Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference

by Alison Stone

Alison Stone offers a feminist defence of the idea that sexual difference is natural, providing a novel interpretation of the later philosophy of Luce Irigaray. She defends Irigaray's unique form of essentialism and her rethinking of the relationship between nature and culture, showing how Irigaray's ideas can be reconciled with Judith Butler's performative conception of gender, through rethinking sexual difference in relation to German Romantic philosophies of nature. This is a sustained attempt to connect feminist conceptions of embodiment to German idealist and Romantic accounts of nature. Not merely an interpretation of Irigaray, this book also presents an original feminist perspective on nature and the body. It will encourage debate on the relations between sexual difference, essentialism, and embodiment.

Genres: Philosophy

262 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[Emrys · Rating 4 out of 5]

I vastly disagree with the conclusions made, but because I vastly disagree with at least one founding assumption, rather than with the process of the development of Stone's ideas, which is rigorous, clear, and very useful.