothe

continuity between the natural attitude and the natural scientific attitude, a

continuity that is the basis of naturalism as a philosophical position. The natural

attitude, according to Husserl, describes the certitude that characterizes our pre

reflective experience: ordinarily, we simply find ourselves immersed in a world of

pregiven things, the existence of which is not subject to doubt.115 The natural

sciences,likethenaturalattitude,beginfromthegivennessofthenaturalworldof

spatiotemporalobjectsandattempttoelucidatetheexigenciesthatthesepregiven

113
Husserls account of the binding character of the things themselves, for Heidegger, constitutes, an
erasure of the basic human experience of problematicity or the experience of Dasein as being-questionable
(I am indebted to both Professor Claudia Baracchi and Professor James Dodd for their formulations of this
claim).
114
Naturalism, for Husserl, designates any philosophical position that models itself on the methods and
normative standards of exact or natural sciences. As he puts it, from the start, naturalism sets out with a
firm determination to realize the idea of a rigorously scientific reform of philosophy. It even believes at all
times, both in its earlier and in its modern forms, that it has already realized this idea. But all this takes
place, when we look at it from the standpoint of principle, in a form that from the ground up is replete with
erroneous theory (Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, 79).
115
As Husserl argues, [the] natural attitude of mind is yet unconcerned with the critique of cognition.
Whether in the act of intuiting or in the act of thinking, in the natural mode of reflection we are turned to
the objects as they are given to us [] In perception, for instance, a things stands before our eyes as a
matter of course. It is there, among other things, living or lifeless, animate or inanimate (Husserl, The Idea
of Phenomenology, trans. William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian [Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1990], 13).
49
orextantthingsexertonourcognitionofthem.116Naturalism,asthephilosophical

articulationofthenaturalscientificattitude,transposestheexigenciesoffactsinto

thenormativebasisofepistemology.Thatis,naturalismappropriatesatacitnatural

ornaturalscientificcommitmenttothepregivennessofnatureandthingsinorder

to secure for epistemology the compulsion of facts or the requirements that the

thingsinthemselvesexertonthought.117

For Husserl, it is precisely the continuity between the natural attitude and

naturalism, which lends to naturalism its traction as a philosophical position.

According to Husserl, we are almost ineluctably captivated by the spell of

naturalism.Indeed,itissoseductivepreciselybecauseitinvokesasetofmethods

and standards of evidence that are fundamentally continuous with our pre

reflectiveexperience.118However,forHusserl,thereinliesitsnaivety:naturalismis

permeated by the same naivety that characterizes the natural attitude.119 Indeed,

according to Husserl, the commitment to the pregivenness of nature, when taken

upasaphilosophicalposition,appropriatesthisnaivetyasitsnormativeground.120

In other words, to take for granted the pregivenness of nature as a domain of

investigation and to uncritically accept the sufficiency of this pregivenness as a

116
In every step of natural cognition pertaining to the sciences of the natural sort, difficulties arise and are
resolved, either by pure logic or by appeal to facts, on the basis of motives or reasons which lie in the
things themselves and which, as it were, come from the things in the form of requirements that they
themselves make on our thinking (Ibid., 14).
117
Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, 93.
118
We do not easily over come the inborn habit of living and thinking according to the naturalistic
attitude (Ibid., 109).
119
It is important to see that Husserl is not a critic of science as such. Rather, he is critical of the way that
the conflation of naturalism with a genuinely scientific philosophy in fact obviates its very possibility. For
this reason, naivety is not intended simply as a pejorative term: while this naivety is necessary for the
progress of science, it hinders the progress of a scientific philosophy.
120
The nature that it will investigate is for it simply there (Ibid., 85).
50
standard of evidence for our judgments, according to Husserl, transmutes the

naivetyofthenaturalattitudeintoanepistemologicalstandard.121Thatis,theclaim

thatthepregivennessofthethingsthemselvesprovidescognitionwithanormative

standardortheideathatanappealtotheincontrovertibilityoffactsconstitutesthe

rigorofnaturalisticphilosophyinsidiouslysecuresthisrigoronlybymobilizingthe

navecertitudeendemictothenaturalattitude.

The injunction to turn to the things themselves within the auspices of

naturalismislegible,then,onlyasanappealtothingsastheyareinthemselves(an

sich),understoodasfacts,whichneglectstheverynaivetythroughwhichtheappeal

secures its force. It is this naivety that marks the very tendency toward self

obfuscationthatnaturalismtakesupasitsground,namelytheinertialtendencyfor

consciousness to become enthralled in and thus oblivious to its own

accomplishments.Thecrucialpoint,therefore,isthatthisappealtofactsorthingsin

themselves, as it is interpreted by naturalism, neglects the need for another more

rigorousnormativestandardthatisnotmerelyparasiticuponthistendencytoward

selfobfuscation.122

121
It is sufficient merely to recall the navete with which, according to what was said above, natural
science accepts nature as given, a naivete that in natural science is, so to speak, immortal and repeats itself
afresh, for example, at every place in its procedure where natural science has recourse to pure and simple
experienceand ultimately every method of natural science leads back precisely to experience (Ibid., 87).
122
Again, Husserl is not criticizing the normative standards and practices of science. Indeed Husserl
accepts, perhaps himself too naively, that an appeal to facts or evidence provides an adequate basis for
science. The target of his critique is naturalism as a philosophical position, which would adopt the
methodological standards of natural science as the normative standards for a scientific philosophy. In other
words, Husserl is not criticizing science; he is criticizing the naivety of a philosophical position that cannot
conceive of rigor otherwise than in terms of natural science. As he puts it, [t]he spell of the naturalistic
point of view, to which all of us at the outset are subject and which makes us incapable of precinding from
nature [] has here blocked the road to a great science of unparalleled fecundity [namely,
phenomenology] (Ibid., 110).
51
 Husserloffersthiscritiqueofnaturalism,however,notinordertoundermine

but precisely to secure the possibility of articulating a rigorously scientific

philosophy or to delimit the possibility of a nonnaturalistic account of

epistemological normativity.123 Throughout the essay, Husserl insists that if

philosophy is to be a rigorous science, if it is to delimit the binding character of

epistemological norms, then it must turn to the things themselves.124 His claim,

however,isthatinsodoing,philosophersmustnotuncriticallyconflatethethings

themselves with empirical facts.125 This in turn implies that the injunction to turn

towardthethingsthemselvesmustbewrestedfromthegripnaturalism.Toputit

differently, the injunction to turn toward the things themselves can no longer

bypassthetraditionofcriticalphilosophyfromDescartestoKant.Inturningtothe

thingsthemselves,wemusttakeseriouslytheenigmaticstatusofcognitionthatis

revealed by the history of early modern philosophy. This tradition has precisely

disclosedthedifficultyofarticulatingwhetherimmanentthoughtreachesthethings

themselves understood as the domain of transcendent objects. As Husserl puts it,

[i]f I do not understand how it is possible that cognition reaches something

transcendent, then I also do not now whether it is possible.126 Naturalism, for

Husserl, bypasses the problem of cognition delimited by this tradition insofar the

account of rigor that it offers simply presupposes that cognition successfully

123
To recognize naturalism as a fundamentally erroneous philosophy still does not mean giving up the
idea of a rigorously scientific philosophy (Ibid., 122).
124
The true method follows the nature of things to be investigated and not our prejudices and
preconceptions (Ibid., 102); One must, it was said, take phenomena as they give themselves (Ibid., 108);
The impulse to research must proceed not from philosophies but from things and from the problems
connected with them (Ibid., 146).
125
Ibid., 146.
126
Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 29.
52
reaches transcendent objects, the very presupposition that critical philosophy has

undercut. Taking seriously this tradition implies that the enigmatic status of

cognition must critically inflect this injunction. Consequently, philosophy cannot

unproblematically appeal to the normative force that transcendent objects

ostensiblyexertontheimmanentactivitiesofthought.

However, according to Husserl, neither should we concede to both

naturalismandthecriticalphilosophicaltraditionthatepistemologicalnormativity

stands or falls with the ability to account for the relationship between immanent

thoughtandtranscendentobjects.Indeed,whileHusserlhasshownthatnaturalism

ignorestheproblemofcognitiondelimitedbycriticalphilosophy,healsorevealsa

sense in which one is the Janus face of the other: in each case, epistemological

normativity is either secured or lost through the relationship between the

immanenceofthoughtandthetranscendenceofobjects.127Thatis,whilenaturalism

presupposes that immanent thought is regulated through its very contact with

transcendentobjects,thecriticalphilosophiesofDescartesandKanthaveshown,if

only inadvertently, that epistemological normativity is forfeited in the very loss of

contactwiththetranscendent.128

127
As Husserl puts it, transcendence is both the initial and the central problem of the critique of cognition
(Ibid., 28). Moreover, as Bernet, Kern and Marbach explain, traditional theory of cognition shows,
however, this enigma cannot be solved as long as immanence and transcendence are regarded in the form
of an ontologically grounded opposition which could only be overcome by constructing or connecting a
bridge (Rudolf Bernet, Iso Kern, Eduard Marbach, ed., An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology
[Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993], 54).
128
Of course, if we examine Descartes and Kants work, the story is much more complicated. Husserls
point, however, is that neither Descartes nor Kant are able to provide an adequate account of the
relationship between the immanence of thought and things in themselves.
53
 Husserlsclaim,then,isthatitisnecessarytotakeupthecalltoturntoward

thethingsthemselvesinawaythatneitherbypassestheproblemofcognitionnor

remains confined to the conceptual parameters that guarantee its intractability.

Consequently, Husserl insists that we must recast the appeal to the things

themselves not as an appeal to nature but rather as an appeal to phenomena.129

Primafacie,Husserlconcedesthatthisshiftseemsantitheticaltohisprofessedgoal

ofarticulatingarigorouslyscientificphilosophy.Nature,asitistacitlyunderstoodin

the natural and natural scientific attitudes, consists in the totality of selfidentical

objects.Astranscendent,thecharacteristicsandpropertiesascribedtotheseobjects

can be observed and intersubjectively verified; phenomena, understood as the

immanentflow ofexperience,arenotintersubjectiveobjectsinthesamewaythat

nature is.130 Nonetheless, Husserl insists that scientific philosophy or cognitive

normativitycanbesecuredpreciselythroughanappealtophenomena.

What is necessary, according to Husserl, is to decouple the notion of

objectivity from transcendence in order to critically investigate its essence and

genesisinawaythatisnotmerelyparasiticuponanavenotionoftranscendence.

By decoupling these terms, we are able to see that the immanent sphere of

129
As Husserl puts it, [a] thing is what is it is, and it remains in its identity forever: nature is eternal.
Whatever in the way of real properties belongs in truth to a thing [] can be determined with objective
validity and confirmed or corrected in constantly new experiences. On the other hand, something psychical,
a phenomenon, comes and goes; it retains no enduring, identical being that would be objectively
determinable as such in these sense of natural science, e.g., as objectively divisible into components,
analysable in the proper sense (Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, 107). Heidegger reiterates
this claim: Philosophys object is never nature, but instead always a phenomenon (Heidegger,
Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 51).
130
If the immanently psychical is not nature, what are we seeking for in it as its being? If it is not
determinable in objective identity as the substantial unity of real properties that must be grasped over and
over again and be determined and confirmed in accordance with science and experience, if it is not to be
withdrawn from the eternal flux, if it is incapable of becoming the object of an intersubjective evaluation
then what is there in it that we can seize upon, determine and fix in an objective unity? (Ibid., 110).
54
experience provides phenomenology with a domain of absolutely given objects in

virtue of which a critique of cognition can proceed.131 Through an account of the

genesis of objectivity within the immanence of consciousness, Husserl is able to

recuperatetheimpetusattheheartofnaturalisticphilosophy,namelytheattempt

to articulate an account of epistemological normativity, without relying on the

naivetyofthenaturalattitude.

Very schematically, Husserls claim is that the phenomenological reduction

methodologically excludes from its domain of inquiry all transcendent things the

existence of which is taken for granted by naturalism. On one hand, through this

reduction,adomainofimmanenceisrevealedasthepurviewofphenomenological

analysis: what is crucial, for Husserl, is that unlike the givenness of transcendent

objects in nature, the givenness of these phenomena is not subject to doubt.

Phenomena, in this sense, are precisely what immediately show themselves.132 On

the other hand, the domain of immanence provides objects for analysis precisely

because the phenomenologically reduced flux of lived experience makes visible its

structuresandconditionsofpossibility.133Whatisrevealedinthereduction,simply

put, are acts of intentional consciousness that provide the conditions for and

structureoflivedexperience.

131
As a purely intuitive exploration of the intentional acts of consciousness, only the phenomenological
theory of cognition is in a position to explore in such a manner the relation between immanence and
transcendence (Bernet, An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology, 55).
132
This givenness, which rules out any meaningful doubt, consists of a simply immediate seeing and
apprehending of the intended object itself as it is, and it constitutes the precise concept of evidence
understood as immediate evidence (Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 28).
133
Thus to each psychic lived process there corresponds through the device of phenomenological
reduction a pure phenomenon, which exhibits its intrinsic (immanent) essence (taken individually) as an
absolute datum (Ibid., 35).
55
 The crucial point, for our purposes, is that the structure of intentional

consciousness furnishes phenomenology with a domain of evident givenness that

can serve as a standard through which a critique of cognition can proceed or

through which the binding character of epistemic compulsion can be secured.

Phenomenologicalinquirythusproceedsasananalysisofintentionalconsciousness.

Allthought,accordingHusserl,ischaracterizedbyintentionality.Thatis,regardless

ofwhetherthoughtisadequatetoitsobject,regardlessevenofwhethertheobject

actually exists, all thought is directed toward an object. Within these intentional

acts,knowledgeconsistsintheidentityofactsofmeaningintentionorexpression

andactsofintuition.134Knowledge,inotherwords,isthesynthesisoftheobjectasit

is intended or meant and the intuitive presentation of the object that fulfills this

intention. Given this account, it is possible to speak of truth and evidence as the

identity of thought and its object within the immanence of intentional acts

regardless of the nature of this relationship.135 Husserls point, then, is that the

structure of intentional consciousness provides phenomenology with a domain of

evidentgivenness.Thisdomainofevidentgivennessdelimitsasphereofobjectsfor

scientificanalysisbutonewhoseobjectivitycannowbeconstruedotherwisethanin

termsofthetranscendenceofthingsinthemselves.136Itisthroughthisanalysisof

134
We will return to this point in the discussion of Heideggers interpretation of identity in the third
chapter.
135
By virtue of the intentional relation of the processes of consciousness to an object, every kind of
intentional relationwhether fully knowing or emptily asserting, whether oriented toward immanent or
transcendent objectscan be brought phenomenologically to evident givenness (Bernet, An Introduction
to Husserlian Phenomenology, 55).
136
Self-evidence, as Husserl argues in the 6th Logical Investigation, consists in the identity of meaning
intention and intuitive fulfillment. The consequence of this account of self-evidence for Heidegger is
twofold: on one hand, phenomenology thereby relinquishes the primacy of a notion of truth as
56
immanent phenomenological objects that, according to Husserl, philosophy

becomesarigorousscience.

SectionII:HeideggersCritiqueofHusserl

Before demonstrating the impact of Husserls critique of naturalism on Loubli de

lair,IwillfirstconsiderHeideggerssustainedengagementwithHusserlsessay.By

elucidatingHeideggerscriticalengagementwithHusserl,anengagementthatboth

amplifiesandtransmutestheparametersofHusserlscritiqueofnaturalism,wewill

beabletomorecarefullydiscerntheimpactofthislineageinIrigaraystext.Forthis

reason, it is crucial to keep Husserls critique of naturalism in mind as we turn to

Heideggerscriticalengagementwithhisessay.

Wewillseethat,althoughitisperhapsnotimmediatelyobvious,Heidegger

is influenced by Husserls critique of naturalism to such an extent that his critical

engagement with Husserl must be understood as an immanent critique.137 That is,

propositional. As Dastur puts it, Truth thus appears as a dimension of Being itself rather than of judgment
(Dastur, Heidegger and the Question of Time [Prometheus Books, 1998], 7); on the other hand, Husserls
account of self-evidence demands an account of the fulfillment of those meaning intentions which cannot
be fulfilled through sensuous intuitions. Thus Heidegger is able to speak of the intuitive givenness of Being
as such by appropriating Husserls notion of categorial intuition. See Critchley, Heidegger for Beginners,
On Heideggers Being and Time, ed. Steve Levine (New York: Routledge, 2008), 24-26; 35-36.
137
In this section, I am offering a slightly different account of the relationship between Heidegger and
Husserl than the one that is usually told in the literature. Most commentators focus on Heideggers
interpretation of the Logical Investigations. Taminiauxs account, for example, points to Heideggers
reading of the Logical Investigations as the central text(s) for investigating this relationship: Heideggers
long-fascinated gaze found in the Logical Investigations the emergence of a group of themes that animate
the Seinsfrage in Being and Time: namely, that Being transcends beings; that Being is the transcendens par
excellence; that Being is in a privileged sense the phenomenon of phenomenology; that the coming-into-
appearance of beings requires a prior understanding of Being; that this very understanding, to the extent
which it is always beyond, is nonetheless inseparable from an exposure to beings; and that the
excessiveness of Being is the cradle of truth (Taminiaux, Dialectic and Difference, 110). Taminiauxs
claim, then, is that we can trace within the Seinsfrage Husserls account of categorial intuition. Heideggers
critique of Husserl fails to acknowledge, of course, both the extent of his debt to Husserl as well as the
resources within Husserls work that could furnish a rejoinder to his critique. See also, for example, Rudolf
57
the critical stance that Heidegger takes up with respect to Husserls text is itself a

continuationandamplificationofHusserlsowncritiqueofnaturalism,evenifthis

continuationisradicallyheretical.IfHeideggersengagementwithHusserlbetraysa

deep ambivalence, then, the locus of this ambivalence lies in what Heidegger

identifies as a failure of Husserlian phenomenology to fully escape the grip of

naturalisticphilosophy.138

Heideggers claim, as we will see, is that Husserl unwittingly reinscribes a

certain commitment to naturalistic philosophy insofar as he subsumes a

phenomenological account of givenness within the same problematic that

preoccupies philosophical naturalism, namely the problem of articulating an

accountofepistemologicalnormativitythatcanserveasthegroundforarigorously

scientific philosophy.139 Consequently, Heidegger argues that Husserls

interrogation of the matters themselves (den Sachen Selbst) betrays the very

principles of phenomenological radicality that he himself articulates.140 Because of

Bernet, Husserl and Heidegger on Intentionality and Being, Journal of the British Society for
Phenomenology 21 (1990): 136-152; Simon Critchley, Heidegger for Beginners; Theodore Kisiel, On
the Way to Being and Time, Research in Phenomenology 15 (1985): 193-227; Jean-Paul Sartre,
Intentionality: A fundamental idea of Husserls Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl: Critical Assessments
of Leading Philosophers, ed. Rudolf Bernet, Donn Welton and Gina Zavota (Oxon: Routledge, 2005): 257-
260. By focusing instead on Heideggers engagement with Philosophy as Rigorous Science in both 1923-
1924 as well as in 1964, we can elaborate this relationship in slightly different terms, though these terms do
not fundamentally depart from these more standard accounts, insofar as I am interested in tracing
Heideggers commitment to Husserl as a critical appropriation of phenomenology.
138
As Heidegger puts it, [t]he essential, scientifically decisive move within the scientific tendency is a
move that Husserl makes well. Posing the problem in a purified way is, in spite of this, still naturalism
(Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 59). What we see, then, is that Heideggers
critique of Husserl is nonetheless a defense of phenomenology. In this sense, we could suggest that
Heidegger criticizes Husserl for failing to follow through on his own insights.
139
What matters [to Husserl] is to acquire the possibility of a rigorous lawfulness, the sort of lawfulness
that is rigorously objective, binding and identifiable (Ibid., 52).
140
As he puts, at stake is what remains unthought in the call to the thing itself (Heidegger, The End of
Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, in On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh [Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1972], 64). We will have an opportunity to examine the maxim to the matter
58
this concern for lawfulness, Heidegger argues that Husserl fails to sufficiently

interrogate the conditions of possibility that subtend the givenness of the matters

themselves.

Moreover,accordingHeidegger,thisfailureisitselfnecessary,ifthematters

themselvesaretofurnishphenomenologywithanotionofrigorouslawfulness.141

Inotherwords,whatHeideggerattemptstoshowisthattheconditionofpossibility

for the articulation of a phenomenological account of epistemological normativity is

theneglectorobfuscationofitsownconditionsof(im)possibility.Thatis,accordingto

Heidegger, an analysis of these conditions brings us before the impossibility of

offering a rigorously binding account of epistemological normativity. Instead, the

mattersthemselvesrevealthatastructureofneglectinscribedintheirappearance

orthatthewithdrawalofgroundisendemictothatwhichshowsitself.

Beginning with his 19231924 lecture course, in the second chapter of the

Introduction to Phenomenological Research, Heidegger offers an account of the

interrogativestructureofcare(Sorge)inordertomotivatehiscritiqueofHusserls

1911 essay. His critique, we will see, is twofold: on the one hand, through an

analysis questioning, Heidegger attempts to show that Husserls interrogation of

that which shows itself as itself evinces an impoverished inquiry into to the

structure and conditions of questioning as such. On the other hand, by offering an

themselves since the most narrow-minded dogmatism can hide behind it (Heidegger, Introduction to
Phenomenological Research, 44-45). It is, of course, important to note that Heideggers critique, in many
respects, remains immanent to the spirit of Husserls project. As Dastur notes, for Heidegger, [p]hilosophy
is the science of Being, [in] which Being is not something given beforehand for subsequent scientific
investigation, but rather the dimension on the basis of which any given as such appears (Dastur,
Heidegger and the Question of Time, 2). Here we see the influence of Husserls critique of naturalism:
philosophy, for Heidegger, is radically distinct from the other positivistic sciences.
141
Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 52.
59
existential account of questioning, indeed by showing that the structure of care is

itself interrogative, Heidegger attempts to demonstrate the tenacious grip

questioningmaintainsintheverygivennessofphenomena.

Inordertoelucidatethiscritique,wemustexamineHeideggerstreatmentof

both questioning and care in this early lecture course. Beginning with the former,

Heideggeroffersananalysisofthecomplexstructureofquestioningthatanticipates

andforeshadowshisanalysisoftheSeinsfragein1927.142Threeyearspriortohis

analysis in Being and Time, Heidegger had already identified the tendency to

conflate questioning as such with what is asked (das Gefragte), the interrogative

proposition. In his analysis of the complex structure of questioning, Heidegger

resists any facile reduction of questioning to merely a syntactic structure. Along

with what is asked, Heidegger argues that what is interrogated (das Befragte) and

the regard in which it is asked (die Hinsicht, in der gefragt wird) belong

equiprimordiallytothestructureofquestioning.143Throughthisanalysis,Heidegger

emphasizesthatanarticulation(artikuliert)ofwhatisinterrogated(dasBefragte),

142
Ibid., 54. See Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe band 17, 73. In Being and Time, Heidegger distinguishes
between that which is asked about (ein Gefragte), that which is interrogated (ein Befragte) and that
which is to be found out by the asking (das Erfragte); this is what is really intended (Heidegger, Being
and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson [Oxford: Blackwell, 1962], 24). In these earlier
lectures, we see that Heidegger invokes the notion of regard (die Hinsicht) rather than the notion of das
Erfragte, but it is clear that the notion of die Hinsicht anticipates this later concept: at stake in both cases is
the prior articulation of that which is interrogated as something. What we see, then, is that both of these
concepts bear the trace of Husserls notion of categorial intuition. Their difference, we might suggest, lies
in the emphasis that Heidegger places on the notion of care as a kind of sight in these earlier lectures (i.e.,
Jede Sorge als solche ist Sehen [Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe band 17, 104]). If das Erfragte can be
understood as that which is intended in the question, then Heideggers invocation of this term points toward
an emphasis on the more expansive conception of intuition that is already anticipated in the notion of die
Hinsicht. As Taminiaux puts it, referring to Heideggers discussion in Being and Time, [t]his structure of
the question of Being together with certain essential elements in the analysis initiated by that question are,
in a certain sense, anticipated in Husserls doctrine of categorial intuition (Taminiaux, Dialectic and
Difference, 108).
143
Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 54.
60
from a certain regard (die Hinsicht), is endemic to the structure of questioning as

such.144Inthissense,interrogationisalwayssimultaneouslyanarticulationofthat

whichisinterrogatedfromadeterminatepointofview.145

Within Heideggers analysis, on one hand, we can clearly trace a certain

commitment to Husserlian phenomenology. That is, what Heidegger describes as

thearticulationthatisinscribedinthestructureofinterrogationbearsthevestigial

trace of Husserls account of intentionality. The point, for Heidegger, is that

interrogation is possible only so long as what is interrogated is articulated or

brought into view as something. Of course, as we have seen, for Husserl,

intentionalitydenotesthestructureofaccomplishmentsthroughwhichtheworldis

constitutivelyilluminated,namelyinthecoincidenceofactsofexpressionandacts

of intuition. Intentionality, then, denotes the basic structure of accomplishments

through which the world is articulated, but which remain invisible to us in the

naturalattitude.Inthissense,wecouldsuggestthat,forHeidegger,somethingakin

totheaccomplishmentsofintentionalconsciousnessisinscribedinthestructureof

questioning,insofarasinterrogationisalwaysalreadyakindofarticulationofthat

whichinterrogatedassomething.

If a commitment to Husserlian phenomenology is legible in Heideggers

analysis of questioning, on the other hand, it is equally clear that this analysis

simultaneously offers a critique of Husserls 1911 essay. Just as we saw in our

examination of Husserls critique of naturalism in the previous section, Heidegger

144
Ibid., 55.
145
what has been elaborated about the regard in question presents the possibility of stamping a
question into a dogmatic opinion, even though it presents itself as a question (Ibid., 55).
61
tooisconcernedtoshowthewayinwhichanostensiblyradicalinterrogationofthe

mattersthemselvescaninfactservetoobfuscatethem.Heideggersclaim,however,

isthatHusserlsarticulationofphenomenologyasarigorouslyscientificphilosophy

unwittinglyparticipatesinthisobfuscation.

Inordertodevelopthiscritique,Heideggerdrawsourattentiontothesetof

philosophical problems animating the regard (die Hinsicht) that delimits Husserls

turn toward the matters themselves.146 Of course, as Husserl himself emphasizes,

theguidingproblemofhisphenomenologicalinquiryistheenigmaofcognitionasit

istacitlyrevealedbyCartesianandKantianphilosophy.147Itistheproblemofrigor,

theproblemofsecuringthelocusofepistemologicalnormativity,then,thatdelimits

Husserls interrogation of the matters themselves. In virtue of this regard, that

whichshowsitselfasitself,namelytheobjectsofactsofintentionalconsciousness,

appear only as normative ground.148 According to Heidegger, however, it is this

commitment to a Cartesian standpoint that betrays the impetus at the heart of

Husserls project. That is, in his interrogation of that which shows itself, Husserl

neglectsamorethoroughgoingconsiderationoftheconditionsforandstructureof

interrogationassuch.

146
What interests us instead is the question of what biases [Tendenzen] are at work in the critique of
naturalism, the question of what care guides both the choice of the object and the critique (Ibid., 53).
147
Given what has just been said, the phrase to the matters themselves [zu den Sachen selbst] can no
longer mean here to envision the matters freely from their own standpoint, prior to a determinate manner of
question. Instead it means enabling what is interrogated to be encountered within this set of problems that is
prefigured in a completely determined way (Ibid., 53).
148
As Heidegger puts it, here we see the predominance of care about the idea of an empty and thus
fantastic certainty and evidence, prior to every attempt to free up the possibility of an encounter with
specific, fundamental facts of the matter (Ibid., 34).
62
 InordertoseetheforceofHeideggerscritique,however,wemustfirstshift

ourattentiontohisdiscussionofcare(Sorge).Alreadyinthislecturecourse,wecan

locateanascentaccountoftheexistentialstructureofcarethathewillrearticulate

and develop in Being and Time. In this later text, of course, care designates the

peculiarunitythatbelongstoDaseinasastructurallyarticulatedwhole.149Care,in

thissense,lendsintrinsicunitytoDaseinsexistentialia:150asathrownprojection,151

Dasein is aheadofitself, beingalreadyintheworld as beingalongsideentities

withintheworld.152 This existential determination of Dasein as care thus implies

that Dasein is nothing other than the precarious unity of these structurally

articulated modalities of being.153 While in this earlier lecture, care already

designates this articulated existential structure,154 unlike in Being and Time,

Heideggerdesignatesthisunitybydescribingcareasakindofsight(Sehen).155

Whatiscrucial,formypurposes,isthatthisdeterminationofcareasakind

of sight brings the notion of questioning within the purview of this existential

149
Care allows Heidegger to articulate this unity without recourse to traditional determinations of the
human being that would locate this unity in something substantial (e.g. thinking substance or extended
substance, mind and body, or as Heidegger puts it in paragraph forty-two of Being and Time vis--vis the
myth of care, spirit or earth). For this reason, Heidegger insists that with the expression care we have in
mind a basic existential-ontological phenomenon, which all the same is not simple in its structure. The
ontologically elemental totality of the care-structure cannot be traced back to some ontical primal
element (Ibid., 240-241).
150
Ibid., 235.
151
In the double meaning of care, what we have in view is a single basic structure of thrown
projection (Ibid., 243).
152
Ibid., 237.
153
As Dastur puts it, [t]his unitary phenomenon, however is not an arkhe, or an origin, that would enjoy
the simplicity and uniqueness of an ultimate structural element, a foundation in which the manifold would
come to disappear. Far from being excluded, the multiplicity of items is, on the contrary, required by the
structural unity of the being of Dasein (Dastur, Heidegger and the Question of Time, 20).
154
Care, Heidegger tells us, is a specific possibility of Being of existence [eine bestimmte Sorge des
Daseins] (Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 54).
155
Every care is, as such, a seeing (Ibid., 75). Jede Sorge als solche ist Sehen (Heidegger,
Gesamtausgabe band 17, 104).
63
structure.Todescribecareasakindofsight,forHeidegger,concomitantlyimplies

that sight is not merely a contingent faculty nor an organic capacity but instead

designates the possibility of disclosure or uncoveredness that belongs Dasein as

beingintheworld.156Theideaofsight,inotherwords,isintendedtocharacterize

thebeingofhumanDaseinasakindofseeking(Suchen).Whatwesee,then,isthat

the idea of care as a kind of sight brings us before its constitutively interrogative

structure. That is, if seeking belongs to the structure of sight, and if sight is

understood as the existential structure of care, then the care structure just is a

structureofinterrogation.Interrogation,inthissense,designatesabasicpossibility

ofthebeingofDasein.

Withthisaccountoftheinterrogativestructureofcareinview,wecanbegin

to elucidate Heideggers critique of Husserl in more precise terms. Indeed it is

crucialtomakeHeideggersaccountofexistentialinterrogationexplicit,foronone

hand,thisaccountseemstoobviatethegroundsofhiscritique.Thatis,Heideggers

analysis of questioning demonstrates that the complex interrogative structure of

care, as the existential condition of inquiry as such, is ineliminably inscribed in a

determinatepointofview(bestimmtenHinblick).Inotherwords,justastheregard

(derHinsicht)isendemictoquestioning,sotooisacertainpointofviewinscribedin

theinterrogativestructureofcare.157

156
Carings kind of sight is a character that is given with existence itself. Existence as being in a world
(being-in) is being that discloses (Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 76).
157
As Heidegger puts it, each care lives in a determinate point of view toward [bestimmten Hinblick] what
it takes care of [was sie besorgt] (Ibid., 76).
64
 This regard (Hinblick) manifests itself in two seemingly antithetical but in

fact codeterminative tendencies, namely ensnarement (Verfngnis) and neglect

(Versumnis).Ensnarementdesignatesthetendencyofcaretobecomeenthralledin

itsobjectsofconcernandthusisoblivioustothestandpointthankstowhichthese

objects have been articulated.158 Neglect, as the counterpart to ensnarement,

designates the disavowal of that which the regard renders superfluous.159 What is

crucial,then,isthatifthisanalysisrevealsensnarementandneglectasinscribedin

the existential structure of interrogation, Heideggers diagnosis of Husserls

ensnarementinthemattersthemselvesasnormativegroundappearstobemerelya

descriptiveclaimaboutthestructureandconditionofinquiryassuch.160

However, while Husserls position initially seems to be only descriptively

implicatedinHeideggersaccount,infactitiswiththeanalysisofquestioningthat

Heideggerscritiquegainstraction.HeideggersclaimisthatHusserlsinterrogation

of that which shows itself fails to sufficiently investigate the being for whom this

normative ground is ostensibly secured. As he puts it, in the foregoing

considerations[byHusserl],therehasneverbeenanytalkofwhatissupposedtobe

normatively determined; the entity subjected to the normative determination is

158
Care, insofar as it lives for the object of concern, is what it is precisely by virtue of the fact that it
ensnares itself in itself [sie sich in sich selbst verfngt]. Thanks to this ensnaring of itself in itself, care
comes to determine each and everything from this standpoint [Bestimmen] (Ibid., 62).
159
This self-ensnaring [Sich-in-sich-selbst-verfangen] makes for the fact that everything that crosses the
path of care is cared for in such a way that what is not cared for is not simply merely not there but instead is
cared for as something that does not have to be there. We see in the ensnarement a further phenomenon that
may be designated neglect [Versumnis] (Ibid., 62).
160
Consequently, Heidegger insists that [e]ach care qua care neglects something [Jede Sorge qua Sorge
versumt etwas] (Ibid., 62).
65
neverplacedunderscrutinyinthesameprimordialsense.161Ratherthanmerelya

tendentiouscriticism,theforceofHeideggersclaimisthatHusserlsinterrogation

fails to sufficiently consider care, understood as an existential structure of

interrogation,asitsontologicalconditionofpossibility.Thatis,fromthestandpoint

delimitedbytheproblemofrigor,Husserlsensnarementinthatwhichshowsitself

simultaneously evinces a neglect of the existential structure of interrogation. The

standpointofrigor,inotherwords,necessarilyneglectstheexistentialstructureof

questioningofwhichititselfisanexpression.Consequently,whileneglectassuchis

ineliminable, Husserls neglect of beingquestionable neglects the existential

ontologicalgroundofinquiryassuch.

For this reason, Heidegger claims that Husserls inquiry unwittingly

reinscribesthesamekindofnaivetyendemictonaturalistphilosophies,namelythe

failure to sufficiently interrogate its own conditions. Through this neglect, Husserl

uncritically secures the terminus of questioning, rather than seeing the way in

which the existential questionableness of Dasein guarantees that in every instance

of sight or disclosure questioning turns back into ever new questioning.162 With

this criticism in mind, we can now turn to Heideggers critical engagement with

Husserls 1911 essay in his 1964 essay The End of Philosophy and the Task of

Thinking, for although we will see a shift in the locus of Heideggers critique,

ultimatelyitistheprimacyofthequestionablethatremainsatissue.

161
Ibid., 63.
162
Ibid., 56.
66
 Indeed,fromtheveryopeninglinesofthisessay,Heideggergesturestoward

thecontinuitybetweenthislaterworkandhisearlierlecturecourse.Thetitleofthe

essay, he tells us, designates the attempt at a reflection which persists in

questioning.163 Although, in this essay, unlike in his earlier lecture, the idea of

questioningneverexplicitlyreceivesthematictreatment,nonethelesswhatwewill

seeisthatoneofthecentraltasksofthisessayisthearticulationofathinkingthat

maintainstheprimacyofquestioning.Atstake,then,onceagain,isthearticulation

ofgivennessthat,asHeideggerexpressedfortyyearsearlier,turnsbackintoever

newquestioning.

Inthisessay,HeideggerdrawsourattentiontoHusserlsappealtoabsolute

andclearselfgivenness164asaterminusforquestioning.Consider,forexample,the

followingpassagefromTheIdeaofPhenomenology,publishedfouryearspriortohis

1911essay.InvokingananalogybetweentheCartesianappealtothefoundational

status of clara et distincta perceptio and his phenomenological account of self

evidence,Husserltellsus

Tohaveaphenomenonbeforeoneseyes,whichpointstosomething

which is not itself given in the phenomenon, and then to doubt

whethersuchanobjectexists,andifsohowitistobeunderstoodthat

163
Heidegger, The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, 55, my italics. Der Titel nennt den
Versuch einer Besinnung, die im Fragen verharrt (Heidegger, Das Ende der Philosophie und die
Aufgabe des Denkens, Gesamtausgabe band 14: Zur Sache Des Denkens, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von
Herrman [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007], 61). My intention to offer a selective reading
of this text: ignoring Heideggers interesting engagement with Hegel and largely side-stepping enormous
questions concerning the periodicity of his thought, instead I will merely try to emphasize and bring into
view the discussion of questioning in this text which will allow us to trace a moment of continuity with the
1923-1924 lecture course.
164
Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 28.
67
 it exists this is meaningful. But to see and to intend absolutely

nothing more than what is grasped in seeing, and then still to

question and doubt, that is nonsense. Basically what I am saying

amountstothis.Theseeingorgraspingofwhatisgiven,insofarasitis

actual seeing, actual selfgivenness in the strictest sense and not

another sort of givenness which points to something which is not

giventhatisanultimate.Thatisabsoluteselfevidence.165

AlthoughHusserldoesnotcitetheMetaphysics,weareremindedofAristotlesclaim

that it evinces a lack of education not to know of what things one should seek a

demonstrationandofwhatheshouldnot.166Husserlsappealtoselfgivenness,we

might suggest, is legible as a naturalistic interpretation of this Aristotelian claim:

selfgivenness obviates the infinite regress or vicious circularity within which

cognitionwouldotherwisefinditselfmired.167 Itispreciselyinthissensethatself

givenness, for Husserl, articulates the ground for a rigorous scientific philosophy:

selfgivennessisthearticulationofanormativestandardthroughwhichthebinding

character of phenomenological inquiry and thus its scientific rigor can be secured.

Consequently,forHusserl,justasdoubtisrenderednonsensicalinthefaceofself

givenness,sotooisquestioningasithasbeenarticulatedbyHeidegger.

165
Ibid., 39-40.
166
Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle (Des Moines, Iowa: Peripatetic Press, 1979),
1006a.
167
demonstration of everything is impossible; for the process would go to infinity, so that even in this
manner there would be no demonstration (Ibid., 1006a). Is it not obvious that before the possibility of
transcendence is established no transcendent result of the theory of knowledge can itself be secure? But if,
as it might seem, the epistemological epoche demands that we accept nothing transcendent until we have
established its possibility, and if the establishing of the possibility of transcendence itself, as an objective
result, requires transcendent postulations, then it seems that we are faced with the prospect of a circle,
which makes phenomenology and the theory of knowledge impossible [] What we need at this point is a
further step which will unroll this spurious circle for us (Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 38-39).
68
 WhenweturntoHeideggersinterpretationofthissameclaimbyAristotlein

TheEndofPhilosophyandTaskofThinking,thestakesofhiscritiqueofHusserl

comeintoview.Theproblem,accordingtoHeidegger,liesnotinHusserlsaccount

ofselfgivennessbutwithhisunderstandingofwhatthisselfgivennessgives.Citing

AristotlesMetaphysics,HeideggerarguesthatHusserlsappealtoselfgivennessas

the normative ground for a critique of cognition reinscribes certain prejudices of

naturalistic philosophy, namely the problem of rigorous lawfulness. For Husserl,

what the matters themselves provide is an epistemological foundation, one that is

furnishedbyselfgivenness.ForHeidegger,Aristotlesremarkinsteaddemonstrates

that selfgivenness simultaneously implies the withdrawal of its conditions or

ground.

Itisonlybydecouplingevidenceandselfgivenness,then,thatselfgivenness

can serve as the locus of epistemological normativity or that evidence can be

understood as something externally binding. Commenting on Aristotles claim,

Heideggerpointstotheimmanenceofevidenceintheexperienceofselfgivenness.

Asheputsit,onlythepeculiarqualityofthatwhichdemandsofusaboveallelseto

beadmittedcandecide[howthatwhichneedsnoproofistobeexperienced].But

howisthistomakethedecisionpossibleforusbeforewehaveadmittedit?168On

onehand,onlytheexperienceofwhatisabsolutelybindingcandelimitforusthat

which needs no further proof; on the other hand, we are receptive to this

experience,onlyifwealreadyunderstandwhatitisforsomethingtobeabsolutely

binding.Whatappearsasaviciouscircleorinfiniteregressfromtheperspectiveof

168
Heidegger, The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, 72.
69
naturalistic thought, according to Heidegger, instead brings us before the

coincidenceofevidenceandselfgivenness.

Itisforthisreasonthat,inthislateressay,Heideggernowinvokesthenotion

ofaletheiaratherthantheinterrogativestructureofcareasthebasisofhiscritique

of Husserl. The bivalent structure of aletheia articulates the opening in virtue of

whichthinkingandBeingareboundtogether.Thepoint,forHeidegger,isthatthe

experienceoftruth,understoodasaletheia,istheexperienceofselfgivennessinthe

withdrawal of ground. Consequently, reflecting on his commitments to Husserlian

phenomenology in 1963 in the essay My Way to Phenomenology, Heidegger

suggeststhat,

[w]hatoccursforthephenomenologyofactsofconsciousnessasthe

selfmanifestation of phenomena is thought more originally by

Aristotle and all Greek thinking and existence as aletheia, as the

unconcealedness of whatis present, its being revealed, its showing

itself [] The more decisively this insight became clear to me, the

morepressingthequestionbecame:Whenceandhowisitdetermined

what must be experienced as the things themselves in accordance

with the principle of phenomenology? Is it consciousness and its

objectivity or is it the Being of beings in its unconcealedness and

concealment?169

Thenotionofaletheia,then,isthearticulationofthebivalentstructureofrevealing

concealingthatbelongstothegivennessofthethingsthemselves.Phenomenology,

169
Heidegger, My Way to Phenomenology, 79.
70
as the interrogation of the matters themselves (den Sachen Selbst), reveals that in

the very experience of givenness, any external foundation or ground itself

withdraws. Aletheia, for Heidegger, thus names the withdrawal of ground that

belongsineliminablytotheveryexperienceofselfgivenness.

Whatwesee,then,isthatdespitethespaceoffortyyearsbetweenhisearly

lecture course and this later essay, in both texts we see Heidegger diagnose the

failureofHusserlianphenomenologytoadequatelyinterrogateitsownconditionsof

possibility, and we see Heidegger struggling to articulate an account of givenness

that acknowledges the inevitability of this failure. That is, by diagnosing Husserls

neglectoftheinterrogativestructureofcareorthebivalentmovementofaletheiain

hisconcernforscientificrigor,Heideggernotonlyidentifieswhatisintolerableto

Husserls concern for rigor,170 but also reveals something fundamental and

ineliminableaboutthegivennessofthethingsthemselves.

Indeed, what is revealed, according to Heidegger, is the ineliminable

tendencytowardoblivionthatbelongstothestructureofgivenness.Thisiswhy,on

one hand, already in the Introduction to Phenomenological Research, Heidegger

insists that neglect belongs to the structure of care. Neglect, understood in these

terms,doesnotdesignatewhatismerelyforgottenoroverlooked,butratherpoints

totheobfuscationthatbelongstocareassuch.171Ontheotherhand,itisthesame

ineluctable tendency toward oblivion that underlies Heideggers invocation of

170
As Heidegger puts it, what is neglected is neglected in the sense of the care. The neglected is not
forgotten but virtually banished. The care defends itself against what it neglects (Heidegger, Introduction
to Phenomenological Research, 62-63, my italics).
171
the fact that everything that crosses the path of the care is cared for in such a way that what is not
cared for is not simply merely not there but instead cared for as something that does not have to be there
[] Each care qua care neglects something (Ibid., 62).
71
aletheia in The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking. Between these two

texts,ofcourse,weseeashiftinthelocationofthistendencyfromthestructureof

caretothetruthofbeing.Whathasshifted,then,wecouldsuggest,isthelocusof

thequestionable:beingquestionable,forHeideggerisnolongertobeunderstoodas

an existential structure of Dasein but rather belongs to Being itself. Nonetheless,

what remains consistent is his claim that neglect or oblivion belongs ineluctably to

givenness.

PartII:TheNeglectofAir

Inthesecondhalfofthischapter,IwillattempttoshowthatIrigaray'stextisguided

by the interrogation of precisely this thought in Heideggers work, namely that a

neglectoroblivionoftheconditionsofgivennessbelongstoexperienceofgivenness

as such. Of course, as we have just seen, if Heideggers critical engagement with

Husserlmustbeunderstoodasanimmanentcritiqueandthusasanamplification

andcriticalappropriationofHusserlsposition,thenwemustattendtothewayin

which Husserls critique of naturalism is itself indirectly implicated in Irigarays

criticalengagementwithHeidegger.Herclaim,however,isnotthatHeideggerfails

to sufficiently interrogate the existential conditions for and structure of

interrogation.Indeed,insofarasHeideggerscritiqueofHusserlultimatelyforcesus

to confront the ineluctable insistence of a neglect or oblivion of the conditions of

givenness in the very manifestation of phenomena, Heidegger himself has already

diagnosedthiskindoftranscendentalinquiryaspermanentlyelusive.

72
 Instead,wewillseethattheentiretrajectoryofLoublidelairislegibleasa

mimetic, psychoanalytically inflected critical appropriation of the claim that

Heideggerseemstomakeonlyinpassinginhis19231924lecturecourse,namely

that care defends itself against what it neglects.172 Indeed, Irigaray will invoke a

constellationofpsychoanalyticconceptslooselyderivedfromherengagementwith

Lacan in order to transmute the stakes of Heideggers critical engagement with

Husserl.ThroughthiscriticalengagementwithHeidegger,onethatismediatedby

an appropriation of psychoanalysis, Irigaray is able to make visible the defensive

tenorofwhatHeideggerhimselfidentifiedastheineluctableinsistenceofneglector

oblivion.IrigaraysfamousdiagnosisofHeideggersloublidelair,then,isvisiblein

thispsychoanalyticinterpolationofHeideggerianphenomenology:itdesignatesthe

defensive operation of neglect that subtends the structure of care as its necessary

correlateorthewithdrawaloftheconditionsofgivennessintheverymanifestation

ofphenomena.

SectionI:IrigaraysengagementwithPsychoanalysis

Let me begin, then, by outlining the psychoanalytic stakes of Irigarays critical

engagement with Heidegger. Although the psychoanalytic dimensions of this text

havebeenunderexploredinthesecondaryliterature,thereisasubstantivebodyof

excellent scholarship that has elucidated Irigarays critical appropriation of

psychoanalysis in those texts predating Loubli de lair. For this reason, in this

sectionIwillsimplyattempttoilluminatethewayinwhichthatscholarshipmight

172
Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 63.
73
be brought to bear on this text. Briefly, then, let me attempt to take up the

psychoanalyticcommitmentsthatdelimitLoublidelairbeforeelucidatingtheway

inwhichthesecommitmentssuffuseIrigarayscriticalengagementwithHeidegger.

The pervasive influence that psychoanalysis, and specifically Lacanian

psychoanalysis, has exerted on Irigarays thought is now widely acknowledged.

Margaret Whitfords 1991 monograph, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine,

however,wasthefirsttexttoofferasustainedexaminationofthisinfluence.Inthis

text, Whitford argues that Irigarays critical engagement with the history of

philosophy is mediated through her appropriation of Lacans formulation of The

MirrorPhase.173ForLacan,themirrorphaseoffersanaccountofthegenesisofthe

ego.174Indeed,inthisphase,thechildisofferedanimageofitself(forexamplethe

imageinthemirror),itsidentificationwiththisimage[allows]theformationofthe

ego to take place.175 In other words, for Lacan, the mirror phase points to a

transformationthattakesplacethroughtheinfantsidentificationwithitsspecular

173
According to Lacan, [this is] a phase in the constitution of the human individual located between the
ages of six and eighteen months. Though still in a state of powerlessness and motor incoordination, the
infant anticipates on an imaginary plane the apprehension and mastery of its bodily unity. This imaginary
unification comes about by means of identification with the image of the counterpart as total Gestalt; it is
exemplified concretely by the experience in which the child perceives its own reflection in a mirror. The
mirror phase is said to constitute the matrix and first outline of what is to become the ego (Jean Laplanche
and Jean-Betrand Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith [London:
Karnac Books, 1973], 250-251).
174
Although Lacan, at times, seems to present this as an empirically verifiable, developmental narrative,
this is far from clear. As Laplanche and Pontalis point out, Lacan himself has indicated [that] the word
phase (phase) is no doubt better adapted here than stage (stade), in that it suggests a turning-point rather
than a period in the process of psycho-biological maturation (Ibid., 252). Moreover, as Jane Gallop points
out, the temporality of The Mirror Stage is alien to the logic of chronology (Gallop, Reading Lacan,
77). In other words, for Gallop, Lacans formulation of this phase disrupts the very chronology constitutive
of a developmental narrative. I will return to this point later in this section.
175
Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine, 34.
74
image.176 This phase or turning point is undergone by an infant who has not yet

masteredtheuprightposture,177aninfantwho,insofarasheorshecannotyetwalk

orevenstandunaided,requiresthesupport,asLacanputsit,ofsomeprop,human

or artificial.178 With this support, the infant identifies with the image of upright

posture reflected in the mirror that he or she has not yet achieved.179 The infant

thus assumes an anticipated image of corporeal mastery, identifying with a fictive

imageofbodilycontrolthatheorshewillonlylaterpossess.180

Crucially for Irigaray, what Lacans account of the mirror phase brings into

view is the complex temporal structure of this fictive identification. While the

mirrorphaseisgenerallyinterpretedasaturningpointwherethebodyinitsbits

andpieces[lecorpsmorcel]becomesatotalizedbodyimage,aprotoself,181Jane

Galloppointsoutthatnotonlyistheselfprecipitatedthroughanticipation,butalso

[w]hatappearstoprecedethemirrorstageissimplyaprojectionorreflection.182

176
Identification, as he puts, is the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes
[assume] an image (Lacan, The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function In crits, trans. Bruce Fink,
[New York: Norton, 2006], 76). Identification, in other words, can be understood as that psychological
process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect, property or attribute of the other and is transformed,
wholly or partially, after the model the other provides (Laplanche, The Language of Psychoanalysis, 205).
The point, then, is that identification itself is constitutively transformative.
177
Jane Gallop, Reading Lacan, 78. As such, the infant is still trapped in his motor impotence and nursling
dependence (Lacan, The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function, 76).
178
Ibid., 74-75.
179
As Gallop points out, Lacan and his commentators have emphasized the illusion in the mirror stage. It
is a founding moment of the imaginary mode, the belief in a projected image. It represents the first instance
of what according to Lacan is the basic function of the ego, the classic gesture of the self: mconnaissance,
misprision, misrecognition (Gallop, Reading Lacan, 81).
180
She thus finds in the mirror image already there, a mastery that she will actually learn only later
(Ibid., 78).
181
Ibid., 79.
182
Ibid., 80, my italics. Gallop also points to Laplanche and Pontalis account. According to them, while
Lacans account of the mirror phase appears to be an elaboration of Freuds account of the transition from
auto-eroticismwhich precedes the formation of an egoto narcissism proper [where] what Lacan calls
the phantasy of the body-in-pieces (le corps morcel) would thus correspond to the former stage, while
the mirror stage would correspond to the onset of primary narcissism. There is one important difference,
75
That is, the infants identification with his or her specular image institutes an

anticipated unity that is formative of the self but also retroactively posits the very

disjointed, inchoate body that is thought to precede this phase.183 Moreover, this

retroactive projection of what ostensibly came before the mirror phase is itself

founded upon anticipation. Thus, as Gallop puts it, the self is constituted through

anticipating what it will become, and then this anticipatory model is used for

gauging what was before.184 It is in this sense, then, that Lacans account of the

mirrorphaseprovidesanaccountofmisprisionasacomplextemporalstructure.

The complex temporality of the mirror phase is further compounded, for

what we see is that this anticipatoryretroactive moment of identification at once

institutesanddisruptsalinear,developmentalchronology.Indeed,ononehand,the

infantsanticipatoryidentificationwithafictiveimageofanuprightpostureaswell

as the retroactive positing of the body in its bits and pieces (le corps morcel)

foundsadevelopmentalchronology.Inotherwords,thedialecticofanticipationand

retroaction institutes a chronological, developmental narrative as its effect insofar

as the mirror phase is only subsequently legible as a chronological stage in the

childsdevelopmentfrombodilyimpotencytoselfmasteryorinthechildspsycho

sexual development from autoerotism to primary narcissism.185 The crucial point,

however: Lacan sees the mirror phase as responsible, retroactively, for the emergence of the phantasy of
the body-in-pieces (Laplanche, The Language of Psychoanalysis, 251, my italics).
183
Here I am following Gallops reading: Not only does the self issue from it, but so does the body in bits
and pieces. This moment is the source not only for what follows but also for what precedes: it produces the
future through anticipation and the past through retroaction. And yet its itself a moment of self-delusion, of
captivation by an illusory image. Both future and past are thus rooted in an illusion (Gallop, Reading
Lacan, 80-81).
184
Ibid., 81.
185
Laplanche, The Language of Psychoanalysis, 251.
76
however,isthatthislinearchronologyisfoundeduponthedialecticofanticipatory

and retroactive projection. It is precisely this chronology that the mirror phase

defends against. Indeed, insofar as developmental chronology would betray the

assumptionofcorporealmasteryasillusory,thischronologyisinfactantitheticalto

thetemporalityofthemirrorphase.Indeed,asGalloppointsout,sincetheentire

past and present is dependent upon an already anticipated maturitythat is, a

projected ideal oneany natural maturation [] must be defended against, for it

threatenstoexposethefactthattheselfisanillusiondonewithmirrors.186Inthis

sense,alinearchronologyissimultaneouslyinstitutedandinfinitelydeferred.

Irigaray critically appropriates Lacans account of the complex temporal

structure of the mirror phase in order to diagnose the correlative operation of

specularization and matricide within philosophical discourse. On one hand, as

Whitford points out, Irigaray claims that western discourse and culture displays

the structure of specularization, in which the male projects his own ego onto the

world,whichthenbecomesamirrorwhichenableshimtoseehisownreflectionin

what he looks at.187 Understood within these parameters, the charge of

specularization designates precisely the temporal dialectic of anticipation and

retroaction that subtends this illusory identification: the subject of philosophical

discourseisprecipitatedthroughafictiveidentificationwiththeanticipatedimage

186
Gallop, Reading Lacan, 83.
187
Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine, 34.
77
of itself that it projects onto the world, where the assumption of this image

retroactivelyconfirmstheveracityofandthusrendersinvisibletheseprojections.188

Ontheotherhand,Irigarayinvokesthechargeofmatricideinordertodraw

ourattentiontotheneglectoftheveryinfrastructurethatsubtendstheoperationof

specularization.WithinLacansaccount,aswesaw,themotherservesasapropthat

buttresses this fictive identification, while the support that she lends is

constitutively elided. The charge of matricide, thus, designates the neglect that

subtends this illusory identification, insofar as the neglect of this infrastructure is

itself constitutive for the assumption of the image. The successful operation of

specularization, in other words, requires the existence of support that it cannot

acknowledge.

Irigarays diagnosis of the correlativity of specularization and matricide

facilitateshercriticalinterpolationofHeideggerswork.Sheinvokesspecularization

and matricide in order to critically transmute what, in his earlier work, Heidegger

describes as the correlativity of care and neglect and what in his later work he

describes as the bivalence of aletheia. While Irigaray invokes specularization to

describethestructureofbothcareandaletheia,sheinvokesthenotionofmatricide

in order to diagnose the neglect or oblivion that subtends these structures. In the

remaining space of this section, we will examine Irigarays diagnosis of the

188
We could compare this temporal structure of misprision to Heideggers account, in his 1938 essay, of
the twofold gesture that inscribes philosophical discourse within the parameters of humanism. At stake,
Heidegger suggests is the interweaving of two processes that the world becomes picture and man the
subject (Heidegger, The Age of the World Picture, Off The Beaten Track, trans. Julian Young and
Kenneth Haynes [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002], 70).
78
operationofspecularizationbeforeturningtothequestionofmatricideinthefinal

section.

Irigarayinvokesthenotionofspecularization,ononehand,inordertomake

visible its operation within Heideggers account of care. This specular structure of

care only comes into view, however, if we briefly introduce the question of time.

Though a sustained discussion of temporality as the meaning of care does not

emergeuntilBeingandTime,alreadyintheHistoryoftheConceptofTime(1925)we

seeitsnascentarticulation.Inthistext,Heideggerinsiststhat

Time is not something which is found outside somewhere as a

framework for world events. Time is even less something that whirs

away inside in consciousness. It is rather that which makes possible

the beingaheadofitselfinalreadybeinginvolvedin, that is, which

makespossiblethebeingofcare.189

Temporality, Heidegger claims, is the meaning of Dasein as a thrown projection.

Indeed,itistheecstaticstructureoftemporalitythatarticulatesthecomplexunity

ofDaseinasaheadofitself,beingalreadyintheworldasbeingalongsideentities

withintheworld.190AsDasturputsit,Heideggercallsthisunitaryphenomenonof

a future which makes present in the process of havingbeen: temporality.191

189
Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1992), 319-320.
190
Resisting the notion that we need to discover the essence or substrate of the self beneath the flow of
time, Heidegger prefers to understand the flow of temporality as itself constitutive of Daseins identity, or
rather, in Heideggers terms, Daseins being (Chanter, The Problematic Normative Assumptions of
Heideggers Ontology, in Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger, ed. Nancy Holland and Patricia
Huntington (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 100.
191
Dastur, Heidegger and the Question of Time, 36.
79
Ecstatic temporality, then, constitutes the meaning of this complex, articulated

structureofcare.192

For Heidegger, at stake in the notion of ecstatic temporality is the way in

which the being of Dasein as beingpossible is disclosed in its experience of

finitude.193Thatistosay,Daseinbecomeswhatitis,namelybeingpossible,onlyin

the anticipation of the closure of all possibilities or in the anticipation of that

possibilitywhichitcannotactualizeorbe,namelydeath.Throughthisanticipation

in which it is brought before its uttermost possibility, Dasein retroactively takes

overitsthrownness,itsbeingalreadyinaworldoritshavingbeen.AsDasturputs

it,Daseincanonlybeitspastbyreturningtoitinordertoassumeitonthebasis

ofthefuture.194ThefuturityofDasein,theanticipationofdeathortheassumption

ofanonactualizablepossibility,thusenablesDaseintoauthenticallybeitspast,its

alwaysalreadyhavingbeen.195

ForIrigaray,thequestionoftemporalityiscrucial,foritiswithHeideggers

accountofecstatictemporalitythatthespecularstructureofcareclearlycomesinto

view.196 AccordingtoHeidegger,Daseinisgiventoitselfaswhatitis,namelybeing

192
. it thus temporality that makes possible the unity of existentiality, facticity and falling, insofar as
they constitute the structural items of care (Ibid., 36).
193
As Dastur puts it, Dasein is a potentiality-for-Being whose future is closed and whose basis is null
(Ibid., 37).
194
Ibid., 35.
195
Dasein can only be its having-been and can only assume its original position by anticipating its end:
anticipation of ones uttermost and ownmost possibility is coming back understandingly to ones ownmost
been (BT, 373/326) (Dastur, Heidegger and the Question of Time, 35).
196
As the opening lines of the text demonstrate, Irigaray is clearly committed to the claim that Heideggers
invocation of aletheia similarly evinces this specular structure. In her text, however, she seems to move
unproblematically between Heideggers earlier and later work. Earlier in this chapter, I tried to show that
we can trace a deep moment of continuity between Heideggers 1964 essay that Irigaray explicitly cites and
his 1923-1924 lecture course, which seems to resonate the most powerfully in Irigarays critique. In the
80
possible,onlyonthebasisofitsanticipationofapossibilitythatisalwaysimminent

though never actualizable, which retroactively allows Dasein to assume what it

alwaysalreadywas.Irigaraysclaimisthatthisstructureofecstatictemporalityjust

is the temporal structure of specularization: through the anticipation of what it

cannot be, Dasein is able to authentically be what it is by retroactively becoming

what it already was. Specularization, for Irigaray, denotes nothing other than this

temporalmovement.

To identify the specular structure of ecstatic temporality as the meaning of

care,however,isnotyettoofferacritique.Instead,thelocusofIrigarayscritique

comesintoviewonlyonceweexaminetheoperationofneglectthatisendemicto

care,astructureofneglectthatIrigarayidentifiesasmatricideorasloublidelair.

As Irigaray puts it, for Heidegger, [c]are [Le souci] is already the effect of its

distancing[]ofshewhorecedesinoblivion[loubli].197Consequently,inorderto

bring Irigarays critique of Heidegger into view, we must attempt to elucidate the

way in which she employs a psychoanalytically inflected notion of matricide in

order to indict the loubli de lair that subtends Heideggers account of ecstatic

temporalityasthemeaningandstructureofcare.

PartII,SectionII:TheNeglectofLoubli

So far, I have attempted to develop a phenomenological account of neglect

(Versumen)andapsychoanalyticaccountofmatricidethattogetherwillallowusto

attempt to elucidate the force of her critical engagement, I will focus predominantly on the way in her
remarks resonate with these early lectures, only occasionally invoking the later essay.
197
Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 110. Irigaray, Loubli de lair, 101.
81
makesenseofIrigarayscriticalengagementwithHeideggerinthistext.Thatisto

say,whatIwillnowattempttoshowinthefinalsectionofthischapteristhewayin

whichbothofthesediscoursesintersectinIrigaraysdiagnosisofHeideggersloubli

delair.Ononehand,withthephenomenologicalinflectionofitinview,wearenow

inapositiontoseethatloublimustbeunderstoodnotaswhatismerelyoverlooked

or forgotten (Vergessen) and thus what could potentially be recovered; instead,

loublisignalstheneglectthatsubtendsthestructureofcareitselfasitsnecessary

correlate,thewithdrawaloftheconditionsofgivennessintheverymanifestationof

phenomena. On the other hand, the psychoanalytic inflection of this diagnosis

indicates the defensive stakes of this neglect. Heideggers loubli de lair, in this

sense,revealsitselfasthatwhichsubtendsthestructureofecstatictemporality,the

condition of givenness these structures require but cannot acknowledge. Through

this diagnosis, what Heidegger offers as merely a descriptive account of neglect

becomes visible as defensive. Before elucidating the significance of loubli in this

text,however,itwillbecrucialforustoseethattheplausibilityofthenaturalistic

interpretationofIrigarayscritiqueofHeideggerhingesonthefailuretoinvestigate

thesignificanceofneglect.

Throughout the text, Irigaray highlights Heideggers loubli de lair by

repeatedly posing the following question: La clairire de louvert, en quoi cela

peutil tre?198 Her answer to this question, of course, is well known: En quoi ce

198
Irigaray, Loubli de lair, 11. The clearing of the opening, of what can this be? (Irigaray, The
Forgetting of Air, 3).
82
est?EnAir.199Moreover,IrigaraysclaimisthatHeideggersloublidelairislegible

as the operation of matricide, insofar as it is always already the loubli that [e]lle

donnedabordlair.200Whatwesee,then,isthatIrigarayidentifiesHeideggers

neglectofairastheoperationmatricide,orwhatsheidentifiesastheneglectofboth

thematernalaswellasnature.

Ononehand,asIrigaraytellsus,airisthatbeing[cettant]thatisalready

there[l]beforebirth,andstillthere[l]afterdeath,rejoiningthenotyetandthe

nolonger within a lasting expanse.201 Air, understood as nature, is precisely the

nontemporal, spatial milieu. On the other hand, the charge of matricide also

designates Irigarays diagnosis of Heideggers forgetting of the constitutive role of

maternity.Indeed,IrigaraydrawsourattentiontoHeideggersforgettingoftheway

inwhichthemothergivesairthroughherbloodtothechild.Althoughthematrical

support that the mother gives is necessary for the existence of its Dasein, this

support is always already forgotten by Heidegger: Dasein is conceived as that

autogenetic being thanks to which there is Being, while the material/matrical

conditions thanks to which Dasein is remain, for Heidegger, irrelevant to his

phenomenologicalaccount.

Both of these aspects of matricide, the neglect of nature and the neglect of

maternity, readily lend themselves to a naturalistic interpretation. On one hand,

maternityislegibleasanempiricalevent,onethatcanbesituatedwithinalinear,

199
Irigaray, Loubli de lair, 12. Of what [is] this is? Of air (Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 5).
200
Irigaray, Loubli de lair, 31. She givesfirstair (Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 28).
201
(Ibid., 73). cet tant dj l avant la naissance, encore l aprs la mort, runissant le pas-encore
au dj-plus dans tendue qui dure (Irigaray, Loubli de lair, 69).
83
developmental chronology. On the other hand, nature is readily legible in

naturalistictermsasthetranscendent,materialground.202Heideggersforgettingof

air,then,couldbeunderstoodastheforgettingofwhatshemothergives,thefluid

matter that constitutes the materiality of his body, and what shenature gives, the

airthatisthegroundlessgroundofhisspeakingandthinking.Air,initspolysemy,

wouldrefertothatwhichisdisplacedbythosemanmadefabrications,theclearing

asempty,closedspaceorDaseinasanautogenetic,selfsustainingbeing,thanksto

whichthereisBeing.

With this naturalistic interpretation of the notion of matricide in place, the

normativegroundofIrigarayscritiqueofHeideggerisostensiblysecured.Itisthe

factoftheprimacyofairasorigin,itsineluctablethereness,thatostensiblysecures

the normative force of Irigarays critique: the very thereness of this

material/matrical ground compels philosophical discourse to acknowledge its

constitutive role. Irigarays text, then, could be understood as the attempt to

elucidate this fact, the attempt to make visible the constitutive role of the

transcendentmaterial/matricalgroundthatHeideggerfailstoacknowledge.

Given this naturalistic interpretation of Irigarays critique of Heidegger, the

correlative task of Loubli de lair is to recuperate or recover this elided

202
Whitford, of course, has already problematized this interpretation of Irigarays invocation of
psychoanalysis in her earlier work. As Whitford puts it, Irigaray is using a psychoanalytic model and not a
psychological model. The essential difference here is that whereas a psychological model is developmental
and chronological, a psychoanalytic model is structural; though stages may be identified, there is no
suggestion that they coincide with, or are necessarily observable in, the stages of development [] They
are derived, not from observations of child development, but from clinical situations, and are ways of
conceptualizing structures of the mind. Irigaray is not offering an alternative version of womans
psychosexual development (Whitford, Luce Irigaray Philosophy in the Feminine, 76).
84
material/matrical ground.203 Indeed, we could suggest that the naturalistic

interpretation of Irigarays critique of Heideggers matricide or his loubli de lair

necessarily circumscribes her project within a logic of diagnosis and recuperation.

That is, if the charge of matricide diagnoses Heideggers elision of an ineluctable

fact,thenthecorrelateofthiscriticaldiagnosismustbetheattempttorectifythis

elision, to bring what is forgotten into view through a philosophical act of

recuperation. Loubli de lair thus becomes legible as the incipient articulation of

what, in the introduction, we saw Murphy describe as Irigarays increasingly

descriptive and speculative relation to the natural.204 In place of Heideggers

phenomenologicalontology,whichissustainedthroughhisforgetfulnessofthefact

that air is always already there, Irigarays naturalistic ontology would ostensibly

restoretoairitsprimacy.

While this naturalistic account in many ways seems to offer a plausible

interpretationofthecentralityofthenotionofairwithinthetext,whatIhavetried

toshowbytracingthephenomenologicalandpsychoanalyticlineageofloubliisthat

its explanatory force is parasitic upon the systematic neglect of loubli. This

naturalistic interpretation effectively decouples Irigarays invocation of lair from

her invocation of loubli. By decoupling these two terms, the philosophical

significance and weight of loubli goes virtually undiagnosed, while lair assumes a

central role but one whose significance is constitutively distorted. Loubli itself is

subsequently reduced to a kind of casual forgetting, one that always harbors the

203
See Stone, Luce Irigaray and the Nature of Sexual Difference, 13.
204
Murphy, The enigma of the natural in Luce Irigaray, 75.
85
potentialforrecuperation.ThediagnosisofHeideggersforgettingofair,fromthis

perspective thus implicitly establishes, for Irigaray, a positive project of

recuperation that would rectify this instance of negligence. Consequently, we see

that it is precisely by neglecting the meaning and significance of loubli that lair

assumesitscentralroleinIrigaraysostensiblynaturalisticturn.

Of course, on this reading, Irigarays critique of Heidegger appears to

profoundlymissitsmark.Indeed,toaccuseHeideggerofneglectingwhatisalways

already there, understood within the guise of naturalism, as the immutability of

natureortheoriginaryroleofmaternity,isexactlytomisstheforceofHeideggers

and Husserls phenomenological critiques of naturalism. Despite the differences

between their positions, for both Husserl and Heidegger, on this naturalistic

interpretation of her intervention, Irigarays accusation is itself parasitic upon a

neglect of any consideration of the conditions and structures which subtend her

claim. Her critique of Heidegger, then, would be based upon either a radical

misunderstanding of his philosophy or a failure to take the most fundamental

gesturesofhisphilosophyseriously.

If we are not to simply dismiss Loubli de lair as a failed critique of

Heidegger,wemustattempttorethinkthestakesofthiscriticalengagement.Weare

now in a position to see, however, that the phenomenological and psychoanalytic

resonances of loubli allow us to do precisely that. On one hand, the

phenomenological resonance of loubli suggests that what is at stake is an

interrogation of what Heidegger has diagnosed as the inscription of neglect or

oblivion in the very givenness of the matters themselves. On the other hand, the
86
psychoanalytic resonances of this term brings into view the defensive stakes of

neglectoroblivionbyremindingusthatmatricide,theelisionoftheconditionsthat

subtendtheoperationofspecularization,functionsasdefense.Together,thesetwo

claimssuggestthatwhatisatstakeinIrigaraysdiagnosisofHeideggersloublide

lair is the claim that he himself articulated, namely that care defends itself again

whatitneglects.205

WearenowinapositiontoseethesenseinwhichIrigaraysprojectinthis

textisvisibleasthecriticalinterpolationofthisthought.Inotherwords,Irigarays

task is to show that Heideggers account of ecstatic temporality as the meaning of

care,inhisearlywork,andhisaccountofthebivalentmovementofaletheia,inhis

laterwork,evincethisdefensiveoperationofmatricide.Thatis,hertaskistoreveal

thatthespecularstructureofecstatictemporalityandthebivalenceofaletheiahave

as their necessary correlate a neglect of air, which must be understood as the

defensiveneglectoftheirownconditionsofpossibility.

For Irigaray, this neglect is manifest, on one hand, in Heideggers failure to

retrievetheontologicalsignificanceofmaternityandnature,hisrelegationofthem

to the status of ontical phenomena. Nature is understood as the transcendent,

immutable external realm of homogeneous Cartesian space, while maternity is

understoodasanempiricaleventwithinadevelopmentalnarrative;understoodas

onticalphenomena,theyarethuscaredforwithinHeideggersworkassuperfluous.

But this is just to say that their constitutive role as conditions for the genesis of

205
Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 63. Das Versumte wird nicht vergessen,
sondern geradezu ausgestoen. Die Sorge wehrt sich gegen das, was sie versumt (Heidegger,
Gesamtausgabe band 17, 86).
87
givennessisneglected.IrigaraysdiagnosisofHeideggersneglectofair,then,isnot

the valorization of these phenomena as ontical but rather points to Heideggers

neglect of their ontological significance, a significance that precisely invites us to

suspendtheirpregivennessandinterrogatetheirphenomenologicalsignificance.

Perhapsmoreimportantly,however,Irigaraysclaimisthatthisneglectofair

evinces the defensive elision of the conditions that are themselves central to

Heideggers articulation of givenness. In other words, the support that air, in its

manifoldresonances,lendstothestructureofecstatictemporalityandthebivalent

movement of aletheia is precisely what these structures must simultaneously

defend themselves against. On one hand, then, loubli de lair operates as an

indictmentofthewayinwhichtheneglectofairsubtendsthestructureofecstatic

temporality.ItispreciselythischargethatisatstakewhenIrigarayinsiststhat,for

Heidegger,[m]anspowercomesfromthetransformationofspaceintotime.206Or,

toputitinslightlydifferentterms,that[t]imeistakenfromapreoccupiedplace

and is given back free for a bustling presence against the ground of an ecstatic

forgetting.207Irigarayspointisthatthisexistentialanalysisbothhasatiscorethe

attempttoreclaimthefinitudeofhumanexistenceasthehorizonforthequestionof

being and concomitantly, the defense against the assumption of this finitude.

206
Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 102. Le pouvoir de lhomme vient de la transformation de lespace en
temps (Irigaray, Loubli de lair, 94).
207
Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 164; Le temps se prend au lieu pr-occupe et se redonne libre pour
une prsence affaire sur fond doubli, extasiant, de ce dans quoi elle a lieu (Irigaray, Loubli de lair,
145). As Francoise Dastur puts it, for Heidegger, the understanding of being is made possible by the
ecstatic temporality of Dasein; in other words [] the idea of Being in its manifold senses is constituted on
the basis of time as place (Dastur, Heidegger and the Question of Time, xxxi).
88
Ecstatictemporality,inotherwords,isanexpressionoftheconstitutiveroleofthe

conditionoffinitudethatitcannotacknowledge.208

Ontheotherhand,Irigaraysclaimisthatthissamedefensiveneglectofair

subtends Heideggers account of aletheia. For Irigaray, Heideggers account of the

experienceofgivennesswhereinitsconditionssimultaneouslywithdrawfromview,

justistheexpressionofmatricide.ItisforthisreasonthatIrigaraybeginsLoublide

lairwithamimeticreformulationoftheveryquestionthatHeideggerhimselfraises

attheendofhis1964essay:

In what circle are we here, and truly with no way out? Is it the

eukuklos aletheia, the withoutwithdrawal [le sansretrait], perfect

roundness, in its turn thought as Lichtung, as the clearing of the

opening? [] But whenceand howis there clearing (gibt es die

Lichtung)?Whatmustwehearinthisthereis/itgives(esgibt)?209

Byreinhabitingthissamequestion,Irigaraywantsustoseethattheineluctabilityof

this circle that Heidegger himself diagnoses as the structure of aletheia is itself

visible as the correlativity of specularization and matricide. The oblivion that

belongstotheverymanifestationofbeing,inotherwords,isthedefensiveelisionof

the conditions of givenness. In both cases, then, we see that by diagnosing

208
The structure of ecstatic temporality institutes [a] ringable void, that he contains, and where he is
situated, where he gathers for himself a vicinity. Where he makes himself be, ek-sist, where he traces
himself a horizon, projects himself a world (Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 164-165).
209
Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 1. Dans quel cercle sommes-nous ici, et vraiment sans aucune issue?
Est-ce leukuklos althia, le sans-retrait, rondeur parfaite, pens a son tour comme Lichtung, comme la
clairire de louvert? [] Mais do et comment y a-t-il clairire (gibt es die Lichtung)? Quavons nous
entendre dans cet il y a (es gibt) (Irigaray, Loubli de lair, 9).
89
Heideggersloublidelair,Irigarayattemptstomakethedefensivestakesofneglect

andoblivionvisible.

Conclusions

In this chapter, I have tried to suggest that by attending to the philosophical

significance of loubli, we can begin to rethink the stakes of Irigarays critical

engagementwithHeideggerinthistext.Throughthethematicfocusonthenotion

of loubli that I offered, we are compelled to question whether this text is

unequivocallylegibleasaturntowardnaturalismand,correlatively,asanattempt

torecuperatethatwhichisneglected,air.Thatis,althoughLoublidelairseemsto

lend itself to a naturalistic reading, we are now in a position to suggest that the

constellation of texts that both directly and indirectly mediate Irigarays

engagement with Heidegger call this interpretation into question. If Heideggers

critique of Husserl brings Irigarays thought into contact with the very text where

Husserlattemptstostaveofftheseductionofnaturalism,thennotonlydoesHusserl

demonstrate why the naturalistic reading of Irigaray appears so tempting, but he

also demonstrates why we have good reason to suggest that it is a seduction that

Irigarayresists.

Yet, by recasting the role of Loubli de lair in Irigarays oeuvre, we are

implicitlybroughtbeforeabroadersetofquestionsthatconcernthesignificanceof

Irigarayslaterworkassuch.Thatis,byunderminingthenaturalisticinterpretation

ofLoublidelair,wesimultaneouslybegintocallintoquestiontheadequacyofthis

characterizationofIrigarayslaterworkassuch.Inotherwords,ifLoublidelairis

no longer legible as the incipient articulation of Irigarays philosophy of nature or

90
herturntowardnaturalism,thenwecanbegintocallintoquestiontheveryideaof

anaturalisticturn.

91
ChapterThreeTheWayofLove:betweenHeideggerandIrigaray

Thepropositionattheoriginofmetaphysics:tobetothink
thesame,alreadyharboring,inaforgetting,thedifferencein
theirprovenance,production,upsurgence,andapparition.
LuceIrigaray,TheForgettingofAir

Nolongeraquestionhereofthemoreorlessimmediateco
belongingofasubjectwithonlyaproperBeing,butofalinkto
Beingwhichisdual,includinginitsfoundation,andmust
remainso.Themeaningofidentityisthenmodifiedinsofaras
itisnolongerdeterminedbythesameunderstoodasthe
equivalencebetweentwotermsbetheythinkingandBeing.
Itisratherthedifferencebetweentwotermsmanand
woman.
LuceIrigaray,TheWayofLove

Overview

In the previous chapter, I argued against a naturalistic interpretation of Loubli de

lair. By undermining this interpretation, I also attempted to problematize a

naturalisticinterpretationofIrigarayslaterthought.Thatis,ifLoublidelairisno

longerclearlylegibleastheincipientarticulationofIrigaraysnaturalisticturn,then

the very notion of this turn begins to become destabilized. Yet, when we examine

IrigarayssubsequentengagementwithHeidegger,beginningwithTheWayofLove,

the naturalistic interpretation appears to be vindicated. Rather than destabilizing

thisinterpretationofIrigarayslaterthought,myreadingofLoublidelairappears

to have merely displaced the incipient moment of this naturalistic turn, simply

deferringthegripofwhatseemstoineluctablyreturninTheWayofLove.

Indeed,primafacie,IrigarayscriticalengagementwithHeideggerinthistext

appears to obey what, in the previous two chapters, I described as a naturalistic

92
logicofcriticaldiagnosisandrecuperation.Throughoutthetext,Irigarayhighlights

therolethatParmenidesprincipleofidentityoccupiesinHeideggersthought.On

onehand,hercritiqueofHeideggerseemstorestonaplayfulequivocationbetween

his phenomenological interpretation of Parmenides principle of identity and her

own invocation of sexed identity. By exploiting the elasticity of the term identity,

Irigaray seems to argue that Heideggers interpretation of identity, and thus his

phenomenologicalontology,istacitlyfoundeduponanimpoverishedinterpretation

of human identity.210 Understood within these parameters, her claim is that

HeideggersaccountofidentityasabelongingofBeingandofthinkingtoasame211

elides the fact that human identity is ineluctably fractured by a difference that

already exists,212 namely the difference between man and woman.213 This

elision, then, is reinscribed in Heideggers phenomenological interpretation of

identity insofar as his account of thinking, Being and their belonging to the same,

which Irigaray identifies as masculine subjectivity, betrays this univocal

delimitationofhumanidentity.214

On the other hand, by recuperating this elided sense of identity, namely

sexual difference, Irigaray is ostensibly able to recover a philosophy that

210
For example, Irigaray insists that diversity takes place not only between cultures but between subjects,
and in a paradigmatic manner between man and woman (Irigaray, The Way of Love, trans. Heidi Bostic
and Stephen Pluhcek [New York: Continuum, 2002], 8).
211
Ibid., 69. Here, Irigaray is paraphrasing Heideggers claim in Identity and Difference that [m]an and
Being are appropriated to each other. They belong to each other (Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans.
Joan Stambaugh [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002], 31-32). Mensch und Sein sind einander
bereignet. Sie gehren einander (Ibid., 95).
212
Irigaray, The Way of Love, 106.
213
Ibid., 106.
214
As Irigaray puts it, man would be the place of this correspondence [of thinking and Being] (Ibid., 69).
93
understands difference rather than sameness as its fundamental principle.

Acknowledging the ineluctable existence of sexual difference as the most

fundamental and universal delimitation of human identity, the task of The Way of

Love would be the articulation of a philosophy that gives expression to this

difference.215 That is, according to this interpretation, Irigarays task would be to

showthatphilosophicaldiscourseiscompelledtoacknowledgethefactthathuman

identity is ineluctably sexed and, thus, compelled to acknowledge that it is itself

implicated in the fundamental fact of sexed identity.216 Consequently, through

Irigarays ostensibly anthropological reinterpretation of Parmenidean identity as

sexualdifference,217philosophycanbecomeawisdomoflove,thatis,anexpression

oftheirreducibledualityofhumanityandoftheirrelationindifference,ratherthan

simplyasolipsisticloveofwisdom.218

The problem, however, is that when we examine the significance of the

question of identity in Heideggers work, the plausibility of this anthropological

interpretation of Irigarays invocation of sexual difference in The Way of Love

crumbles.Inbothhisearlyandlaterwork,Heideggerofferswhat,inthefirstpartof

this chapter, I will articulate as a phenomenological interpretation of identity. By

215
The Way of Love wants to outline the frame of a loving encounter, particularly an encounter able to
dialogue in difference, the most paradigmatic and universal difference being sexual difference (Ibid., xvii).
216
it is necessary without doubt to admit that there does not exist a world proper to all subjects: one
truth alone, one beauty alone, one science alone (Ibid., 8).
217
I am using the term anthropology in a specifically Heideggerian sense to designate any ontical
delimitation of human beings. Consequently, once we interpret Irigarays invocation of sexual difference
within an ontology of Vorhandenheit, it is irrelevant whether we interpreted it as biological, sociological or
psychological, since all of these discourses, in Heideggerian terms, are ontical, anthropological discourses.
218
Why thus has the wisdom of love and, in part wisdom itself been forgotten? (Ibid., 4). Of course, from
this interpretation, it is clear why problems of essentialism, racism, classism and hetero-normativity seem
endemic to Irigarays later thought.
94
offeringthisinterpretation,Heideggerattemptstosupplantwhatheidentifiesasthe

anthropological interpretation that has hitherto prevailed from Plato to Hegel.219

Heidegger invokes Parmenides as an ally for phenomenology, in other words,

preciselyinordertocriticizewhatheidentifiesasakindrampanttendencytoward

philosophical anthropology.220 To suggest, then, that Irigaray attempts to mobilize

an anthropological account of sexual difference as the basis of her critique of

Heideggersaccountofidentityistocircumscribethehorizonofhertextwithinthe

purviewofacritiquethatperhapscouldnotmissitsmarkmoreprofoundly.

InsteadofpresumingtheirrelevanceofIrigaraysintervention,Iwillinstead

attempttorethinkthestakesofhercriticalengagementwithHeidegger.Inorderto

rethink this engagement, I will attempt to show that Derridas work on Heidegger

casts new light on Irigarays project in this text. For this reason, Derridas

intervention serves as a way of mediating and thus renegotiating the dialogue

betweenIrigarayandHeideggerthatTheWayofLoveattemptstostage.221Onone

hand, Derrida identifies the tenacious grip that a certain an insistence of the

anthropic maintains on Heideggers thought, even within his most vitriolic and

profound refusal of the incursion of anthropology within the domain of

philosophy.222 On the other hand, Derridas engagement with Heidegger also,

219
See, for example, IV in the introduction to The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. I will return this
text in the first part of this chapter.
220
I will develop this claim in the first section of this chapter.
221
In the preface, Irigaray explicitly tells us that The Way of Love converses with Martin Heidegger
(Ibid., ix).
222
Derrida, The Ends of Man, 119. In particular, I will focus on Derridas critique of Heidegger in The
Ends of Man, Eating well, and Of Spirit in the second section of this chapter. In this chapter I will use
Derridas phrase, the anthropic, to distinguish what he identifies as the more insidious insistence of
95
unwittingly, gestures toward the possibility of locating the dissolution of these

insidiousanthropicvestigesinsofaraswecanlocateinHeideggersworkanascent

phenomenological invocation of sexual difference.223 By identifying sexual

difference as the fulcrum of this oscillation in Heideggers work between the

reinscription of the anthropic and its dissolution, the stakes of Irigarays critical

engagementwithHeideggerinTheWayofLovecomeintoview.

What we see, then, is that rather than offering an anthropological

interpretation of sexed identity, Irigarays task is to invoke sexual difference,

seemingly paradoxically, as the very refusal of an insidious reinscription of the

anthropicwithinthedomainofphenomenology.Irigarayscriticalengagementwith

Heidegger,then,isnotanaturalisticcritiquebutratheranimmanentone,insofaras

thearticulationofsexualdifferenceisrevealedasendemictothearticulationanon

anthropic phenomenology. Her critical appropriation and reformulation of

Heideggersphenomenologicalinterpretationofidentitycannowbeunderstoodas

propaedeutictothearticulationofafeministphenomenology.

anthropology within Heideggers thought from what Heidegger himself identifies as the anthropological
tendencies of the history of philosophy.
223
I will develop this idea by considering Derridas engagement with Heidegger in his first two Geschlecht
essays, namely Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological difference, and Geschlecht II: Heideggers
Hand. I will not discuss the third and the fourth Geschlecht essays. I have not been able to find a copy of
the third essay, which apparently Derrida delivered as an opening lecture for a seminar on Heidegger and
Trackl, but it has not yet been published (David Farrell Krell, Marginalia to Geschlecht III, The New
Centennial Review 7 (2007): 175). I will not mention the fourth lecture, Heideggers Ear:
Philopolemology (Geschlecht IV), largely for reasons of space. By invoking the first two Geschlecht
essays, I will try to show his significance of this discussion of sexual difference is, to some extent, missed
by Derrida himself insofar as he never identifies the way in which his critique of the insidious insistence of
the anthropic in Heideggers thought is itself implicated and undone by his own discussion of sexual
difference.
96
PartI:IdentityandDifference

In the first part of this chapter, I will examine Heideggers engagement with

Parmenides principle of identity. By considering Heideggers interpretation of

Parmenidesinbothhisearlyandlaterwork,wewillseethatthequestionofidentity

emerges as the locus for and expression of Heideggers critical engagement with

phenomenology. On one hand, by offering a phenomenological interpretation of

identity, Heidegger is able to subvert the anthropological interpretation that has

predominated throughout the history of philosophy. On other hand, by invoking

Parmenides, Heidegger offers an immanent critique of Husserlian phenomenology

as implicated in this anthropological legacy. The crucial point, then, is that

ParmenidesprincipleofidentityservesastheoccasionforHeideggertoarticulate

anaccountofphenomenologyoutsidethepurviewofanthropology.

At first glance, it is remarkable how often Heideggers articulation of his

commitments to phenomenology coincide with a discussion of Parmenides

principleofidentity.Uponfurtherconsideration,however,thisjuxtapositionshould

strike us as less remarkable. According to Heidegger, the principle of identity,

beginningwithParmenides,hasbeenarticulatedwithinthehistoryofphilosophyas

abasiclawofthought,namelythateachthingisidenticalwithitself;224byoffering

what, in the following discussion, will become visible as a phenomenological

interpretation of this principle, Heidegger is not attempting circumvent or refute

224
The proposition really says: A is A. What do we hear? With this is, the principle tells us how every
being is, namely: it itself is the same with itself (Heidegger, Identity and Difference, 26). Eigentlich
lautet sie: A ist A. Was hren wir? In diesem ist sagt der Satz, wie jegliches Seiende ist, nmlich: Es
selber mit ihm selbst dasselbe (Ibid., 88).
97
this logical law so much as he is attempting to elicit its heretofore unthought

phenomenologicalresonances.

AccordingtoHeidegger,atthecoreofParmenidesprincipleisanattemptto

articulatethebelongingtoeachother(Zueinandergehren)ofthehumanbeingand

Beinginitsmostradicalterms.Theprincipleofidentity,inotherwords,articulates

this unity otherwise than as merely the coordination (Zuordnung) of two discrete

entities.225 Insofar as phenomenology too, for Heidegger, articulates the radical

sense of the belongingtogether (Zusammengehrigkeit) of thinking and Being,

Parmenidesprincipleanticipatesandprefiguresthetasktowhichphenomenology

givesexplicitexpression.Thatis,theprincipleofidentityrevealsthehumanbeing

andBeingasconstitutivelyilluminatedintheircobelonging.

For Heidegger, this phenomenological interpretation of identity belies what

he designates as the anthropological interpretation that predominates throughout

the history of philosophy from Plato to Hegel.226 That is, for Heidegger, the

phenomenological interpretation of Parmenides deprives this anthropological

interpretationofitsfoundingmoment.Understoodinphenomenologicalterms,the

constitutive role that Heidegger grants to the cobelonging through which the

225
As Heidegger puts it, as long as we ask our questions in this way, we are confined within the attempt to
represent the together [das Zusammen] of man [Mensch] and Being [Sein] as coordination [Zuordnung],
and to establish and explain this coordination either in terms of man or in terms of Being. In this procedure,
the traditional concepts of man and Being constitute the toe-hold for the coordination of the two. How
would it be if, instead of tenaciously representing merely a coordination of the two in order to produce their
unity, we were for once to note whether and how a belonging to one another [Zu-einander-Gehren] first of
all is at stake in this together [Zusammen]? (Ibid., 30-31). I will return to this passage from Identity and
Difference toward the end of this section.
226
Platos discovery of the ideas, which are determinations of being, is oriented to the conversation the
soul has with itself [] For Hegel substance is defined from the subject (Heidegger, The Metaphysical
Foundations of Logic, trans.MichaelHeim[Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,1984],15).
98
human being and being are given delimits the boundaries of humanity,

paradoxically,throughadisplacementofthecentralityofthisdelimitation.Inother

words,andthiswhatiscrucialforHeidegger,itisnottheessenceofthehumanbeing

thatdeterminesitsrelationtobeing;rather,itistherelationtobeingthatdelimitsthe

being of human Dasein. Consequently, for Heidegger, the phenomenological

interpretation of Parmenides is a critique of the incursion of anthropology within

thedomainofphilosophy,anincursionthatisvisibleingrantingeithertheessence

of being or the human being a founding role as constitutive for the possibility of

theirrelation.227

As early as his 1925 lecture course, History of the Concept of Time, we see

Heideggerofferaphenomenologicalinterpretationofidentityinordertoobliquely

criticizenotonlytheincursionofanthropologywithinthedomainofphilosophy,but

also what he identifies as a more insidious reinscription of anthropology within

Husserlian phenomenology. In many ways, the engagement with phenomenology

thatprecedesHeideggersinvocationofParmenidesinthistextiscontinuouswith

hiscritiqueofHusserlinthe19231924lecturesthatweexaminedintheprevious

chapter. Indeed, although, unlike in his earlier lecture, his engagement with the

history of phenomenology in this text extends beyond the purview of Husserls

work, nonetheless, the stakes of his critical gesture are virtually identical and

ultimatelyitisHusserlianphenomenologythatisinhissights.Followinghiscareful

227
Again, as Heidegger expresses in Identity and Difference, [i]n this procedure, the traditional concepts
of man and Being constitute the toe-hold for the coordination of the two (Heidegger, Identity and
Difference, 30).
99
exegesisoftheimportanceofHusserlsdiscoveryofintentionality,Heideggerclaims

that Husserls phenomenological investigation of intentionality evinces a twofold

neglect (Versumnis), namely the neglect of the being of intentional consciousness

andtheneglectofthequestionofthemeaningofbeingassuch.228

While this may initially appear to be merely a tendentious critique,229 his

point is that Husserls failure to pose the question of being in this twofold sense

constitutes a betrayal of the spirit of phenomenology. Rather than a radical

investigation of the matters themselves (den Sachen Selbst), by neglecting the

question of the sense of being, phenomenology tacitly relies upon and uncritically

reinscribesanindefiniteandimprecisepreunderstandingofbeing.230Inbypassing

this question, then, Husserl not only betrays the radicality of phenomenological

inquiry, which would demand an inquiry into the sense of being that it tacitly

invokes, but he also thereby misconstrues the starting point of phenomenology.

That is, by not examining the being of intentional consciousness, by tacitly

interpreting its modality of givenness in light of our preunderstanding of being,

Husserl reinscribes what Jacques Taminaux, for example, designates as a massive

228
Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, 115. As Heidegger puts it, we see in fact that
phenomenological research [] operates in a fundamental neglect, and it does so in relation to the
phenomenological investigation and determination of that which must be its theme: intentional
comportment and all thats given with it (Ibid., 115). We should of course see the parallel between this
claim and Heidegger claim in the 1923-1924 lecture course that in Husserls attempt to articulate an
account of rigorous lawfulness he fails to adequate consider the entity bounded by these laws (Heidegger,
Introduction to Phenomenological Research, 32-77).
229
As Heidegger puts it, [w]hy we place the question of being in the foreground as the critical question, by
what warrant we even approach the position of phenomenology with this question, will become clear later.
At first, we are presupposing that there must be an inquiry into this being. We are asking whether this
question is asked in phenomenology itself (Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, 108).
230
Ibid., 137.
100
andobscuringprivilegeofVorhandenheit,231whichhastheeffectofobfuscatingthe

deep (though not vicious) circularity of phenomenological inquiry.232 It is in this

sense, then, that to acknowledge the centrality of the Seinsfrage within

phenomenological inquiry,233 simultaneously commits phenomenology to the

existentialanalyticofDasein.234

What we see, however, is that Heideggers critical appropriation of

Husserlian phenomenology leads him to the question of identity. Having just

insistedthattheveryspiritofphenomenologyastheinterrogationoftheSeinsfrage

simultaneously necessitates the existential analytic of Dasein, Heidegger invokes

Parmenidesinordertocorroboratethisclaim.AccordingtoHeidegger,

[i]f we turn back to history, back to the time when the question of

beingappearedforthefirsttime,inParmenides,herewealreadysee

this peculiar bond. The union is here taken to be so close that in a

sense what is asked about [das Befragte] and is determined in its

being is identified with the interrogative and experiential

comportment:togarautonoeinestintekaieinai,Beingisthesameas

the apprehending of the entity in its being. Here the question about

231
Taminiaux, Dialectic and Difference, 93.
232
The question is here itself co-affected by what it asks for, because the question is after being and
questioning is itself an entity (Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, 148).
233
the question of being is not an optional and merely possible question, but the most urgent question
inherent in the very sense of phenomenology itself (Ibid., 115).
234
As Heidegger puts it, [t]he very matter which is here asked for, which here is being, demands the
exhibition of the entity Dasein. Only the phenomenological tendencyto clarify and to understand being
as suchbears within itself the task of an explication of the entity which is the question itselfthe Dasein
which we, the very questioners, are (Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, 148).
101
 whatbeingisalreadyexpresslyincludestheactofexperiencingwhat

isinterrogated.235

The crucial point, for Heidegger, is that Parmenides account of the sameness (to

auto) of thinking and Being already anticipates the phenomenological formulation

oftheSeinsfrage.Inotherwords,Parmenideanidentityrevealstheidentityofwhat

is asked about [das Befragte] and the existential structure of interrogation itself.

Consequently, in Parmenides principle we can elicit the incipient articulation of

what phenomenology discloses as the unity of the Seinsfrage and the analytic of

Dasein.236

Immediately following his invocation of Parmenides, Heidegger explicitly

distinguishes phenomenology from anthropology.237 Thus far, we have seen that

HeideggerinvokesthenecessityoftheanalyticofDaseinasacritiqueofthefailure

ofHusserlianphenomenologytoadequatelyinterrogatethesenseofthebeingthat

ittacitlyinvokes,namelyVorhandensein.Consequently,theanalyticofDaseincannot

besimplyreducedtoanalysisofthehumanbeingwithinthosediscourseswherein

the being of the human is always already understood as an extant entity. In other

words,understoodphenomenologically,theverycentralityoftheanalyticofDasein

to the Seinsfrage, a centrality that, according to Heidegger, Parmenides gives

expression, itself belies the tacitly invoked preunderstanding of the being of the

235
Ibid., 148.
236
As Heidegger puts it Only the phenomenological tendencyto clarify and to understand being as
suchbears within it-self the task of an explication of the entity which is the questioning itselfthe
Dasein which we, the very questioners, are (Ibid., 149)
237
The explication of Dasein does not stem from some sort of special interest in the psychology of man,
nor from a question of world view asking about the sense and purpose of our life [] but solely the fully
understood and phenomenologically secured sense of the question (Ibid., 149).
102
humanbeingthatunderliesallanthropologies.Inthissense,accordingtoHeidegger,

Parmenides account of the fundamental jointure of the human being and being

anticipates a phenomenological articulation of this relation that refuses those

determinations of either the human being or being that invoke an ontology of

Vorhandensein.

Threeyearslater,inTheMetaphysicalFoundationsofLogic,Heideggeronce

again invokes Parmenides in order to undermine a tendency to misinterpret the

centrality of the analytic of Dasein for the Seinsfrage. Prior to the development of

phenomenology, the history of philosophy, for Heidegger, is animated by an

anthropological(mis)interpretationofParmenides,andthusamisunderstandingof

thesignificanceofthehumanbeingfortheexplicationofthequestionofbeing.238It

is only with phenomenology, according to Heidegger, that the meaning of this

fundamental jointure of the question of philosophy proper, the Seinsfrage, and the

being of human Dasein comes into view.239 In disclosing the Seinsfrage as its

fundamental question, phenomenology simultaneously reveals the being of Dasein

238
Platos discovery of the ideas, which are determinations of being, is oriented to the conversation the
soul has with itself [] In search for subtantia, Descartes founds first philosophy (prima philosophy)
explicitly on the res cogitans [] For Hegel substance is defined as the subject (Heidegger, The
Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 15).
239
The basic question of philosophy, the question of being, is in itself correctly understood, the question
of man (Ibid., 16). The struggle over being shifts to the field of thinking, of making statements, of the
soul, of subjectivity. Human Dasein moves to the center! Why is this? Is it an accident that the battle gets
shifted onto this field? Is it up to the whims of philosophers, according to each of their would-be world
views or ethics, according to just how important they, in each case, take the I to be? Is it a peculiar,
irrational enthusiasm for the inwardness of the soul, or an especially high esteem for the free personhood,
or a blind subjectivism, which here in this basic problem selects human Dasein, as such, for the battlefield?
None of these! Rather, the content pertinent to the basic problem itself, and this alone, requires this
battlefield, makes human Dasein itself into this privileged field (Ibid., 15).
103
asimplicatedinthisquestion.240Moreover,Daseinisrevealednotonlyasimplicated

in the question of the being of beings but is the point of access to the question as

such.241

Here, Heidegger once again locates this insight in Parmenides principle of

identity.Asheputsit,[f]orParmenidestheclarificationofbeingtakesplacebyway

ofareflectiononthinking,noein,knowingwhatis(einai),knowledgeofbeings.242

ItisbecauseDaseinexistsasastrivingforanunderstandingofbeinginthemidstof

beings into which it is always already thrown, that the question of Being can be

raised at all.243 For Heidegger, Parmenides principle just is the expression of the

centralityofhumanDaseintotheSeinsfrage,which,infailingtosufficientlyquestion

thebeingofthehumanbeingimplicatedinthisquestion,interpretsthiscentrality

withinanthropologicalparameters.244

Almost thirty years later, in his 1957 lecture on The principle of identity,

HeideggeronceagainoffersaphenomenologicalinterpretationofParmenidesinthe

attempt to disrupt the anthropological legacy to which misinterpretations have

givenrise.Inthistext,HeideggerinterpretsParmenidesprincipleasexpressingthe

240
[] human Dasein is itself a being and thus also falls under the question of being of beings
(Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, 16).
241
Human Dasein is a being with a kind of being to which it belongs essentially to understand something
like being [] Its understanding of being is not one capacity among others, but the basic condition for the
possibility of Dasein as such. Because it belongs to the essential constitution of man to understand being,
the question of being, taken in the way mentioned, is a question, even the question, about man himself
(Ibid., 16).
242
Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 15.
243
Ibid., 16.
244
The fundamental philosophical question about man remains prior to every psychology, anthropology,
and characterology, but also prior to all ethics and sociology (Ibid., 17).
104
seeminglycrypticclaimthatthinkingandbeingaresomehowthesame(toauto),245

that thinking and being belong together (gehren zusammen) in the same.246 This

sameness, Heidegger insists, must be understood neither as the conflation of

thinking and being nor as an ontical relation that accrues between two discrete

entities,butratherastherecognitionoftheirfundamentaljointure.Inotherwords,

when Parmenides claims that thinking and being are the same, according to

Heidegger,thisistosaythatthinkingandbeingbelongtogether[]byvirtueofthis

Same.247Sameness,then,isnotprimarilyacharacteristicofbeingthatisidentical

with itself; instead, sameness designates the cobelonging (Zusammengehrigkeit)

orbelongingtogether(Zusammengehren)ofthinkingandbeing.

The history of philosophy, for Heidegger, is implicitly animated by an

anthropological interpretation of Parmenides, precisely insofar as we can trace

throughoutthisotherwiseheterogeneoushistoryanattempttothinkthesameness

of thinking and Being as the coordination of two discrete entities.248 And yet, to

interpretidentitymerelyasthesyntheticrelationofthoughtandbeing,astheactive

relating of two discrete entities, is precisely to miss the fundamental insight of

Parmenidesprinciple.249Instead,Heideggerasksustoconsiderthecobelongingor

245
For the same perceiving (thinking) as well as being (Heidegger, Identity and Difference, 27); Das
Selbe nmlich ist Vernehmen (Denken) sowohl als auch Sein (Ibid., 90).
246
Thinking and Being belong together in the Same and by virtue of the same (Ibid., 27); Denken und
Sein gehren in das Selbe und aus diesem Selben zusammen (Ibid., 90).
247
Ibid., 27, my emphasis.
248
Ibid., 30.
249
Of course, this is implicitly a critique of Husserl. In the Logical Investigations, the identity between
meaning intention and meaning fulfillment can be understood as the synthetic connection of two entities
within the domain of intentional consciousness. In other words, Husserlian intentionality provides an
expression of truth as identity, but where identity remains understood precisely within an ontology of
Vorhandensein as the synthesis of two entities.
105
belongingtoeachother as fundamental and constitutive: instead of tenaciously

representing merely a coordination (Zusammenordnung) of the two in order to

producetheirunity(Einheit),[whatif]wewereforoncetonotewhetherandhowa

belonging to one another (ZueinanderGehren) first of all is at stake in this

together(Zusammen)?250Inotherwords,ratherthaninterpretingidentityasthe

connection of two extant beings, we must instead see that the relation itself is

constitutive: thinking is delimited only insofar as it is called to being, while being

showsitselfonlyinthehorizonofthought.251

While the phenomenological dimensions of Heideggers interpretation of

identityinthislatertextmayinitiallyappeartohavedroppedout,252withouteliding

importantdifferencesbetweenHeideggersearlyandlaterwork,itisstillpossibleto

trace a persistent commitment to phenomenology within this text. Indeed,

Heideggers interpretation of identity as the articulation of the cobelonging or

reciprocal appropriation of thinking and being just is his transmutation of a

persistent commitment to phenomenology: this cobelonging, we see entails that

human being is nothing other than the relationship of responding to being,253

while it is man, open toward Being, who alone lets Being arrive as presence.254

Insofar as Heideggers insistence on interpreting identity as the belongingtoone

250
Ibid., 30.
251
Ibid., 31. Denn erst der Mensch, offen fr das Sein, lt dieses als Anwesen ankommen (Ibid., 95).
252
Indeed, here we can clearly locate the shift from the centrality of the existential analytic of Dasein to the
centrality of the Ereignis. As Dastur points out, it is this co-belonging, which is neither coincidence nor
coordination, but rather the reciprocal relation and constellation of man and Being, that Heidegger calls
Ereignis (Dastur, Heidegger and the question of time, 64).
253
Der Mensch ist eigentlich dieser Bezug der Entsprechung, und er ist nur dies (Heidegger, Identity and
Difference, 94).
254
Ibid., 31. Denn erst der Mensch, offen fr das Sein, lt dieses als Anwesen ankommen (Ibid., 95).
106
another(ZueinanderGehren)ofthinkingandbeingpreservestheconstitutiverole

of thought for the manifestation of being, then the phenomenological tenor of this

interpretationremainspresent.

Concomitantly, Heideggers account of this cobelonging of thinking and

beinginthistextclearlyevincesacritiqueofanthropology.Thatthehumanbeingis

constitutivelydelimitedinitsappropriationbybeinginstitutesaprivilegingofthe

relationoreventofappropriationabovetheentitiesrelated.255Whatiscrucial,for

Heidegger, is that the boundaries of the human being are delimited only by

revealing the founded nature of this delimitation.256 In other words, Parmenidean

identity offers a phenomenological delimitation of humanity that is always at the

same time a critique of anthropology. In this sense, Parmenides principle reveals

that a trenchant critique of anthropology does not preclude a phenomenological

delimitationofthehumanbeing.257

255
We might also consider the way in which this interpretation is corroborated by Heideggers engagement
with Parmenides in his 1938 essay, The Age of the World picture. Here, citing Parmenides, Heidegger
tells us To gar auto noein estin te kai einai. This statement of Parmenides means: the apprehension of
beings belongs to being since it is from being that it is demanded and determined. The being is that which
rises up and opens itself; that which, as what is present, comes upon man, i.e., upon him who opens himself
to what is present in that he apprehends it. The being does not acquire being in that man first looks upon it
in the sense of representation that has the character of subjective perception. Rather, man is the one who is
looked upon by beings, the one who is gathered by self-opening beings into presencing with them
(Heidegger, The Age of the World Picture, 67).
256
In this sense, for Heidegger the critique of anthropology does not preclude the delimitation of the
boundaries of humanity. As he puts it Letter on Humanism: [t]he human being is not the lord of beings.
The human being is the shepherd of being [] The human being is the being whose being as ek-sistence
consists in his dwelling in the nearness of being (Heidegger, Letter on Humanism, in Pathmarks, trans.
William McNeill [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 260-261).
257
Again, we might consider Heideggers remarks in Letter on Humanism where we see precisely this
juxtaposition: in Heideggers most vitriolic critique of anthropology or humanism he also defends another
humanism, another dignity of man, one that thinks the humanity of the human being from nearness to
being (Ibid., 261).
107
PartII:HeideggerandtheQuestionofSexualDifference

In the second part of this chapter, I turn to Derridas critical engagement with

Heidegger.ThoughDerridadoesnotexplicitlyframehisengagementintermsofthe

question of identity, nonetheless we will see that his intervention allows us to

rethinkthesignificanceofHeideggersaccount.AccordingtoDerrida,ifacritiqueof

anthropology pervades Heidegger work, the very gesture that would constitute

Heideggers critique, namely his appropriation of phenomenology, simultaneously

resoundswithamoreinsidiousreinscriptionoftheanthropic.258Inotherwords,on

Derridas reading, Heideggers critique of the incursion of a philosophical

anthropology within phenomenology concomitantly reinscribes what Derrida

designatesasacertainrelveofmaninHeideggersthought.259

And yet, Derridas engagement with Heidegger in his first and second

Geschlecht essays also suggests that the intractability of the anthropic vestiges,

paradoxically, is contingent on the status of sexual difference: to interpret

Heideggers commitments to phenomenology as eliding sexual difference is to

corroborate Derridas identification of these ineliminable anthropological vestiges;

to locate the nascent articulation of sexual difference within Heideggers work, a

258
This oscillation is pointed out to Derrida by Jean-Luc Nancy in an interview when he accuses Derrida of
offering two contradictory interpretations of Heidegger. As Nancy puts its, a moment ago you [Derrida]
were doing everything to dismiss, to disperse the idea of a classic problematic of the subject [in
Heideggers work]. Now you are targeting in Heidegger that which would remain tributary of the classical
thinking or position of the subject. That seems a bit contradictory (Derrida, Eating Well or the
Calculation of the Subject, in PointsInterviews, 1974-1994, ed. Elisabeth Weber [Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1995], 267). Of course, the point for Derrida is precisely the undecidability of this
oscillation: his claim is that Heideggers thinking constantly reverberates with these two possibilities. As
Derrida puts it, when I [Derrida] think about him [Heidegger], when I read him, Im aware of both these
vibrations at the same time (Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the question, trans. Geoffrey Bennington
and Rachel Bowlby [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987], 68).
259
Derrida, The Ends of Man, 119.
108
possibility that Derridas locates in his Geschlecht essays, is to undermine the

apparent inexorability of this oscillation.260 What we will see, then, is that sexual

difference emerges as the fulcrum of an oscillation that unwittingly delimits

DerridasowncriticalengagementwithHeidegger.261

SectionI:TheEndofMan?

To begin, then, we must first elucidate Derridas claim that Heideggers

commitments to phenomenology remain caught up in the articulation of a more

insidiousformofphilosophicalanthropology.InTheEndsofMan,Derridaframes

theissuebyaskingthefollowingquestion:Whatauthorizesustodaytoconsideras

essentiallyanthropicoranthropocentriceverythinginmetaphysics,oratthelimitof

metaphysics, that believed itself to be a critique or delimitation of

anthropologism?262 If Derridas claim is that Heideggers persistent and vitriolic

critique of anthropology simultaneously and unwittingly evinces a more insidious

reinscription of the anthropic, we are now in a position to identify Heideggers

phenomenological interpretation of identity as precisely the locus of where

Derridascritiquegainstraction.

260
This oscillation, I will argue, is distinct from the oscillation that Derrida himself explicitly identifies,
namely the oscillation between a critique of anthropology and its reinscription within Heideggers work.
Instead, I will suggest that that it is question of an oscillation between an anthropological and non-
anthropological commitment to phenomenology wherein the question of sexual difference serves as the
fulcrum.
261
I am indebted to Critchleys reading of Of Spirit for pointing out the oscillation as at the core of
Derridas reading of Heidegger (Critchley, The Question of the Question, ed. David Wood, Of Derrida,
Heidegger and Spirit [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993], 94). While for Critchley, Derridas
diagnosis of this oscillation in Heideggers thinking reveals the political and ethical possibility and paucity
of deconstruction, the question that I want to pursue in this chapter is the sense in which this oscillation
hinges on the question of sexual difference.
262
Derrida, The Ends of Man, 20.
109
 Ononehand,wehaveseenthatHeideggersinterpretationofParmenidesis

intendedpreciselytosupplantthepredominantlyanthropologicalone.Throughthis

interpretation,aswehaveseen,Daseinisdecentered:theboundariesofhumanityas

sucharedelimitedonlybydisplacingthefoundingroleofthisdelimitation.Forthis

reason, Derrida himself acknowledges that neither Heideggers insistence on the

centrality of Dasein for the Seinsfrage nor his account of the cobelonging of the

human being and being can be reduced to a traditional philosophical

anthropology.263

Ontheotherhand,evenwithinHeideggerspersistentcritiqueofhumanism

andevenwhenhehasabandonedtheanalyticofDaseininhislaterwork,Derrida

nonethelessinsiststhatasubtler,insidiousanthropicinsistenceneverrelinquishes

its grip.264 This, of course, is not the same anthropology that Heidegger so clearly

indicts. Rather, Derrida suggests, this other insistence of man, emerges from

Heideggers phenomenological interpretation of identity in the midst of his very

critiqueofanthropology.AsDerridaputsit,itisfromthestandpointofDaseinthat

Heidegger defines the humanity of man.265 That is, it is the phenomenological

proximity to being that delimits the boundaries of the human. Derridas claim,

however, is that so long as the thinking of the proper of man is inseparable from

thequestionorthetruthofbeing,266solongastheproximityofthinkingandBeing

263
As he puts it, the existential analytic had already overflowed the horizon of a philosophical
anthropology: Dasein is not simply the man of metaphysics (Ibid., 124).
264
As he puts it, in the Letter on Humanism and beyond, the attraction of the proper of man will not
cease to direct all the itineraries of thought (Ibid., 124).
265
Derrida, Eating Well, 268.
266
Derrida, The Ends of Man, 124.
110
markstheproperofman,thenHeideggersthinking,accordingtoDerrida,doesnot

leavethepurviewofanthropology.267

What we see, then, is that Derrida deconstructs Heideggers

phenomenological reinterpretation of identity. What Derrida reveals is that in the

very gesture that would be the overcoming of metaphysical anthropology,

Heidegger ineluctably reinscribes the anthropos within his commitments to

phenomenology.Inotherwords,theverygesturethatwouldbetheovercomingof

anthropology necessarily oscillates with its reinscription. The very decentering of

the subject through his commitment to phenomenology simultaneously reifies the

centralityoftheanthropic.AsDerridaputsit,

In the absence of every other determination or presupposition, the

weatleastiswhatisopentosuchanunderstanding[ofBeingorof

the is], what is always already accessible to it, and the means by

whichsuchfactumcanberecognizedassuch.Itautomaticallyfollows,

then,thatthiswehoweversimple,discreet,anderaseditmightbe

inscribes the socalled formal structure of the question of Being

withinthehorizonofmetaphysics.268

267
For instance, in a remark to which we will return, Derrida points to what he sees as the undecidable
oscillation in Heideggers thinking in the very opening of the question of Being: the chosen point of
departure, the exemplary entity for a reading of the meaning of Being, is the entity that we are, we the
questioning entities, we who, in that we are open to the question of Being and of the being of the entity we
are, have this relation of presence and proximity, this relation to self, in any case, that is lacking in
everything that is not Dasein. Even if Dasein is not the subject, this point of departure (which is moreover
assumed by Heidegger as ontologico-phenomenological) remains analogous, in its logic, to what he
inherits in undertaking to deconstruct it (Derrida, Eating Well,267).
268
Derrida, The Ends of Man, 125.
111
BypositingtheweastheopeningtothequestionofBeing,evenifitismerelyawe

thatisdelimitedonlyinitsphenomenologicalcobelongingwithBeing,Heideggers

thinking remains within the purview of anthropology. While Heideggers

interpretationofParmenidesremainsconsonantwithhiscritiqueofanthropology,

atthesametime,withinthisinterpretationweseeanotherinsistenceofman.269

SectionII:Geschlecht

In his first two Geschlecht essays, Derrida attempts to elucidate the significance of

the polysemic concept Geschlecht in two texts by Heidegger, The Metaphysical

Foundations of Logic and What is Called Thinking?.270 Given his otherwise total

reticenceontheissueofsexualdifference,whatisremarkableaboutthesetextsby

Heidegger, among other things, is that both explicitly broach this issue. However,

whileHeideggersseeminglyaberrantdiscussionofsexualdifferenceisthematicin

the first Geschlecht essay, Derrida broaches the significance of Heideggers

discussionofsexualdifferenceonlyobliquelyinthesecondessay.271 Consequently,

aside from their common philosophical interlocutor, Derridas first two Geschlecht

essays,primafacie,seemtohavelittlecommongroundwitheachothernordothey

269
Ibid., 124.
270
While Derrida insists on the fundamental untranslatability of this word, nonetheless, he tells us that we
know according to the contexts that come to determine this word, [that] it can be translated by sex, race,
species, genus, gender, stock, family, generation or genealogy, community (Derrida, Geschlecht II:
Heideggers Hand, in Deconstruction and Philosophy, ed. John Sallis [Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1987], 162).
271
I have chosen this text [What is Called Thinking?] in order to introduce a reading of Geschlecht. In this
text Heidegger in effect binds thinking, and not only philosophy, to a thought or situation of the body
(Leib), the body of man and of the human being (Menschheit). That will permit us to glimpse a dimension
of Geschlecht as sex or sexual difference apropos what is said or not said [tu] about the hand (Ibid., 171).
112
readily lend themselves to the question of anthropology as the specter of

Heideggerianphenomenology.

Acareful,albeitselectivereadingofthesetwotexts,however,willallowusto

see that Derridas critique of the anthropological vestiges of Heideggerian

phenomenology is implicated in his discussion of sexual difference. That is, while

Derrida has diagnosed an insidious anthropic insistence that emerges throughout

Heideggers thought in his persistent commitment to phenomenology, his

meditation on the status of sexual difference in Heideggers work obliquely and

unwittingly belies the apparent intractability of his own critique. In this sense,

Derridas engagement with Heidegger is itself characterized by an oscillation that

centersaroundtheissueofsexualdifference:whileheinsistsonthetenaciousgrip

thattheseanthropicvestigesmaintaininHeideggersthought,healsodemonstrates

that Heideggers work leaves open the possibility for the articulation of a sexuate

phenomenology through which these anthropic vestiges lose their grip. To put it

differently, while Derrida has identified a certain relve of man in Heideggers

phenomenological delimitation of a we, the Geschlecht essays reveal that the

articulationofasexuatephenomenologyimpliestheconstitutivedissolutionofthis

we.

In the first Geschlecht essay, Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological

difference, Derrida offers a symptomatic reading of Heideggers discussion of

sexual difference in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Here, Derrida focuses

our attention on Heideggers justification of his use of the term Dasein and the

113
curious discussion of sexual difference that this justification incites. As Heidegger

tellsus,hechosethetermDaseininordertoemphasizetheneutralityofthisbeing.

He insists that this designation has the effect of reducing or subtracting every

anthropological, ethical or metaphysical predetermination by means of that

neutralization, so as to keep nothing but a relation to itself, bare relation, to the

Being of its being.272 Dasein is neutral, then, precisely insofar as the register of

Heideggers inquiry is ontological rather than ontical. Given this insistence, we

would expect that no further discussion of sexual difference is necessary.

Heideggers expected reticence would be perfectly consistent with what we could

assume was his implicit assumption: that sexual difference is among those

metaphysicalcharacteristicsthatareneutralizedthroughthedesignationDasein.273

Indeedwemight,then,laudHeideggerforhisphilosophicalconsistencyonanissue

thatformostphilosophershasbeenasiteofinconsistency,aprofoundblindspot.

However,asDerridapointsout,weshouldhesitatebeforeinsistingthatthis

apparent reticence implies that the issue of sexual difference is absent from

Heideggerstexts.Indeeditisonlyontheassumptionthatsexualdifferencecanbe

manifest only in its recognizable anthropological form that we can

unproblematically assume that, in his apparent reticence, Heidegger has said

nothing about it. Indeed the almost total absence of any explicit treatment of the

issue of sexual difference in Heideggers work need not automatically take on the

272
Derrida, Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological difference, Research in Phenomenology 13 (1983):
69.
273
We could conclude that, for Heidegger, sexual difference did not rise to the height of ontological
difference, on the whole as negligible, in regard to the question of the sense of being, as any other
difference, a determinate distinction or an ontic presence (Ibid., 66).
114
status of a mute thoughtlessness or indifferent silence. Indeed we must ask

ourselves,asDerridaremindsus:inwhichsignswillyourecognizehisspeakingor

remaining silent about what you nonchalantly call sexual difference?274 His

questions serves as a warning: we should not assume that Heideggers work lacks

any treatment of the issue of sexual difference because it lacks the signs through

whichweexpecttorecognizeandmarkoutthisdomain.275

If we keep in mind this possibility, the possibility that perhaps Heidegger

speaks most clearly of sexual difference in his reticence, then perhaps his explicit

treatment of it in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic can be made more

intelligible.HavingjustinsistedontheneutralityofDasein,Heideggergratuitously

expounds upon this neutrality by insisting that Dasein is neither of the two

sexes.276ForDerrida,itispreciselythegratuitousnessofthisclamthatmakesitso

remarkable. Indeed, since Heidegger has articulated quite clearly that Dasein is

metaphysically neutral, it is entirely unnecessary that he should further elaborate

this neutrality by discussing sexual difference. And yet, Heidegger does emphasize

that this neutrality includes sexual difference, and among the many possible

metaphysicaldeterminationsofthehumanthatareneutralizedbythetermDasein,

274
Ibid, 68.
275
Derridas remark resonates with Irigarays insistence that [w]e need to remember that sexual difference
is not to be recognized only from signs or signifiers that have already been coded, which are, in any case,
far from unchanging. Sexual difference also corresponds to the possibility of different perceptions and
creations (Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies, trans. Gillian C. Gill [New York: Columbia University Press,
1993], 164).
276
Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 136.
115
DerridapointsoutthatHeideggerlimitshimselftomentioningjustthisone.277Itis

preciselyforthisreason,accordingtoDerrida,thatthisstrange,aberrant,seemingly

gratuitousdismissalinvitescloserscrutiny.

On one hand, Heideggers claim that Dasein is neither of the two sexes

clearly constitutes a refusal of an anthropological account of binary sexed

identity;278 and yet, on the other hand, reading this gratuitous insistence

symptomatically,DerridasuggeststhatHeideggersverydisavowalofbinarysexed

identity might simultaneously betray his suspicion that sexual difference doesnt

dependsosimplyonwhatevertheanalyticcanandshouldneutralize,metaphysics,

ethics, and especially anthropology, or indeed any other domain of ontic

knowing.279Inotherwords,HeideggersinsistenceontheneutralityofDaseinwith

respecttoabinarysexedidentitymightindicatethatDaseinisneitherofthetwo

sexes,280 and, concomitantly, that the issue of sexual difference is not exclusively

confinedtothedomainofanthropology,thatsexualdifferencecannotbereduced

toanethicaloranthropologicaltheme.281

277
Indeed for Derrida, Heideggers choice of sexual difference is a curious, remarkable one: if Heidegger
wanted to offer examples of determinations to be left out of the analytic of Dasein, especially
anthropological traits to be neutralized, his only quandary would be which to choose. Yet he begins with
and keeps himself limited to sexuality, more precisely, to sexual difference (Derrida, Geschlecht: sexual
difference, ontological difference, 69).
278
Dasein cannot be submitted to the binary partition that one most spontaneously thinks of in such a case,
to wit sexual difference (Ibid., 70). Indeed, if being-there does not mean man (Mensch), a fortiori it
designates neither man nor woman (Ibid., 70).
279
Ibid., 71-2.
280
Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 136.
281
Derrida, Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological difference, 71. Derrida will immediately ask: Has
a discourse on sexuality ever been presented not belonging to any of these registers, (Ibid., 73) a discourse
that does not belong to the philosophy of life? In the last part of this chapter, I will suggest that it is
precisely this discourse that Irigarays work seeks to offer.
116
 Consequently, Heideggers insistence that Dasein is not characterized by a

binarysexedidentityneednotimplythatDaseinisunmarkedbysexualdifference.

Rather, as Derrida suggests, Heideggers insistence perhaps instead implies the

necessityforustorethinksexualdifferenceotherwisethanasabinaryduality,and

thus otherwise than according to an ontical register with the domain of

anthropology.Ratherthanconfinedtotheseparameters,insteadDerridaasksusto

consider the possibility that Daseins neutrality is not inimical with a non

anthropologicalinvocationofsexualdifference.Asheputsit,

what if sexuality already marked the most originary Selbstheit? If it

were an ontological structure of ipseity? If the Da of Dasein were

alreadysexual?Whatifsexualdifferencewerealreadymarkedinthe

openingupofthequestionofthesenseofBeingandoftheontological

difference?282

Derridasclaim,then,isthatHeideggersgratuitousinsistencethatDaseinisneither

ofthetwosexesopensupthepossibilityofbroachingtheissueofsexualdifference

asanontophenomenologicalissue.

ThoughthispossibilityremainsunthoughtbyHeidegger,283whatiscrucialis

that the very identification of this possibility challenges the critique that, visvis

Derridas engagement with Heidegger elsewhere, I developed in the previous

section. Indeed, if Heideggers work gestures toward the possibility that sexual

282
Ibid, 74.
283
Of course, we must keep in mind Heideggers claim from epigraph to the introduction of this
dissertation: what is unthought in a thinkers thought is not a lack inherent in his thought. What is un-
thought is there in each case only as the un-thought. The more original the thinking, the richer will be what
is unthought in it (Heidegger, What is Called Thinking, 76).
117
differenceisinscribedinthestructureofDaseinorintheopeningofthequestionof

Being,webegintoseethattheneutralityofDaseinsignalsnotmerelyHeideggers

critique of anthropology but also his refusal of what Derrida identified as the

insidiousinsistenceoftheanthropic.Thatis,insofarasDaseinismarkedbyanon

anthropological account of sexual difference, then Heideggers phenomenological

invocation of Dasein implies the very dissolution of a phenomenological we

understood as a univocal opening to the question of Being. Consequently, while

HeideggersinsistenceontheneutralityofDaseinclearlycircumventsthetraditional

problematic of anthropology, we now see that this neutrality also opens up the

possibilitythathiscommitmentstophenomenologyescapethemoreinsidiousgrip

oftheanthropic.

Turning to Derridas second Geschlecht essay, Geschlecht II: Heideggers

Hand,IwillarguethatthistextcorroboratesandamplifiestheargumentthatIhave

just developed by invoking the first Geschlecht essay.284 This claim, however, will

initially appear implausible, given that, prima facie, Derrida seems to have largely

abandoned the question of sexual difference in favor of other resonances of this

polysemicwordthatnonethelessremainsasitstitle.Andyet,Iwillshowthatinthis

second essay, albeit in a circuitous fashion, Derrida gestures toward the task of

articulatingtheverydiscourseonsexualdifferencethatheraisedasapossibilityin

284
For here the question is nothing less, I venture to say, than the problem of man, of mans humanity, and
of humanism (Derrida, Geschlecht II, 163).
118
his first Geschlecht essay,285 namely a discourse in which sexual difference is not

simply understood ontically. Indeed, although Derridas critical engagement with

Heidegger will focus on the phenomenological significance of his discussion of the

handinWhatisCalledThinking?,neverthelessDerridasuggeststhatweareableto

glimpseadimensionofGeschlechtassexorsexualdifferenceaproposwhatissaid

or not said about the hand.286 In what follows, then, I will attempt to elucidate

preciselythisglimpse.

Derrida begins this essay by returning to the question of the status of the

anthropic in Heideggers commitments to phenomenology. As we know from the

first essay, in its polysemy, Geschlecht designates a gamut of concepts, including

sex, race, species, genus, gender, stock, family, generation or genealogy.287

Narrowing down these significations, Derrida begins by inquiring into the use of

Geschlecht to designate a notion of we human beings or the human species

(Menschengeschlecht). According to Derrida, it is this sense of Geschlecht that

Heidegger explicitly takes up in What is called Thinking? Indeed, according to

Derrida, he invokes the notion of Geschlecht in order to think through the way in

whichtheboundariesofthehumanarephenomenologicallyinscribed.

Recalling a line from Hlderlins poem Mnemosyne, a poem that

preoccupiesHeideggerinthefirstlectureofhistext,Derridadrawsourattentionto

thewayinwhichHeideggermobilizesaversefromthispoeminorderarticulatethis

285
Has a discourse on sexuality ever been presented as not belonging to any of these [ontical] registers?
(Derrida, Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological difference, 73).
286
Derrida, Geschlecht II, 171.
287
Ibid., 162.
119
phenomenologicaldelimitationofMenschengeschlecht.Thatis,citingtheverseEin

Zeichensindwir,deutungslos,288whichhetranslatesas[w]eareamonstervoidof

sense,289DerridaemphasizesthecorrelativesignificanceforHeideggeroftheterm

we (wir) and the term Zeichen, which Derrida translates as monster. Eschewing

the term sign, which initially appears to be a more straightforward translation of

Zeichen,Derridainsiststhat,forHeidegger,thislinefromHlderlinspoemidentifies

we human beings, Menschengeschlecht, not merely as a sign that is

straightforwardly legible but precisely as a sign whose calamitous portents are an

expressionofourillegibility.Weareamonstroussign,then,inthistwofoldsense:

we are a sign, insofar as we are the being of monstration, but one that shows

nothingandthusweareasignonlyastheverythemonstrosityofmonstration.290

That is, human beings, Menschengeschlecht, are gathered together as the we that

(de)monstrates:monstrationistheorganizingprincipleofthehumanspecies.And

yet,inourmonstrations,inourshowing,wearemonstrous:weareamonsterthat

shows[montre]nothing.291

Within this phenomenological invocation of Menschengeschlecht, Derrida

drawsourattentiontoHeideggersdiscussionofthehand.AccordingtoHeidegger,

it is the hand that shows the we of humanity to be the we of monstration. As

Derrida puts it, the hand is a monstrasity, the proper of man as the being of

288
It is translated in What Called Thinking? as We are a sign that is not read (Heidegger, What is Called
Thinking?, 10).
289
Ibid., 167.
290
We are a sign that for once is not what it should be, [one that] shows or signifies nothing, the pas de
sens, no-sense, and announces the loss of the tongue (Ibid., 167).
291
Ibid., 167.
120
monstration.ThisdistinguisheshimfromeveryotherGeschlecht,aboveallfromthe

ape.292 It is the hand, then, that delimits Menschengeschlecht: that is, the hand,

conceivednotaspartofourbodilyorganismbutratherpreciselyasamarkerof

thewayinwhichthehumanbeingisrelatedanddrawntowhatwithdraws.293

Derrida argues, however, that while Heideggers account of

Menschengeschlecht is intended to subvert an ontical delimitation of the human

being, once again he insists that these anthropic vestiges remain operative in

Heideggers insistence on the absolute distinction between the humanity and

animality.294 Heideggers discussion of the hand is significant, for Derrida, since it

revealsthewayinwhichthehandinscribesanabsolutebreakbetweenthehuman

species (Menschengeschlecht) and all other species (Geschlecht) of animality. As

Heidegger puts it, [a]pes, too, have organs that can grasp, but they do not have

hands.295Thehand,whichcanneverbedetermined,orexplained,byitsbeingan

organwhichcangrasp,296isthatverysignaccordingtowhichthehumanspeciesis

demarcated as those beings who, unlike all other species, cannot be ontically

delimited.

292
Ibid., 169. As Heidegger tells us, [p]erhaps thinking, too, is just something like building a cabinet. At
any rate, it is a craft, a handicraft. Craft literally means the strength and skill in our hands. The hand is a
peculiar thing. In the common view, the hand is part of our bodily organism. But the hands essence can
never be determined, or explained, by its being an organ which can grasp (Heidegger, What is Called
Thinking?, 16).
293
Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, 16-17.
294
The we finally comes down to the humanity of man, to the teleological essence of a humanity that is
announced par excellence in Deutschheit [] For here the question is nothing less, I venture to say, than
the problem of man, of mans humanity, and of humanism. But situated where language no longer lets itself
be effaced (Derrida, Geschlecht II: Heideggers Hand, 163).
295
Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, 16.
296
Ibid., 16.
121
 Derridas claim, then, is that it is only on the basis of a selfeffacing

distinction between humanity and animality that Heidegger is able to delimit the

human species as the species that alone whose essence cannot be fixed within an

onticalregister,thosebeingsthatalonearedelimitedphenomenologically.Itisfor

thisreasonthatHeideggersnonorganisticinterpretationofthehandissotroubling

toDerrida.WhenHeideggerinsiststhat[a]pes,too,haveorgansthatcangrasp,but

theydonothavehands,Derridasinsiststhat

this proposition marks the texts essential scene, marks it with a

humanismthatwantedcertainlytobe nonmetaphysicalHeidegger

underscores this in the following paragraphbut with a humanism

that, between a human Geschlecht one wants to withdraw from the

biologistic determination (for the reasons I just stated) and an

animalityoneenclosesinitsorganicobiologicprograms,inscribesnot

somedifferencesbutanabsoluteoppositionallimit.ElsewhereIhave

triedtoshowthat,aseveryoppositiondoes,thisabsoluteoppositional

limit effaces the differences and leads back, following the most

resistantmetaphysicdialectictradition,tothehomogeneous.297

Ifallbinarydistinctionsareselfeffacing,ifeachpairinscribesitsoppositewithinits

own limits, then Heideggers phenomenological delimitation of the human

Geschlecht inadvertently reinscribes precisely the ontical determination that he

soughttoovercome.OnDerridasreading,thisgestureinsidiouslyandunwittingly

297
Derrida, Geschlecht II, 173-4.
122
permeates Heideggers ostensibly nonanthropological, phenomenological

delimitationofthehumanbeing.298

Here, then, we seem to see the confluence, once again, of the

phenomenological and anthropological in Heideggers text, for while Heidegger

rejectsanonticaldiscourseofhandednessasthebasisforthedistinctionbetween

humans and other animals, it is nonetheless a phenomenological account of the

hand from which the ontical distinctness of human beings emerges. We could

suggest,then,thatinWhatisCalledThinking?wesimplyseetheresurgenceofthe

undecidable oscillation that Derrida had diagnosed:299 on one hand, Heideggers

definitionofmanleavesbehindthedomainofanthropologyinsofarashisaccount

ofhandednessexceedsorganicdeterminationsorinsofarashandednesscannotbe

reducedthepresenceorabsenceofopposablethumbs.Indeed,[i]fthehandisalso,

no one can deny this, an organ for gripping (Greiforgan), that is not its essence, is

notthehandsessenceinthehumanbeing.300Ontheotherhand,weseethatthe

veryovercomingofthisorganicdelimitationofhumanityisarticulatedonlyonthe

basisofaselfeffacingmetaphysicaldistinctionbetweenhumanityandanimality.

IfDerridahasdiagnosedthefailureofHeideggertosecuretheneutralityof

his phenomenological delimitation of Menschengeschlecht, he also tacitly reveals

298
This is why, of course, Derrida is skeptical of the idea of a turn or Kehre in Heideggers work. As
he puts it the distinction between given periods of Heideggers thought, between the texts before and after
the so-called Kehre, has less pertinence than ever (Derrida, The Ends of Man, 124). Indeed Derridas
claim is that within Heideggers later work this metaphysical distinction traces a system of limits within
which everything he says of mans hand takes on sense and value. Since such a delimitation is problematic,
the name of man, his Geschlecht, becomes problematic itself. For it names what has the hand, and so
thinking, speech or language, and openness to the gift (Derrida, Geschlecht II, 174).
299
Derrida, Eating Well, 268.
300
Derrida, Geschlecht II, 173.
123
thatthisneutralitycanperhapsbesecuredonlybyholdingtogether,initspolysemic

richness,aninvocationofGeschlechtwhereinthesemanticparametersofthisterm

expresslyincludesexualdifference.Thatis,althoughDerridahasdiagnosedtheway

inwhichHeideggersphenomenologicaldelimitationofMenschengeschlechtisbelied

by an ontical distinction between humanity and animality, by attending to the

polysemic richness of Geschlecht, it may nonetheless be possible to disrupt this

critique. Here we must attempt, as Derrida himself suggests, to glimpse a

dimensionofGeschlechtassexorsexualdifferenceaproposwhatissaidornotsaid

aboutthehand.301

After all, we must keep in mind that in this essay, Derrida is once again

responding to a text where Heidegger explicitly broaches the question of sexual

difference.Indeed,HeideggerinvokessexualdifferenceinWhatisCalledThinking?

inordertoemphasizethesemanticneutralityoftheesoftheesgibt.Asheputsit,

It,weexplain,meanstheimpersonal.Itmeanssomethingneithermasculinenor

feminine.Itmeansneitherofthetwo,theneuter.Ofcourse.302Ifsexualdifference

canbethoughtonlywithinanonticalregister,thenit(almost)goeswithoutsaying

that the es gibt eschews such categories. Once again, then, it is the very

gratuitousness of Heideggers disavowal of sexual difference that invites further

scrutiny.

That is, if the handedness that delimits Menschengeschlecht simultaneously

delimitstheboundariesofhumanityasamonstrosityofmonstration,wemaynow

301
Derrida, Geschlecht II, 171.
302
Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, 188.
124
suggest that the semantic richness of Geschlecht gestures toward sexual difference

as the site of this monstrosity. Indeed, insofar as the semantic parameters of

Heideggers delimitation of Geschlecht include sexual difference, this opens up the

possibilitythatthephenomenologicaldelimitationofMenschengeschlechtisalways

alreadyinscribedbytheveryimpossibilityofaunivocaldelimitation,thatthevery

proximitytobeingfromwhichhumanityisdelimiteddesignatestheimpossibilityof

awe.Inotherwords,sexualdifferenceasinscribedintheopeningofthequestion

of Being signals the impossibility of delimiting the boundaries of

Menschengeschlecht.ThisphenomenologicalinvocationofGeschlechtinitspolysemy

impliestheconstitutivedissolutionofawe.

Through Derridas intervention, then, I have tried to suggest that the

question of sexual difference, already immanent to, though unthought, in

Heideggers work opens up the possibility of articulating a phenomenological

ontologythatexceedstheboundariesmetaphysicalanthropology.Sexualdifference,

asIhavetriedtosuggest,marksthedisruptionofthepossibilityofawe,therefusal

of the anthropic that underlies the seemingly ineluctable insistence of man in

Heideggerswork.Implicitly,withthisreadingofHeidegger,Ihavealsoattempted

todelimitthehorizonwithinwhichIrigaraysengagementwithHeideggerandthe

accountofsexualdifferenceemergentfromthisengagementshouldberead.

PartIII:Identityand(Sexual)Difference

125
In the final part of this chapter, I turn to The Way of Love. Here, my task is not to

provide a close reading of this text so much as it is to outline the contours of

IrigarayscriticalengagementwithHeidegger.ByinvokingDerridasworkasaway

torenegotiatethedialoguebetweenIrigarayandHeideggerthatthistextattempts

tostage,weareinapositionrethinkthestakesofthistextitself.Indeed,wewillsee

that, in The Way of Love, Irigaray attempts elicit what remains unthought in

Heideggers interpretation of identity, namely the possibility of understanding

sexualdifferenceasintegraltothearticulationofanonanthropicphenomenology.

Irigarays critical engagement with Heidegger thus demonstrates the heretofore

unthoughtcentralityoftheissueofsexualdifferenceforphenomenology.

Through this interpretation of The Way of Love, then, we begin to broach a

broader set of questions concerning the meaning and significance of sexual

difference in Irigarays later work.303 What we see is that her invocation of sexual

difference is inseparable from her attempt to reformulate Heideggers

phenomenologicalaccountofidentity.Sexualdifference,inthistext,thusdesignates

the possibility of articulating a phenomenological interpretation of identity that

belieswhatDerridahasidentifiedastheinsistenceoftheanthropic.Consequently,

by resisting the urge to uncritically circumscribe Irigarays invocation of sexual

differencewithinthepurviewofanthropology,byresistingtheurgetoreduceher

invocation of sexual difference to an ontical account of sexed identity, we see that

303
In this chapter I will rely on the term sexual difference rather than the term sexuate difference,
which does not emerge consistently in Irigarays work until her publication of Key Writings. While in the
following chapter I will try to provide an articulation of what is at stake in this terminological shifta
transition for which Irigaray begins to lay the ground as early as The Forgetting of Airin this chapter I
will merely try to elucidate the parameters at stake in her invocation of sexual difference.
126
what is at stake in The Way of Love is Irigarays nascent articulation of a feminist

phenomenology.

Generally, I have tried to resist the urge to collapse the textual boundaries

that delimit Irigarays sustained engagement with Heidegger throughout the past

quartercentury of her work; nonetheless, it is important to see that the incipient

moment of Irigarays meditation on the significance of identity in Heideggers

thoughtcanbelocatedtwentyyearsearlierinLoublidelair.304Inthistext,Irigaray

tellsusthat,thepropositionattheoriginofmetaphysics,isParmenidesprinciple

ofidentity,namelytobetothinkthesame.305Thoughwemighteasilyoverlook

thisremark,theinterpretationofLoublidelairthatIhaveofferedintheprevious

chapter, as well as the discussion of Heideggers interpretation identity in the

previoustwopartsofthischapterallowustoelucidatetheforceofIrigaraysclaim.

In the first section of this chapter, we saw that Heidegger invokes

Parmenides in order to articulate in nonanthropological terms the fundamental

jointurebetweenthehumanbeingandbeing,toexpressthisineluctablecircularity

304
Here, I cite all of Irigarays incontrovertible references to Heideggers engagement with Parmenides
principle of identity in The Forgetting of Air: In Parmenides Poem. Is it not already too late to reopen the
seal of its mystery? (Irigaray, The Forgetting of Air, 2); At least since Parmenides: to be and to think
being the Same (3); How does Parmenides realize their [thinking and Beings] co-occurrence? (Ibid., 3);
Is it in the closure of the Parmenidean circle that Heidegger finds the evocation of this forgotten openness
(Ibid., 6); What has been forgotten in that perfect roundness where to be and to are the same (Ibid., 10);
This Fragment 7 being the Heraclitean version of Fragment 3 of Parmenides Poem: the Same, in truth,
is at once to think and to be (14); The proposition at the origin of metaphysics: to beto thinkthe
same (Ibid., 17); That outside his noein, legein, einai, eon nothing is (Ibid., 36); If to be and to
thinkthe same, doesnt this mean that what is understood to be referred to by Being and by logos is not
the same thing? That Being is not yet said in the logos? (Ibid., 121); Nucleus left unarticulated,
surrounded by a tautological circle that protects it from fissure: to beto thinkthe same (Ibid., 123); To
beto thinknot the same? (Ibid., 126); Turning within a tautological circle: to beto thinkthe same
(Ibid., 159).
305
Ibid., 17.
127
phenomenologically.WhileDerridaidentifiesthisphenomenologicalinterpretation

of identity as precisely the moment in Heideggers work when the specter of the

anthropicresurges,alreadyinLoublidelairIrigarayhasthespecularstructureof

identityhersights.306Inotherwords,whatDerridahasdiagnosedastheinsistence

of the anthropic in Heideggers commitments to phenomenology is legible in

Irigarays critical engagement with his interpretation of identity as an implicit

diagnosisofitsspecularstructure.

TurningtoTheWayofLove,theparametersofthiscritiquecomeintoview.

CloselyreadingIdentityandDifference,Irigaraydrawsourattentiontothepolysemy

ofParmenidesprinciple.Giventhispolysemy,Irigarayasksustocarefullyconsider

thesignificanceoftheinterpretationofidentitythatHeideggeroffers.Paraphrasing

hisdiscussion,sheasks:

Is it a question of cobelonging in a whole where each takes place?

Mediation would then be what provides for the connection to the

whole. But it could also be a question of a belonging of parts to the

same, which is different. So the to be and to think the same,

attributed to Parmenides, presupposes a belonging of Being and

thinking to the same, that is to a masculine subjectivity. Mans

distinctive trait with regard to the tree, the stone, the eagle, for

examplewouldbetobeopentoBeingasthinking,tocorrespondto

Beinginfrontofwhichheissituated.Manwouldbetheplaceofthis

306
Turning within a tautological circle: to beto thinkthe same (Ibid., 159).
128
 correspondence.Butthattowhichhecorrespondsisonlyhimself.The

Being to which man opens himself, pays attention, corresponds,

alwaysbelongstohisworld.307

IfwearetoelucidatethestakesofIrigaraysengagementwithHeidegger,wemust

try to unpack this dense passage. What we see is that Irigaray distinguishes two

possibleinterpretationsofidentity,bothofwhicharevisibleinHeideggerstext.On

onehand,aswehaveseen,heexplicitlyinterpretsidentityasacobelongingina

whole where each takes place;308 on the other hand, he also offers an account of

identityasthebelongingofpartstothesame.309AlthoughHeideggeroffersbothof

these interpretations, and although he offers the former as the amplification and

development of the latter, Irigarays claim is that it is ultimately the latter that is

decisive.

That is, while the former interpretation gestures toward an account of

identityasadifferencebetweentwotermsautonomoustoeachotherwhich,atthe

first and last level constitute a unity,310 nonetheless the triumph of the latter

interpretationisvisiblepreciselyinwhatDerridaidentifiesastheinsistenceofthe

anthropicorinwhatIrigaraysglossesasthespecularityofidentity,namelythatthe

being to which he [Dasein] corresponds is only himself. Consequently, Irigarays

307
Irigaray, The Way of Love, 69, my emphasis. Here we should, of course, recall Irigarays claim in The
Forgetting of Air that Heideggers interpretation of the es gibt inscribes his account of phenomenality
within an eternal return of the same.
308
Ibid., 69. As Heidegger puts it, Mensch und Sein sind einander bereignet. Sie gehren einander
(Heidegger, Identity and Difference, 95).
309
Irigaray, The Way of Love, 69. As Heidegger puts it, Denken and Sein gehren in das Selbe und aus
diesem Selben zusammen (Heidegger, Identity and Difference, 90).
310
Irigaray, The Way of Love, 108.
129
claim is that insofar as Heideggers phenomenological interpretation of identity

institutes and is inscribed in a univocal delimitation of the human being, his

commitments to phenomenology once again evince the insidious operation of

specularization.311 The point, according to Irigaray, is that Heideggers

phenomenological delimitation of the we, reinscribes the boundaries of a being

that,asMoiputsit,iscapableof[adequately]reflectingonitsownbeing.312

Throughout her text, Irigaray traces the effect of this interpretation of

identity in Heideggers work. According to her, as a consequence of this failure,

Heidegger remains mired in the same metaphysical commitments that he himself

had criticized, a metaphysics committed to intangible essences and more or less

magical ontologies,313 whose fantastical qualities are an expression of its

imaginarilyneuter,univocalbeinganditsspectralrelationshiptothethinkingofits

Being.314AsIrigaraytellsus,

thetwobeingsandBeingsofthehumanspecieshavebecomethetwo

polesofasinglehumanbeingwho,infact,doesnotexist.Inventedby

amasculinethinkingandaccordingtoitsnecessities,thismoreorless

311
The Being to which man opens himself, pays attention, corresponds, always belongs to his world. That
does not amount to saying that everything in this world is the work of man but that he has appropriated
transpropriated the whole to himself (Ibid., 69-70).
312
Though Moi is referring to Irigarays diagnosis of the logic of the specular in her early work,
nonetheless Moi formulation is prescient for this later text. As she puts it, [d]isguised as reflections on the
general condition of Mans Being, the philosophers thinking depends for its effect on its specularity (its
self-reflexivity) (Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, 132).
313
Ibid., 10.
314
As Chanter puts it, Heideggers ontology has pretensions to a neutrality and universality that I do not
believe it can sustain (Chanter, The Problematic Normative Assumptions of Heideggers Ontology, 74).
130
 ghostly being presents rather the characteristics of a masculine

subject,butwithadditionsandsubtractions.315

AccordingtoIrigaray,thisunivocalbeingandtheontologicaledificecoincidentwith

the articulation of the Being of this being is a constitutive fiction, a vestige of the

sustainedfantasticalinterpretationofidentitythat,onIrigaraysreading,dominates

Heideggerswork.316

In addition to this critical gesture, however, throughout The Way of Love

Irigarayattemptstoelicitanaccountofidentitythat,althoughHeideggerarticulates,

remainsunthought,namelyacobelonginginawholewhereeachtakesplace.317

The crucial interpretive question, then, is how we are to understand Irigarays

interpretationofthismarginalizedsenseofidentity.Atfirstglance,Irigarayseems

to offer a straightforwardly anthropological interpretation of this claim. For

instance, she tells us that identity designates a relation of cobelonging, but not of

thinkingandbeingtothesamebutofmanandwomantohumanity.318Assheputsit,

The meaning of identity is then modified insofar as it is no longer

determinedbythesameunderstoodastheequivalencebetweentwo

315
Ibid., 107.
316
Stella Sanford, for example, in the context of her elucidation of Beauvoirs engagement with Heidegger,
suggest that for Beauvoir the question of sexual difference is an existential question, it asks: what is it to
exist as a woman? (Sanford, How to Read Beauvoir [New York: Norton, 2007], 59). She goes on to
suggest that by raising the question of sexual difference within this register, Beauvoir goes far beyond,
and implicitly criticizes, the philosophy that was her inspiration. For Heidegger [] human existence was
conceived in abstraction from the fact that, as Beauvoir says, humanity is divided into two classes of
individuals, man and woman. (Ibid., 59). According to Sanford, on Beauvoirs reading, Heideggers work
thus evinces an overly generalized concept of humanity (Ibid., 60). While I am not attempting identify a
parallel between Irigaray and Beauvoir, Sandfords remarks are suggestive for how we might think through
the stakes of Irigarays critique. I will return to this point in a moment.
317
Irigaray, The Way of Love, 69.
318
Ibid., 81, my emphasis.
131
 terms be they thinking and Being. It is rather the difference

betweentwotermsmanandwoman.319

By offering an anthropological interpretation of identity as sexed identity,320

Irigarays project in The Way of Love is legible as the attempt to show the way

philosophy as such is radically transformed in this transmutation of its central

principle. In other words, Irigarays anthropological interpretation of identity as

sexed identity and her insistence on the centrality and ineluctability of sexed

identityastheguidingprincipleofphilosophywouldclearlyindicateadecisiveshift

in her work toward a naturalistic philosophy of sexual difference. Consequently,

although readers of Irigarays later work seldom offer sustained analyses of the

individualtexts,nonethelessitpossibletotracetheimpactofthisinterpretationof

TheWayofLove.321

With this interpretation, however, Irigarays critical engagement with

Heidegger seems to lose it force. She appears to transmute what Heideggers

phenomenological interpretation gestures toward, namely the cobelonging in

difference,intoonticalterms,namelysexedidentity.Identityistherebyonceagain

subsumed within an ontology of Vorhandensein, reduced to the synthesis or

connection of discrete entities (man and woman) within a whole (humanity).

319
Ibid., 81, my emphasis.
320
The human in what it is objectively ever since its beginning is two, two who are different. Each part of
what constitutes the unity of the human species corresponds to a proper being and proper Being, to an
identity of ones own. In order to carry out the destiny of humanity, the man-human and the woman-human
each have to fulfill what they are and at the same time realize the unity that they constitute (Ibid., 105).
321
For example, Allison Stone argues that the later Irigaray sees sexual difference as a natural difference
between the sexes, which should receive cultural and social expression (Stone, Luce Irigaray and the
Philosophy of Sexual Difference, 1).
132
Irigaraysaccount,moreover,appearsasthemostextremeinstantiationofwhatwe

saw Heidegger diagnose as the tendency to interpret Parmenides principle in

anthropological terms.322 Consequently, if we interpret Irigarays critical

engagementwithHeideggerintheseterms,wearecompelledtoacknowledgethat

hercritiqueofradicallymissesthemostfundamentalgesturesofthisthought.

Yet before too quickly dismissing Irigarays critical engagement with

Heidegger on these grounds, we must examine her invocation of sexual difference

moreclosely.RecallingDerridaswarninginhisfirstGeschlechtessay,wemustask

ourselves: in which signs will you recognize [her] speaking or remaining silent

about what you nonchalantly call sexual difference? Indeed, perhaps this

anthropological interpretation of Irigarays invocation of sexual difference reveals

more about our own tendency to treat this issue with a certain degree of

nonchalance than it reflects about the meaning and significance of Irigarays

invocationofsexualdifferenceinthistext.

After all, what we have seen is that Irigaray invokes sexual difference

preciselyinordertoelicitwhatremainsunthoughtinHeideggersinterpretationof

Parmenides,namelythecobelonginginawholewhereeachtakesplace.323What

is crucial, then, is that Irigaray invokes sexual difference in order to articulate the

possibility of a nonanthropic phenomenology. Indeed, if we examine her remarks

immediately preceding what appears to be an unequivocally anthropological

322
For example, Irigaray tells us that [t]he difference between man and woman already exists, and it
cannot be compared to a creation of our understanding. We have to take care about thinking and cultivating
it, to be sure, but starting from what exists (Irigaray, The Way of Love, 106).
323
Ibid., 69.
133
interpretationofidentity,Irigaraytellsusthatwhatisatstakeinherreformulation

of identity is the articulation difference, as Derrida puts it, as inscribed in the

opening of the question of Being.324 Thus Irigaray insists, [n]o longer a question

here of the more or less immediate cobelonging of a subject with only a proper

Being, but of a link to Being which is dual, including in its foundation, and must

remain so.325 Moreover, it is precisely this notion of sexual difference that is at

stake when Irigaray offers an account of identity as a cobelonging in a whole

where each takes place,326 or as a difference between two terms autonomous to

eachotherwhich,atthefirstandlastlevel,constituteaunity.327

At its most incisive and provocative, then, we could suggest that Irigarays

projectinTheWayofLoveistheattempttoarticulateaphenomenologicalaccount

ofidentityaspreciselyinscribedbydifference.Understoodintheseterms,Irigarays

project is consonant with what Derrida identifies in his Geschlecht essays as the

attempt to invoke sexual difference in a way that is not subsumed within the

purviewofanthropology,tothinksexualdifferenceasinscribedintheopeningof

thequestionofBeing.

Consequently,althoughattimesIrigarayseemstoinvokesexualdifferenceas

anonticalmarkerofhumanity,infactherinvocationofsexualdifferencesignalsthe

inscription of irreducible difference, one that refuses the totalizing gesture that

324
Derrida, Geschlecht: sexual difference, ontological difference, 74.
325
Irigaray, The Way of Love, 81, my emphasis.
326
Ibid., 69.
327
Ibid., 108.
134
would reinscribe a univocal delimitation of the human.328 Sexual difference, in

other words, designates a nonspecular phenomenological we, one that is

constitutively incapable of adequately reflecting on its own Being.329 Irigarays

reformulation of Parmenidean identity, in this sense, could be understood as

propaedeutictothearticulationofafeministphenomenology.330Thatis,ratherthan

evincing her turn toward naturalism, Irigarays invocation of sexual difference

signalsthenascentarticulationofaphenomenologyofsexualdifference.

Conclusions

In this chapter, I have attempted to offer an account of the stakes that delimit

IrigarayscriticalengagementwithHeideggerinTheWayofLove.WhatIhavetried

toshowisthatthecentralquestionofthistext,thequestionofidentity,revealsthat

the stakes of this engagement subvert the very parameters of naturalistic

philosophy.Ifthisaccountispersuasive,thenweseethatwhatisatstakeinthistext

isnotthearticulationofaphilosophyofsexualdifferencethatisfoundeduponthe

substratumoftheineluctablefactofsexedidentity.Instead,Irigaraystaskistooffer

animmanentcritiqueofHeideggerianphenomenology,andtherebytoinhabitanew

328
As Irigaray expresses, The basic equation of our thought can, from then on, no longer be A=A but
rather A + B = One. I could have written A + non-A = the whole, but it would then seem that the feminine
is equivalent to the non-masculine or vice versa. The masculine and feminine are in no case the inverse or
the opposite of each other. They are different. This difference that holds between them is perhaps the most
unthinkable of differences difference itself (Ibid., 106).
329
Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, 132.
330
If the human is divided into two, always open and in interaction in its unity, the Being of each of its
parts and of their common world no longer belong to a traditional ontology (Ibid., 11).
135
what in his thinking remains unthought, namely the possibility of a nonanthropic

phenomenologyofsexualdifference.

Through this interpretation, then, I have begun to explicitly broach the

notoriously fraught question of sexual difference. Indeed, if the question of sexual

differencebelongswithinthedomainofphenomenologyratherthananthropology,

then we see that it is only in the failure to recognize this horizon of her thinking,

bothinthesecondaryliteratureaswellasinmomentswhereIrigarayisnotequalto

herself,thattheproblemofessentialism,andthelitanyofdebatesthatthisproblem

entails,appearstobeendemictoherlaterthought.Inthefollowingchapter,Iturn

to Sharing the World in order to continue to examine the stakes of Irigarays

engagement with Heidegger in order, once again, to broach the question of sexual

difference.

136
ChapterFour:TowardaSexuatePhenomenology

TosplitBeingandthinkingbringsabouttheendoftheworld.
Irigaray,TheForgettingofAir

Weareurgedtodwellwheremanstaysasabeingwhodwells
alone in the world and not as a being who is in the world in
relationwithothersubjects,subjectswholiveintheworldand
who do not necessarily share the same Being. For an
incitementtosuchatask,itisnotenoughtoletoneselfbethere
where we already are. At least not simply. And the modalities
of belonging in the same will not furnish the mediations
sufficient for constituting or reconstituting the identity of the
one, of the other, of the relation of cobelonging. For this
relation,itisratherdifferenceitselfwhichwillprovideuswith
the necessary mediations In order to have access to it, man
hastoleavehisownworld,orrathertopartlyopenitslimits.
Irigaray,TheWayofLove

Overview

FouryearspriortothepublicationofSharingtheWorld,inherintroductiontothe

edited collection of texts in Key Writings, Irigaray offers a definition of sexuate

difference, a concept that she invokes with increasing frequency in her recent

work.331Whileusuallysheavoidsdefiningeithersexualorsexuatedifference,here

weseemtobeofferedararemomentofinsight.AccordingtoIrigaray,

331
If one of the central tasks of this project is to elucidate the meaning and significance of Irigarays
invocation of sexual difference in her later work, one of the questions that this raises is the stakes of
Irigarays terminological shift from sexual to sexuate difference. In Key Writings and Sharing the World,
Irigaray explicitly invokes sexuate difference in place of sexual difference: one difference at once appears
as universal: sexual, or better, sexuate difference (Irigaray, Sharing the World [New York: Continuum,
2008], 2). Because I am only focusing on those texts where Irigaray is explicitly engaging Heidegger, I do
not want to make a claim about the transition in her work from sexual to sexuate difference beyond the
scope of these texts. However, insofar as she explicitly invokes sexuate difference in her engagement with
Heidegger in her most recent monograph, I will attempt to develop an account of its significance in the
context of this engagement.
137
 Sexuatedifferencemeansthatmanandwomandonotbelongtoone

andthesamesubjectivity,thatsubjectivityitselfisneitherneutralnor

universal.Fromsuchareality,itresultsthatmanandwomancannot

meettogetherinthesameworld,unlessoneofthemrenouncestheir

ownsubjectivity.Theencounterbetweenthemrequirestheexistence

oftwodifferentworldsinwhichtheycouldenterintorelationorinto

communication after recognizing that they are irreducible to one

another.Betweenmanandwomanastrangenessmustsubsistwhich

correspondstothefactthattheydwellindifferentworlds.332

Inthispassage,Irigaraydrawsourattentiontothecrucialrelationshipbetweenthe

conceptsofsexuatedifferenceandworld.First,herclaimisthatsexuatedifference

isineluctablyinscribedinthestructureofsubjectivity,thusunderminingatendency

to conceive of the subject as univocal. Second, she claims that this in turn implies

thatthesesexuatesubjectsexistindifferentworlds.Theobviousquestionthatthis

definitionelicits,however,iswhyIrigarayinvokesthenotionofworldatall.Ifwe

takeherclaimseriouslyandtherebygrantthepossibilitythatheruseofthisterm

carries philosophical weight, then we must also concede that the meaning and

significance of her invocation of sexuate difference is implicated in her use of the

termworld.Unfortunatelyinthistext,thesenseofworldremainsunclear,andthus

theregisterofherremarksaboutsexuatedifferencesuffersfromthisobscurity.

332
Luce Irigaray, Key Writings (New York: Continuum, 2004), xii.
138
 WhenweturntoIrigaraysmostrecentmonograph,however,weseethatthe

relationship between the concepts of sexuate difference and world constitute the

horizon that delimits the thematic focus of the text. In Sharing the World, then,

Irigaray elucidates what she only gestured toward four years earlier, namely the

significance of the notion of world for her invocation of sexuate difference. Prima

facie,herdiscussionseemstoreadilylenditselftoanaturalisticinterpretation.333In

theintroduction,Irigaraytellsusthat[a]ssoonasIrecognizetheothernessofthe

otherasirreducibletomeortomyown,theworlditselfbecomesirreducibletoa

single world: there are always at least two worlds.334 The pivotal claim in this

passageis,ofcourse,Irigaraysaccountoftherelationshipbetweentherecognition

of difference and the institution of two worlds. Here, she seems to suggest that the

recognitionoftheineluctablealterityoftheotherfoundsthisdifferenceofworlds.In

otherwords,itisthecompulsionofthefactofdifferencethatincitestheconstruction

oftwoworlds.

Within these naturalistic parameters, the meaning and significance of

sexuate difference and world is already tacitly delimited. Indeed, the relationship

betweensexuatedifferenceandworldappearsintermsoftherelationshipbetween

the ontological and the sociocultural.335 The fact or ineluctable reality of sexuate

333
Of course, given that Sharing the World has been available for less than two years, it is perhaps
unsurprising that there is not yet any substantive scholarship on this text.
334
Irigaray, Sharing the World, x.
335
Although Groszs essay was written a year before the publication of Sharing the World, her
ontological interpretation of sexual difference, as we already saw in the first chapter, would corroborate
this naturalistic interpretation. For example, as Grosz tells us: sexual difference [is] the first philosophy,
the philosophy that founds all others, including epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and politics (Grosz,
Irigaray and the Ontology of Sexual Difference, 7).
139
difference,336 then, would provide the normative ground and imperative for the

construction two worlds, or what we might elaborate as the constitution of the

ethicalandpoliticalinfrastructureinwhichontologicaldifferencecanberealizedin

ourpractices.337Inotherwords,theinstitutionandcultivationoftwoworldscould

be the understood as the ethical and political edifice that is founded upon a

universalgiven:thedivisionofhumanityintotwosexes.338

Yet, this interpretation begins to lose its force when we examine the

parameters and stakes of this text more carefully. Unsurprisingly, given the

centrality of the notion of the world, here Irigaray once again attempts to stage a

criticaldialoguewithHeidegger.Ofcourse,inhisearlywork,thetermworlddoes

notdesignateatotalityofextantentities.Theworldisneithernaturenorourman

man infrastructure. Instead, the world is something that, in a radical sense, the

human being is. Consequently, we see that if we interpret Irigarays engagement

withHeideggerinnaturalisticterms,onceagain,wearecompelledtoacknowledge

thathercritiqueseemstoradicallymisunderstandthefundamentalgesturesofhis

336
Nevertheless, one difference at once appears as universal: sexual, or better sexuate, difference
(Irigaray, Sharing the World, 2).
337
Appropriation has dominated the rules of construction in a monosubjective culture. Recognizing ones
own limits as well as the existence of the other as irreducible to ones own existence, and searching for the
means of entering into relations with him, or her, will then substitute for appropriation. Such necessities or
cultural obligations can appear as universal duties insofar as they are based on a universal given: the
division of humanity into two sexes who really live in different worlds (Ibid., 2).
338
Irigaray, Sharing the World, 2-3, my italics. The context of Irigarays remark seems to suggest that
sexuate difference designates a notion of difference that is inscribed in the structure of subjectivity, while
sexual difference designates a natural given (Ibid., 2). Of course, the meaning and significance of both of
these designations is still far from clear and Irigarays position with respect to these terms remains
ambiguous in this passage. We might suggest, however, that it sheds some light on the question of
Irigarays terminological shift: to invoke sexuate rather than sexual difference is to move away from a term
tends to be understood as a natural given.
140
thought: rather than founded upon an ontical delimitation of human existence,

beingintheworldisitselfafoundingontologicalstructure.

Once again, however, Irigarays critical engagement with Heidegger cannot

be so hastily understood as a naturalistic critique. Indeed, by invoking the term

world in her explication of sexuate difference, she highlights that this notion both

resonates with and offers a challenge to Heideggers notion of world. The crucial

interpretive task, then, is to elucidate the way in which she attempts to negotiate

this dialogue, to show the way in which her invocation of sexuate difference is at

once implicated in Heideggers discussion of the world and simultaneously

instigatesthedisruptionhisaccount.

Implicitly, this interpretive question hinges on the issue of transcendence.

Thatis,therearetwopossiblesensesoftranscendenceinIrigaraysaccountofthe

relationship between sexuate difference and world: first, according to the

naturalisticreading,sexuatedifferenceisunderstoodastranscendent,insofarasitis

grantedthestatusofafact,somethingthatisineluctablyanduniversallygiven.On

thisreading,itisthetranscendenceofsexuatedifferencethatcompelsustogiveit

expressionthroughtheconstitutionoftwoworlds.Second,accordingtowhat,vis

vis Heidegger, I will describe as a phenomenological interpretation, insofar as

sexuate difference is inscribed in the structure of transcendence, it belongs to the

structureofbeingintheworld.

ByshowingthatIrigarayinvokesthislattersenseoftranscendence,wewill

see that her account of the relationship between world and sexuate difference is

141
radicallyrecast.Inthissense,sexuatedifferenceisnotanextantentitythatcompels

ustoconstructtheethicalandpoliticalinfrastructureoftwoworlds.Rather,sexuate

difference is interwoven in the fabric of subjectivity understood as a structure of

transcendence.Irigarayinvokessexuatedifference,then,notasanineluctablefact,

notasanextantentitythatfoundsadifferenceofworlds,butratherpreciselyasthe

site of an irrecuperable fracture of the world. Sexuate difference, in other words,

does not designate the transcendent ontological ground for the constitution of two

worlds;sexuatedifferenceisnothingotherthanadifferenceofworlds.

Before turning to Irigarays text, however, I will first attempt provide a

sketchofthecrucialconstellationofHeideggerianconceptsthatdelimititshorizon.

Aswehavealreadyseen,thecentralinterpretivequestionconcernstherelationship

between the notion of sexuate difference and the notion of the world. Implicitly,

however,wehavealsoseenthatthisquestionhingesonthenotionoftranscendence

operativeinIrigaraysdelineationoftheseterms.Byrehearsingthesignificanceof

the Heideggerian concept of world, I will try to elucidate his phenomenological

account of transcendence, thanks to which the precise stakes of Irigarays

interventionwillsubsequentlybecomevisible.

PartI:HeideggerandtheQuestionofTranscendence

Inorderelucidatetheconceptsworldandtranscendence,IwillfocusonHeideggers

1927 lecture course Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Though these concepts will

142
undoubtedly be familiar to most readers acquainted with his early work,339

nevertheless it is important to briefly recall his position. In this first half of this

chapter,then,wewillseethatHeideggersdescriptionoftherelationshipbetween

DaseinandworldallowshimtoofferwhatIwilldesignateashisphenomenological

accountoftranscendence.340

Let me begin by recalling the distinction that Heidegger draws between an

ontology of Dasein and world, on one hand, and modern philosophys ontology of

subject and object, on the other. Of course, it is clear from even the most cursory

examinationofHeideggersearlyworkthatthetermsDaseinandworld(Welt) are

notsimplyplaceholdersforthetermssubjectandobject.341Thislatterpairofterms

belong within an ontology characterized by what, as we have seen, Heidegger

designates as Vorhandenheit or presenceathand: within this ontology both the

beingofthesubjectandthebeingoftheobjectareunderstoodasbeingathandor

beingextant.342 Subject and object, in other words, are both understood as having

339
Indeed, it is notable that Irigaray comes back to these seemingly most basic and perhaps banal concepts
of Heideggerian phenomenology from a previous engagement with levels of his thought that are ostensibly
much more sophisticated. In the second half of this chapter, I will try to address this apparent regression
that we might be tempted to view pejoratively.
340
Of course, here, once again, we catch a glimpse of Heideggers commitments to Husserl, insofar as this
phenomenological notion of transcendence is already prefigured in Husserls work. In The Idea of
Phenomenology, for example, Husserl decouples the notions of immanence and transcendence from a
Cartesian ontology wherein these notions simply designate the distinction between the subjective and
objective spheres, respectively. While the point, for Husserl, is to align immanence and objectivity, we
could suggest that this move nonetheless opens up the space for the account of transcendence that we will
see Heidegger develop in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. See Husserl, The Idea of
Phenomenology, 27-32.
341
For example, in Being and Time, Heidegger insists that, Subject and Object do not coincide with
Dasein and the world (Heidegger, Being and Time, 87).
342
Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1982), 28. As Heidegger puts it, The Dasein has this natural tendency to start by taking
every beingwhether something extant in the sense of a natural thing or something with the mode of being
of the subjectas an extant entity and to understand it in the sense of being extant (Ibid., 66). Of course,
143
the kind of being that belongs to things. For Heidegger, Descartes account of the

subjectasrescogitansandobjectsasresextensaistheparadigmaticexampleofthis

ontology.

Here,then,wearebroughtbeforeafundamentaldifferencethatisatstakein

HeideggersuseofthetermsDaseinandworld:neitherDaseinnorworlddesignate

extant entities; instead, Dasein and world exist. Of course, the term Dasein is not

Heideggersneologism.Alreadycommonplacewithinphilosophicaldiscourse,inits

preHeideggerianusagethetermDaseinsimplydesignatesexistence.343ThatDasein

becomes a technical philosophical term for Heidegger points to the crucial

distinction that he attempts to maintain between the existence of extant beings,

subjectandobject,andtheexistenceofDaseinandworld.

To exist, Heidegger insists, is to understand.344 Understanding, however, is

notprimarilyanepistemologicalrelationshipbetweentwodiscreteentities,subject

and object. In other words, understanding is not primarily an extant relationship

thatarisesbecauseofthepriorexistenceoftwoextantbeings.345Consequently,for

Heidegger, it is not the case that Dasein exists and only subsequently and

for Heidegger, as we have seen in the previous two chapters, this tendency prevents us from investigating
the sense of being that phenomenological inquiry always already tacitly invokes, thus, it is profoundly
antithetical to the tendency that lies at the heart of phenomenology. In this sense, his remarks resonate with
Husserls diagnosis of difficulty of phenomenology in Philosophy as Rigorous Science. As Husserl puts,
we do not easily overcome the inborn habit of living and thinking according to the naturalistic attitude
(Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, 109).
343
Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 28.
344
Ibid., 276.
345
Here we might remind ourselves of Heideggers claim in Identity and Difference: we are confined
within the attempt to represent the together of man and Being as a coordination, and to establish and
explain this coordination either in terms of man or in terms of Being. In this procedure, the traditional
concepts of man and Being constitute the toe-hold for the coordination of the two (Heidegger, Identity and
Difference, 30). Understanding, for Heidegger, is not to be understood as merely the coordination of the
two entities, namely human being and Being.
144
contingently takes up an epistemic relation to the world as its object. Instead, his

point is that to the human beings way of existing there belongs an antecedent

understandingoftheworld.ItisforthisreasonthatHeideggerdescribestheworld

as an existential structure of Dasein: rather than a discrete, selfenclosed, thinking

substance,Daseinisbeingintheworld.Concomitantly,theworld,forHeidegger,is

notequivalenttonature,things,orthetotalityofextantbeings.346Instead,itisthe

horizonofantecedentunderstandingthatcharacterizesthehumanDaseinsmodeof

existence.

From this account of Dasein and world, we are already implicitly brought

before Heideggers existential redescription of transcendence. In its non

phenomenologicalusage,transcendencedesignatesthedomainofobjectsorthings

inthemselves that lie outside the sphere of the subject.347 Of course, as Heidegger

points out, this epistemological notion of transcendence is premised upon an

articulationofsubjectandobjectasextantentitieswithinanontologyofpresence

athand:withinthisaccount,subjectandimmanence,ononehand,andobjectivity

and transcendence, on the other hand, coincide. Having invoked the world as a

determinationofDaseinsmodeofbeing,Heideggerarguesthatitisincumbentupon

ustorethinktranscendenceoutsidethepurviewoftheseontologicalcommitments.

346
Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 166.
347
As Heidegger puts it, that which lies beyond the subjects sphere, things in themselves, objects (Ibid.,
298).
145
 Forthisreason,Heideggeroffersanexistentialorphenomenologicalaccount

oftranscendence.348Totranscend,heremindsus,literallymeanstotostepover,to

passover,togothrough.349WehavealreadyseenthatDaseinsexistenceimpliesan

understandingofworldthatantecedesanyepistemicrelationtoextantentities.For

Heidegger, this is already to suggest that it is the human Dasein rather than the

being of extant objects that is, properly speaking, transcendent.350 To invoke an

existential rather than an epistemological account of transcendence just is to

understand the being of Dasein as nothing other than the overstepping or

movementbeyondthatcharacterizesitsantecedentunderstandingoftheworld.351

As the transcendent, the human Dasein is ecstatic: it exists as steppingoutside

itself.352Wesee,then,thatHeideggersexistentialaccounttranscendenceunmoors

thisconceptfromanontologyofVorhandenheit.

With this existential account of transcendence in view, we move squarely

within the domain of Heideggers phenomenological commitments, for his claim is

that the phenomenological concept intentionality is founded upon this existential

348
Here I am consciously equivocating between the terms existential and phenomenological in describing
Heideggers account of transcendence. I take it that this equivocation is relatively unproblematic, at least in
this text, insofar as, for Heidegger, as we will see immediately, Dasein just is transcendent and what this
means is that Dasein exists as directed toward that which it is not. In this sense, the existential account of
transcendence is equally a phenomenological account of transcendence, where we see that it is only
because Dasein is intentional in its very being that our individual comportments are characterized by
intentionality. I will come back to the question of intentionality in a moment.
349
Ibid., 298.
350
It is commonly taught in philosophy that what is transcendent is things, objects. But what is originally
transcendent, what does the transcending, is not things as over against the Dasein; rather, it is the Dasein
itself which is transcendent in the strict sense. Transcendence is a fundamental determination of the
ontological structure of the Dasein. It belongs to the existentiality of existence. Transcendence is an
existential concept (Ibid., 162).
351
By our analysis of being-in-the-world, we showed that transcendence belongs to the Daseins
ontological constitution. The Dasein is itself transcendent. It oversteps itselfit surpasses itself in
transcendence (Ibid., 323).
352
The common Greek expression ekstatikon means stepping-outside-self (Ibid., 267).
146
structure of transcendence.353 As Heidegger reminds us, within this

phenomenologicalcontext,intentionalitydescribesthestructurethatbelongstoall

comportment:354 the fact that all comportments have the structure of being

directedtoward.355 All comportments, then, can be described in terms of the two

moments constitutive of this structure: that which comportstoward (the intentio)

andthattowardwhichthecomportmentisdirected(theintentum).

We can begin to understand the sense in which an existential notion of

transcendence is founding for an adequate understanding of intentionality by

juxtaposingHeideggersaccountwiththeobjectivistandsubjectivistinterpretations

of intentionality that he rejects. On one hand, the objectivist account interprets

intentionality as itself an extant relation that only accrues to a subject due to the

emergenceonanextantobject.356Withinthisinterpretation,I,asadiscretesubject,

only comport myself intentionally when I am confronted with an object. Once the

object is gone, were all objects to disappear, so too would the intentional relation

disappear. On the other hand, the subjectivist account interprets the intentional

relation as immanent to the subjective sphere. Within this account, my intentional

comportmentsstandinrelationonlytomyownsubjectiverepresentations.Onthis

interpretation, it remains in question whether and how these subjective

353
It will turn out that intentionality is founded in the Daseins transcendence and is possible solely for
this reasonthat transcendence cannot conversely be explained in terms of intentionality (Ibid., 162).
354
Comportments have the structure of directing-oneself-toward, of being-directed-toward. Annexing a
term from Scholasticism, phenomenology calls this structure intentionality (Ibid., 58). See also
Heideggers much more protracted discussion of the genealogy of intentionality in The History of the
Concept of Time.
355
Ibid., 58.
356
Ibid., 60.
147
comportmentsrelatetotranscendentobjects.Heideggersclaimisthattheproblem

of solipsism and the problem of transcendence that arise from the objectivist and

subjectivist interpretations of intentionality, respectively, are inevitable once the

phenomenonofintentionalityisinterpretedwithinanontologyofVorhandensein.

For Heidegger, to interpret the phenomenon of intentionality within these

parameters is to fundamentally misunderstand the kind of being which we are.

Indeed,thismisunderstandingarisesfromaninterpretationofthehumanbeingas

extant, as a thing, rather than as existing. Let me quote Heidegger at length for a

moment:

The statement that the comportments of the Dasein are intentional

meansthatthemodeofbeingofourownself,theDasein,isessentially

suchthatthisbeing,sofarasitis,isalwaysalreadydwellingwiththe

extant.Theideaofasubjectwhichhasintentionalexperiencesmerely

insideitsownsphereandisnotyetoutsideitbutencapsulatedwithin

itself is an absurdity which misconstrues the basic ontological

structure of the being that we ourselves are. When, as earlier

remarked,wegivetheconcisenameexistencetotheDaseinsmode

of being, this is to say that the Dasein exists and is not extant like a

thing. A distinguishing feature between existence and the extant is

found precisely in intentionality. The Dasein exists means, among

148
 otherthings,thattheDaseinisinsuchawaythatinbeingitcomports

itselftowardtheextant.357

Here we see, then, the intrinsic relatedness of world, transcendence and

intentionality. Dasein and world exist: this means that Dasein and world are not

extant entities; instead, Dasein exists as the movement of steppingbeyonditself

that characterizes its antecedent understanding of a world. But this is just to say

thatDaseinisthetranscendent.Itisthisexistentialstructureoftranscendencethat

explains why Dasein is intentional in its mode of being: Dasein as transcendent

exists as directedtoward what it is not. It is this existential structure of

transcendence,then,thenthatisfoundingforintentionality.Consequently,together

the concepts world, transcendence and intentionality form the conceptual nexus

that illuminates, in a schematic way, the basic structure of Heideggers

phenomenological commitments. With this structure in view, we can now turn to

Irigaraystext.

PartII:IrigaraysApocalypticIntervention

Turning to Sharing the World, what we will see is that Irigaray deconstructs

HeideggersphenomenologicalaccountoftranscendenceasIhaveoutlineditinthe

previous section. Her argument proceeds according to two steps: first, Irigaray

argues that Heideggers account of transcendence is implicitly suffused by the

357
Ibid., 64.
149
operation of specularity;358 second, she shows that this operation of the specular

undermineshisaccountofthestructureoftranscendenceitself.Together,thesetwo

movesconstituteIrigaraysdeconstructivereading:Heideggersexistentialaccount

oftranscendencerequiresthenotionofsexuatedifference,butbecausehisaccount

oftranscendenceremainswithinalogicofthespecularhelackspreciselythis.

Fromtheveryopeninglinesofthistext,weseeIrigaraybegintoformulate

thisdeconstructivereading.AccordingtoIrigaray,

When the world corresponds to the transcendence projected by a

singlesubjectasthehorizonofthetotalityofallthatexists,thisworld

convertstimeintospace.Althoughsuchatranscendencerepresentsa

temporalprojectonthepartofthesubject,thefactthatthissubject

ensures,fromauniquestandpoint,thegatheringortheclosureofthe

wholeoffinitethingsresultsintheworldclosingup,eveninadvancein

acircle.359

Letmetrytounpacksomeofthecentralclaimsinthisverydensepassagesothat

we can begin to reconstruct her argument. On one hand, Irigaray emphasizes the

358
Here we might recall Mois account of Irigarays diagnosis of the specular: Disguised as reflections on
the general condition of mans Being, the philosophers thinking depends for its effect on its specularity (its
self-reflexivity); that which exceeds this reflective circularity is that which unthinkable (Moi,
Sexual/Textual Politics, 132). Whitfords formulation also bears repeating: Irigarays method of approach
to philosophy is to psychoanalyse the philosophers, to look for the phantasies that haunt philosophical
discourse. Her method is indebted to Lacans account of the mirror stage [] These two principles: to look
for the specular relationship, to uncover the buried mother, underlie all her analyses of the philosophers
(Whitford, Luce Irigaray Philosophy in the Feminine, 34, my italics).
359
Irigaray, Sharing the World, ix, my emphasis. It is beyond the scope of this chapter for me to adequately
illuminate the significance of Irigarays rethinking of phenomenological intentionality or the transcendence
of thought for questions of time and space. At most, this chapter reveals why through sexuate difference, as
her re-appropriation of phenomenology, Irigaray is led to question the relationship between sexuate
difference and spatio-temporality.
150
ecstatic structure of transcendence that Heidegger identifies as the existential

structure of human Dasein. Irigarays claim, on the other hand, is that Heideggers

articulation of this structure of transcendence is somehow selfeffacing. In other

words,theessentiallyecstaticnatureoftranscendenceisostensiblyunderminedby

afailuretothinkhumanDaseinotherwisethanwithintheparametersofaunivocal

subject.

This deconstructive gesture, I will attempt to show, encapsulates Irigarays

critique: according to her, Heidegger cannot maintain the ecstatic character of

Dasein, so long as Dasein remains legible as a univocal subject. To the extent that

Heidegger does attempt to hold together these two antithetical existential

determinations, Irigarays claim is that his project is selfeffacing. In order to

elucidate this deconstructive gesture, we must identify the way in which it recalls

thetwocentralmomentsofIrigaraysearliercriticalengagementwithHeideggerin

LoublidelairandTheWayofLove.

In the second chapter, we saw that Irigarays task in Loubli de lair was to

reveal the way in which Heideggers account of givenness evinces the structure of

specularity.Wesawthatthisspecularstructureisvisibleinthecomplextemporal

dialectic that subtends his account of both the ecstatic structure of care as well as

thebivalentmovementofaletheia.Bydrawingourattention,inSharingtheWorld,

towhatsheidentifiesastheossificationofthisecstaticstructure,itsenclosureand

spatialization,Irigarayisonceagainidentifyingthewayinwhichthereificationof

ecstasisoperatesthroughatacitinscriptionofthelogicofthespecular.

151
 Moreover,insofarasIrigarayidentifiesacertainunivocaldelimitationofthe

subjectasthemomentwhereinthislogicofthespeculargetsitsgrip,thenweare

alsoremindedofthestakesofhercriticalengagementwithHeideggerinTheWayof

Love.Indeed,inthethirdchapter,visvisDerridasmediation,wesawthatIrigaray

diagnosesaninsidiousinsistenceoftheanthropicinHeideggersphenomenological

interpretation of identity. In the opening gamut of Sharing the world, we are

reminded of precisely this earlier critical diagnosis insofar as Irigaray once again

identifies Dasein as concomitantly a structure of transcendence and as a univocal

subjectwhereinthelogicofthespecularisreinscribed.

Already, then, the opening lines of Sharing the World intimate the way in

which her two previous engagements with Heidegger resonate in this text. Thus,

when Irigaray tells us that, in Heideggers account of transcendence, the subject

ensures[]thegatheringortheclosureofthewholeoffinitethingsandthatthe

insistenceofthissubject,therefore,resultsinthereificationoftheecstaticstructure

oftranscendence,whatweseeispreciselythesynthesisofthesetwoearlycritiques:

the insidious insistence of the anthropic circumscribes the ecstatic structure of

transcendencewithinitshorizon.Inotherwords,theinsistenceofmanisthelocus

oftheoperationofthespecular.

ThesepreviousengagementsthusshedlightuponwhatIhaveidentifiedas

the central interpretive question of this text, namely the notion of transcendence

that is implicitly at stake in Irigarays account of the relationship between sexuate

differenceandworld.Indeed,weseethatitispreciselytheissueoftranscendence

152
thathascomeintofocus.Wearenowinapositiontosee,however,thatherclaimis

that the logic of specularity that plagues Heideggers phenomenological account of

transcendenceisinfactantitheticaltothisstructure.HerclaimisthatHeideggers

phenomenological notion of transcendence is cannibalized by the insistence of the

anthropic. That is, Heidegger has decentered the subject through his invocation of

Dasein as a structure of transcendence only to subsequently insidiously recenter

Daseinasaworldcircumscribingstructure.360

And yet, if, as Irigaray has already intimated in The Way of Love, sexuate

difference implies the dissolution of this specular logic insofar as it disrupts these

anthropicvestiges,thenIrigaraysinvocationofsexuatedifferencesignalsprecisely

the attempt to rethink this phenomenological notion of transcendence. With this

possibilityinmind,wecanreturntothepassagefromSharingtheWorldthatIcited

intheintroductiontothischapter.Thispassage,Isuggested,seemstocorroboratea

naturalisticinterpretationofsexuatedifference.AccordingtoIrigaray,

assoonasIrecognizetheothernessoftheotherasirreducibletome

or my own, the world itself becomes irreducible to a single world:

there are always at least two worlds. The totality that I project is, at

anymoment,questionedbythatoftheother.Thetranscendencethat

theworldrepresentsisthusnolongerone,norunique.361

360
As Derrida puts it, [i]n spite of everything it opens up and encourages us to think, to question, and to
redistribute, Dasein still occupies a place analogous to that of the transcendental subject (Derrida, Eating
Well, 271).
361
Irigaray, Sharing the World, x.
153
Wecannowsuggest,however,thattheothermustbeunderstoodnotasanextant

being who, in a nonphenomenological sense, transcends the boundaries of my

subjective sphere. Indeed, primarily, for Irigaray, the other is not an extant being

whoseverytranscendencecompelsmyacknowledgment.Instead,herclaimisthat

sexuate difference is inscribed in very structure of transcendence; it is the very

disruption of the logic of the specular; it institutes an irrecuperable fracture of

worlds.362

Conclusions

In this chapter, I have tried to sketch the stakes of Irigarays engagement with

Heidegger in Sharing the World. By offering an account of these stakes, I have

attempted to disrupt what, at first glance, might appear to be legible as a

straightforwardlynaturalisticinvocationofsexuatedifferenceinthistext.Indeed,I

have tried to show that, for Irigaray, sexuate difference does designate the

transcendentontologicalgroundfortheconstitutionoftwoworlds;instead,sexuate

differenceisnothingotherthanadifferenceofworlds.

Whatwesee,then,isthatIrigarayinvokessexuatedifferenceinordertotake

up Heideggers account of phenomenological transcendence in a way that is not

constitutivelyselfeffacing.Thatis,havingdiagnosedthesenseinwhichaninsidious

insistenceoftheanthropiccannibalizeshisownaccountoftranscendence,Irigaray

362
It is true that I then have to renounce projecting in a solitary manner or in a manner shared by all the
subjects of one epoch who are presumed to be the same the horizon of a world as transcendence (Ibid.,
x).
154
invokes sexuate difference as the nascent attempt to rethink transcendence as

fractured by difference. In this sense, Irigarays project in Sharing the World

becomes visible as the articulation of a feminist phenomenology rather than as a

turntowardanaturalisticphilosophy.Sexuatedifference,inthissense,signalsher

most profound commitment to Heidegger precisely through her radical

transmutationofhisproject.

Ofcourse,havingdiagnosedtheprofoundcomplicityofphenomenologyand

feminism, not only has Irigaray revealed the centrality of sexuate difference for

phenomenology, but simultaneously the parameters and stakes of feminism have

also undergone a transformation. That is, if Irigarays invocation of sexuate

difference eschews a naturalistic register, then it simultaneously recasts the

parameters of feminist philosophy. Though we may be tempted to object that this

account of Irigarays work is no longer recognizably feminist,363 this would be to

miss, in a sense, what is most incisive in Irigarays intervention. By revealing

Heideggers thought as always already implicated in the articulation of

phenomenologyassexuate,Irigarayclaimsforfeminismthepossibilityofspeaking

363
For example, as Rosi Braidotti, points out recent developments of continental, especially French
thought have added a new chapter to this on-going metaphorization of woman/the feminine as signs of
difference [] Postmodern (Lyotard), deconstructive (Derrida), microphysical (Foucault), critical
(Deleuze), and other kinds of philosophers have first of all sexualized as feminine the question of
difference and secondly have turned it into a generalized philosophical item (Braidotti, The politics of
ontological difference, 89). According to Braidotti, as a consequence of this move, the signifiers
woman and the feminine are privileged metaphors for the crisis of rational and masculine values, and
yet are no longer directly related to either the discursivity or the historical presence of real-life women
(Ibid., 89). I do not mean to merely dismiss Braidottis important objection, I merely want recall, on one
hand, what we already saw in the first chapter, namely that its force, at least in part, is parasitic upon the
presumption of naturalism as the purview of feminism. Second, it is not clear that Irigarays sexuate
phenomenology, as I have articulated it, is divorced from real-life women so much as it is a
transformation of the parameters within which the experience of real-life women is given philosophical
expression.
155
philosophically (as) woman in a way that is not reducible to speaking of woman.

Herewesee,inotherwords,theveryinstantiationofphilosophyinthefeminine.

156
Conclusion

The reason why we think that interpretation is restricted to

either inevitable distortion or literal reproduction is that we
wantthemeaningofamansworkstobewhollypositiveand
by rights susceptible to an inventory which sets forth what is
and is not in those works. But this is to be deceived about
works and thought [] Just as the perceived world endures
only through the reflections, shadows, levels, and horizons
betweenthings[]sotheworksandthoughtofaphilosopher
arealsomadeofcertainarticulationsbetweenthingssaid.
MerleauPonty,ThePhilosopherandHisShadow

In the introduction, I suggested that this project operates on two registers.

Straightforwardlyandexplicitly,itisintendedasaprojectofIrigarayscholarship.In

thissense,Ihavetriedtodelimitaproblemwithintheliterature,whatinthefirst

chapterIhaveidentifiedastheoverwhelmingtendencytointerpretIrigarayswork

within naturalistic parameters, and I have tried to illustrate that a more precise

engagementwiththreetextsthatspanthepasttwentyfiveyearsofherworkbegins

tounderminethisinterpretation.However,havingonlyexplicitlyconsideredthree

textsfromIrigaraysmuchbroaderoeuvre,Icertainlydonotclaimtohaveoffereda

comprehensive interpretation of the stakes of her thought as such, or even of her

laterwork.Instead,Ihavemerelyattemptedtoshowthatanycomprehensiveclaim

about these stakes must take into account the texts that I have considered, and

thereby can no longer claim the adequacy of an unequivocally naturalistic

interpretation of the parameters of Irigarays thought. Moreover, I have tried to

suggestthatasustainedanalysisofherindividualtextsmustprecedeanyattemptto

offeramorecomprehensiveanalysisofthestakesofherthought.

157
 Of course, what is substantively at issue in this methodological point is the

meaningandsignificanceofherinvocationofsexualdifference.Ihaveattemptedto

undermine the naturalistic interpretation of the parameters of her work, then,

precisely in order to recast surrounding the question of sexual difference. To

challenge the naturalistic interpretation is, minimally, to call attention to her

accountofthegivennessofsexualdifference.Itistoquestionwhetherthemodality

of its givenness tacitly implied in Irigarays invocation of this difference can be

unproblematically interpreted within naturalistic parameters. It is to question, in

otherwords,whethersexualdifferenceissomethingthat,aspersistentlyelidedand

deformedwithinpatriarchaldiscourse,canneverthelessberecuperated,something

that,asextant,canserveasthenormativegroundforfeminism.

By merely sketching the stakes of Irigarays engagement with Heidegger, I

have tried to suggest that her invocation of sexual difference resists these

naturalistic parameters. In Loubli de lair, we saw Irigaray invoke the feminine

pronounelleaswellastheadjectivefminininordertodiagnosistheoperation

ofmatricidethatsubtendsthespecularstructureofphenomenologicalgivenness.In

TheWayofLove,wesawthatIrigarayinvokessexualdifferenceinordertodisrupt

theanthropicvestigesofHeideggersphenomenologicalinterpretationofidentity.In

Sharing the World, we saw the culminating articulation of the legacy of these

previous engagements: here, Irigaray insinuates herself in Heideggers thought in

order to think phenomenological transcendence as ineluctably fractured by sexual

differencepreciselyinordertobelietheinsidiousinsistenceofanthropicthatwould

158
circumscribe his account of transcendence within a selfeffacing logic of the

specular.

By challenging the predominantly naturalistic tenor of Irigaray scholarship,

andbyofferinganalternativeaccountofthestakesofherlaterwork,however,we

seepreciselytheinextricableconnectionbetweenthesubstantivequestionofsexual

difference and the methodological question surrounding the parameters of

feminism.Thatis,bysketchingthestakesofIrigaraysengagementwithHeidegger,I

have tried to show that her project, at least in these texts, can be read as

propaedeutictoortheincipientarticulationofafeministphenomenology.Ofcourse,

thisclaimraisesanumberquestions.Iwillmerelytrytoenumerateandrespondto

thosetwothat,inmyopinion,arethemostpressing:first,howdoesIrigarayswork

articulate the complicity or jointure of the discourses phenomenology and

feminism?Second,howiseachofthesediscoursescoimplicatedanddestabilizedin

theirjointure?

Implicitly, however, we have already seen that these two questions are

intimatelyinterwovenandthattheanswertothemisalreadyinview.Indeed,what

we have seen is that although Irigarays engagement with Heidegger clearly

constitutesaninterventioninthephenomenologicaltradition,itisnonethelessnot

immediatelylegibleasaninstanceoffeministphenomenology.364Thedifferenceis

364
According Margaret Whitford, for example, while it is obvious that German philosophy Kant, Hegel,
Heidegger, Nietzsche has been extremely important for Irigaray [] I have not done more than register a
textual presence (Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine, 3). Chanter also describes her
project in Ethics of Eros as an attempt to situate Irigaray as a feminist theorist in the tradition of post-
phenomenological thinking to which she belongs (Chanter, Ethics of Eros: Irigarays Rewriting of the
Philosophers, 9). Dorthea Olkowski observes that Irigaray is often cited as the principle feminist who
159
this:aswehaveseenineachofthesetexts,Irigaraydoesnotappropriateanextant

phenomenological discourse to tell us what sexual difference is or to theorize

womanssexualspecificity.Indeed,sheeschewsastyleoffeministphilosophythat

operates through the appropriation of a strictly philosophical position and the

application of these insights to strictly feminist issues. In other words, what

Irigaray rejects is a method of feminist philosophy that takes up a set of

philosophical parameters in order to articulate an account of gender or sexual

difference as its expression. This is why Irigaray offers no theory of sexual

difference.365Indeed,thetaskoffeministphilosophy,asIrigaraytakesitup,isnotto

produceatheoryofsexualdifference,butrathertoshowthatphilosophyisalways

alreadyimplicatedinthearticulationofsexuatedifference,evenifonlywithinthe

intersticesofitsunthoughtorincertainarticulationsbetweenthingssaid.366

adheres to phenomenology as a method of descriptive philosophy, though Olkowskis goal is to ultimately

undermine this interpretation (Olkowski, The End of Phenomenology: Bergsons Interval in Irigaray,
Hypatia 15.3 [2000]: 74). Finally, Ellen Mortensen argues that though Irigaray rejects traditional
phenomenology, she appropriates Martin Heideggers radical phenomenology as outlined in Being and
Time. (Mortensen, Womans Untruth and Le Fminin, in Engaging with Irigaray, ed. Carolyn Burke,
Naomi Schor, Margaret Whitford, [New York: Columbia University Press, 1994], 221).
365
What I want is not to create a theory of woman, but to secure a place for the feminine within sexual
difference (Irigaray, This Sex which is Not One, 159). And indeed, this refusal is what makes Irigarays
work at once so compelling and so agonizing. The perpetual question of Irigaray scholarship is the
question, What is sexual difference? Her work never answers this question to our satisfaction precisely so
long as we fail to perceive the parameters and stakes of her answer.
366
Again, given the limited analysis of Irigarays work that I have undertaken, I can merely gesture toward
what appears given the stakes of the terminological shift from sexual to sexuate difference. Within the texts
that I have considered, this shift seems to signal Irigarays attempt to clarify the register of her remarks, and
thus it does not appear to mark any substantive shift in her thought. That is, Irigaray seems to invoke
sexuate rather than sexual difference in her most recent work in order to avoid a term that tends to be
misunderstood as designating a natural given. The point, then, is that these terms operate synonymously,
for neither refers to something extant.
160
 Concomitantly, then, Irigaray reveals Heideggers discourse as always

alreadyimplicatedinanarticulationofphenomenologyassexuate.367Thatis,what

she demonstrates is that we can neither return to a prior articulation of

Heideggerian phenomenology that would leave aside the inscription of sexuate

difference, nor can we simply abstract a phenomenological account of sexual

difference from this engagement. This indissolubility of the articulation of sexuate

difference from the parameters of phenomenology proper, then is perhaps the

mostsignificantconclusionthatemergesfromananalysisofIrigaraysengagement

withinHeidegger.Whatwesee,inotherwords,isthatIrigaraysworkrevealsthe

fundamental jointure of feminism and phenomenology through which the

parameters of both of these discourses are shown to be ineluctably coimplicative

andradicallydestabilizedintheirfundamentalcomplicity.

367
Johanna Oksala has argued, specifically with respect to feminist appropriations of Husserlian
phenomenology, that feminist phenomenology should not be regarded as a complement to extant
phenomenological theory but rather as a critical current running through the whole body of
phenomenological thinking and reaching all the way down to its most fundamental tenets (Oksala, What
is feminist phenomenology? Radical Philosophy: A Journal of Socialist and Feminist Philosophy 126
[2004], 17). Irigarays appropriation of phenomenology, I am attempting to suggest, is the very
instantiation of this description.
161
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