Irigaray on sexual difference
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- Philosophy professor Dr. Ellie Anderson introduces Belgian feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray's view of sexual difference, wonder, and the lips in Irigaray's book An Ethics of Sexual Difference.
This video was created just for our TH-cam channel based on Dr. Anderson's Continental Thought course at Pomona College.
For more pedagogical content from Dr. Anderson, check out Overthink podcast, the conversational audio show she co-hosts with Dr. David Peña-Guzmán, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Overthinkpodcast.com
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Hi Dr. Anderson- thanks so much for your videos! They're super accessible and thought-provoking, and as a recent college graduate, I love watching them to stay intellectually stimulated and to learn more about philosophy. I look forward to your future videos!
You always seem to be uploading videos on topics currently being discussed in class, such a great resource.
I was reading some Judith Butler for class today and this really helped me understand their references to Irigaray’s ideas. Thank you!
Thank You. Always helpful. Love your quote, “envision a union that preserves differences and upholds wonder.”
Thank you for the clear explanation; the text itself had always eluded my own understanding. ❤
excellent presentation style - fresh, concise
Your videos are so good, thanks!
you should add affiliate links to the books you discuss in the description! would make it easier to find the books for your audience and would give you a couple extra bucks!
I like the idea of sexual difference as a difference in otherness. And, I love wonder, which I believe disentangles anything we get tangled up. Sometimes I feel that feminist theory is exclusive when it stays theory and does not become applied to our practices. As with most theory, I dislike theory when it stays only in the abstract. But, I too love the idea that ethics must come first, before metaphysics and before ontology. Hopefully, whatever ethics that it is is an inclusive one which respects more and more the ideas and behaviors of groups which thrive in inclusivity.
I love your voice, and that it sounds very composed and confident. I wish I had such a way of projecting my own, and I think that because of your own good voice, that people really tune in and attend to this channel of yours.
loved that idea of 'difference without hierarchy', made me think of 'difference as a shifting graph/network of interactions'. neat how the farther we get into the 21st century, and into the digital revolution, our philosophical language starts to pick up different tones of complexity, perhaps thanks to our daily experience with the internet/web. also loved the 'men and women are different' voice, lol
Firstly thanks for the show, really helps fill a post-phd void. This really reminds me of the work of Val Plumwood, who expressed pretty much the same ideas but through an ecofeminist framework. I'd recommend her book Feminism and the Mastery of Nature as a wild ride from beginning to end, though her essays about predator-prey relationships and her fight with a crocodile are a fun late-night read.
love your background and shirt!
First comment.
thank you. this is(a channel on philosophical works/reviews) something I wanted to have on youtube 2 yrs back :) .
Even if we reject the difference in social standings, which have been a reflection of biological differences, things will only rhetorically change which is also important for the gradual big-change. In modern world, the further we move into the mental domain of human growth story, the more this biological difference will start to dwarf in it's influence on social standings(male-female dynamics). Looking forward to changes. ^+^
Que buenos videos suele estudiarlos en español y ahora que estoy aprendiendo ingles me gustar ver tus videos tu speaking es muy bueno, I like your videos.
Good job to pronunciate Yrigaray 👏
Thank you so much!!!
interesting ! it made me want to read this book
A perfect précis ~ once again!
Getting close to a video on Lacan I am hoping. Very interesting talk.
Same! I love Lacan (would love a video on Kristeva too).
Dear Ellie, Vive la difference!
thank you
I like the notion of the interval as a place of wonder. An in between. An imaginal fecund. In Mesoamérica we have the "neplanta"... which points to a virtual power between the subjective and objective...a transjective ...as an allowance for novel modes of un concealment...Irigaray as shamanic adjacent...;)
nice highlight, aka a 'liminal space' in the work of Mircea Eliade if I recall correctly. transjective is my new favourite word of the month!
thank you, very insightful. I wanted to ask about the interval, space and air thing, Isn't it very close to phenomenology? both Merleau-Ponty and queer phenomenology as Sarah Ahmed? Doesnt it seem that phenomenology is a more natural framework to conceptualise this thing in between to re-conceptualise how we look at the world?
Right? Seems to fit right smack bang in the middle of affect theory.
Surely the opposite of wonder is indifference or apathy?
What ST Coleridge referred to as 'death in life' in his Ancient Mariner.
Incurious springs to mind as another possible antonym.
Listening to Irigaray's ideas sort of reminded me of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls
Ever considered doing one on Phillip Mainlander? (Philip Batz.)
Very Cheery guy.
Will you ever make a video criticizing Lacan?
There's some decent ideas here, the value of 'wonder' about the unknown etc., but framing it all around masculinity/femininity seems silly. Similarly to how it seems silly for Butler to identify Descartes 'ego' with masculinity, when what Descartes' does is to disregard any particulars of the human being and thus to also to neuter them. The words 'masculine' and 'feminine' may indeed have misuses which fit onto the conceptual scheme of neutral/other or objective/subjective or something like that, but they also have more basic uses which simply describe real features of human beings -- and I'd insist on the first kind of case being a *misuse* of terms, as well as the valuableness of the genuine use.
Does Descartes actually disregard any particulars? It’s so covertly internalized in the binary that it might seem that way on the surface. But now that’s the whole point here…
..interesting (& important) to remember that Irigary got torn to shreds by Sokal & Bricmont - she thought that E=mc² was a 'sexed equation', and that the (unsolvable) Navier-Stokes equations (of fluid dynamics) were unsolved & unsolvable by 'men' who were not equipped to understand the 'fluid' - which was the domain of women. Other ideas she's had are also rooted in her abrahamic background - e.g. god = male/singular/space, the usual shame-laced fascination with the genitalia, etc.
Another wonderful, insightful video. I would like to begin a study of epistemology. Can you recommend a text that does a good job of surveying the topic?
Please reverse the play order of the Continental Philosophy Playlist. It is currently in reverse chronological order by topic. I'm pretty sure the series is intended to be viewed in forward chronological order by topic.
hi 😊 love your dress ❤️
I always have the impression that Irigary was on the right track as a feminist thinker, and a revolutionary one, before the Butler school of deconstruction went badly awry in the 1990s. All the hints at one-dimensional critiques of binary and essentialism slipped in here suggest this to be the case - regression in intellectual engagement to fit a political agenda. Still I enjoy these videos and think they are helpful to undergrads and preparatory students.
Dr. Anderson,
Were you in the video in favor of binary categorization as false? If so, is this the actual stance of recent feminist where there is only historic-perceptual differences in sexuality? If so, is there an answer, on your view, for the apparent discrepancy between the sexes?
deleuze has a really cool early paper (his first published anything) called "description of woman" that probably scratches this itch
somehow the sexual difference feminists have been less useful to my purposes, probably because their focus seems to be political
Very well said, wonder is the core of sexuality and what I refer to as a Mystery Dance. Sexuality as symbol is more revealing that its parts and actions.
Is this essentially a form of postmodernism? Great video.
of course it is
@@jackdarby2168 it should be, but the talking heads on tv and twitter won't shut up about 1984 and marxism leninism
@@jackdarby2168 you have to basically see what they mean from the context
here postmodernism is meant as a philosophical movement born from thoroughly interrogating modernist philosophers on their assumptions
@@jackdarby2168 idk about that, most postmodernists are leftists in some way
it depends on which ones you read but the good ones aren't about how nothing is true
@@jackdarby2168 well it's more that progressivism is more about liberal reforms and such
and not revolution
which many postmodernists still dream of
oh no i ended a sentence with a preposition
Isn´t apathy the opposite of wonder?
Yes and no. Yes, apathy is detached from everything while wonder attempts to attach itself to everthing to discover more. However, because wonder accepts reality uncondionally they have a common alignment. Wonder doesn't want to change the universe, apathy doesn't care enough to.
@@InsanitysApex Very interesting. Your comment makes me realize that I was seeing "opposition" in a somewhat taoistic sense. Lao Tse wrote: "cold and hot are abstractions of temperature". The fact that they are united by a common "root" doesn't prevent them from being opposites, but rather points to the necessity of them "playing in the same field" in order to be complementary opposites.
Following that line of thought, I would say that wonder and apathy are abstractions of this "reality acceptance" you mention, or something along those lines. Still, lots of thinking left to do...
Huh. Interesting. Gonna think a bit.
I wonder (heh) about this notion that there is no opposite of wonder. Isn't being jaded the opposite of wonder? Or does that not get at what she means?
As a male (in Norway), young in the 70s and 80s, I contend that we (some, at least) experienced a short period of faith in actual equality - genders, workplaces, ethnicity…
Why? Well, at that point in modernity, we still had this belief in teleological progress. Wrong as it was, nurturing a hope also influenced thoughts and actions - i.e. on the topic of this video.
However, modernity “progressed”. We are way beyond a society that can ever solve “issues” by increasingly reductionist methods. “Issues” being the culprit itself - an issue is by itself out of context and time. Solving one “issue” without generalising towards our misconceptions, is comfortable, but no actual solution.
A person in a society isn’t a “complicated mechanism”, we’re not machines. We are complex living beings by nature. Social constructs though, are made by us, not nature itself.
There’s more than matter both in us and between us. Maybe there’s a better understanding if we embrace as well as quantise?
It sounds like Irigaray is saying that 1+1 does not equal two, because of the "interval" between 1 and 1 (or between the lips), which seems like some irrational or mystical thinking, w/ the notion of the "interval" being invoked as some kind of magical and unlocatable presence (absent presence) that works a kind of mathematical alchemy by means of which 1+1 is somehow not 2, and likewise a binary is not a binary, which seems like some pretty sketchy logic.
In response to your previous comment, the interval and wonder were two different moments of the video, that's why I ignored this comment.
In any case, this sounds like a pretty bad faith reductio ad absurdum. It doesn't follow from the proposal of rethinking our primal relationship to time and space in terms as subjects that we must therefore question mathematical truths.
@@fede2 Oh, my comment about wonder was unrelated to my criticism of Irigaray--sorry if that was confusing. My criticism above was not in bad faith, and not intended as a reductio ad absurdum. I genuinely thought--and still think--that Irigaray's point was in fact plainly absurd; in short, she is claiming that a binary is not a binary (which is inherently faulty logic) because of the intercession of an "interval," which, as I suggested, seems like a vague and mystical term as it's being used by Irigaray. Definitionally, a binary relates to, is composed of, or involves two things, so by denying the duality or double nature of a binary is in fact tantamount to disregarding a mathematical truth and/or misunderstanding what a binary is, either of which would be an absurd/irrational position to maintain.
@@emileconstance5851 "...she is claiming that a binary is not a binary (...) because of the intercession of an 'interval'" No she isn't. These two things actually don't follow.
She isn't trying to reject the *concept of duality*. What she's challenging is daulity as a primordial account of the subject's engagement with the world. None of this requires rejecting mathematical truths or anything approaching that.
Opposite of wonder?? Disappointment? Boredom? Wow, Lakoff shows that metaphor drives our everyday language, for all people. Philosophy takes it to a whole other level, but probably not applicable to ways non-philosophers think about things like sex (either conscious or subconscious or culturally).
yeah felt like it should be disdain, ennui, or a term for 'taking everything for granted' (there must be a fancy word in German for that!)
@@bruce-le-smith It all hinges on how far the meaning of the word opposite goes.
Indifference...?
@@eximusic for sure, that reference to Descartes set some sort of scope around it, but out of context in a video on social media it's hard to play by the rules of traditional philosophical arguments
boredom isn't the opposite opposed to wonder? Maybe it's disdain? Where does Descartes say wonder has no opposite passion?
The Passions of the Soul
Thank you. You’re awesome!
We need more of feminism view points.
Asserting that sexual differences exist is borderline heretical in the Anglosphere in the 21st century.
Not if those differences aren't believed to be stable, ahistorical or "natural". I think that's what makes her proposal so interesting.
@@fede2 "You can assert it as long as you don't really assert it"
@@FoulUnderworldCreature No, sweetheart. It's all in the *why*.
Just wondering. The Wonder. How much different is it from the Adventure? Does the subject disappear? Is it timeless? Is that masculine?
Not to make a joke. I just want to understand.
To me it is the Human Universe. You can never leave that. A prisoner of a species being. But still a recognition.
Maybe the Human Universe is not so complete. Because of who wrote. And feminism is a mind and not a body.
Just want to understand.
Lacan. The unconscious.
But just to say something different.
I like my chair firmly on the ground.
Because I can see the chair.
I like that.
Every once in a while, someone throws it back into the air.
Where it was a long time ago.
I do not see dualism going away.
Subject Object.
There seems to be always some clever attempt to fuse them together.
Even from the East.
Thanks Ted Norcross
Do you think men and women can just be friends?
of course!
Efforts of egalitarianism (gender)are somewhat self defeating because what they do is draw more attention and regard to masculine values/traits to the detriment of feminine ones.
I'm not seeing the net effect of gender egalitarianism as everything becoming more masculine...
@@fede2 please proceed......
@@paulkituyi1967 Why don't you proceed, my guy? You're the one taking the positive stance here.
I'll say, though, that the concern you raise is somewhat surprising, since folks of your ilk tend to see the oposite problem: men aren't as "manly", that we're not as "tough" as we used to be or how everything is too "soft" now. I guess you don't agree?
OMGGGGGG
hahahahahaha exactly
If wonder is found in the "other," then the opposite of wonder would be sameness. In any case, good overview, but I find when one steps back and looks critically/carefully at what a philosopher like Irigaray is saying, it really amounts to nonsense and absurdist thinking.
You haven't pointed out the problem.
@@fede2 I did point out the problem, but in another comment, which should be easy to find. Please feel free to comment on it or critique it.
when philosophy goes into the way the world should work, rather than the way it works, it runs into trouble, in effect it becomes a form of politics which is why they don't mix well or if they do mix, its a disaster of which there are plenty of examples going back to the farce of plato's involvement with the sicilian tyrants
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
Trouble is what incentivises us!
Ne-c'est pas..?
I want to whine about the bullshit of the argument as it relates to time and space: that 'space is female' and 'time is male'. One may as well say that Time is about being conservative and Space is about being liberal. On the surface, it may appear as much, but its reduction to such primals reduces the argument to nothing, or nothing much.
Now the Lips comparison is interesting in male-female relations as we all have to breathe, but I wanted more insight into the 'alleged female/male divide'. Is pursuing that fraction worth destroying the whole of historically philosophy? Ugh, nuke the world while you (plural)'re at it.
Yes, we want to fit in (generally speaking), but beyond creation as a phallus/vulva act (traditionally), what people do in their lives may easily run tangent to those actions.
Do people need community?
Do gender-types need to intermingle?
Should mingling be managed or regulated, and/or why/why not?
There is probably friction in intermingling gender-types, owing to differences, given any situation. Each may have a wide range of priorities, stated and unstated. How do those priorities interact, where the 'other' is or isn't assumed to be an 'enemy agent'?
And so on ...
Thanks for sharing. Very interesting.
I love the idea of ethics as first philosophy but I cannot accept it. It appeals to my preferences and biases - I think ethics is more important than metaphysics. But I think ethics implies a right way, which implies ways - and therefore things like ways, distinct from not ways, and what else is there? Somehow there's an ethics of asking these questions however... Maybe philosophy is first philosophy... Maybe its domains are commensurate?
I agree that ethics cannot be taken as a first philosophy. And I can see how ethics can be "more important" than metaphysics, but metaphysics (and more precisely ontology) is definitely prior to ethics: How can you think what to do about something without investigating the nature of that something first?
@@LeonardoGarcia-qt6lf But it is true there must be some ways to do metaphysics so badly that there are questions about the ethics of ontology... 'Black arts ontology" is an ethical criticism of a sorts. But it begs the question, are the ethical questions about ontology a priori of any ontological knowledge or questioning? This is dizzying. Maybe some questions of many of the domains are equally essential as the first philosophical questions.
@@LeonardoGarcia-qt6lf If both points are true: How can you know what the right way is without first asking? How can you discover right ways without asking rightly? Could be a black or white fallacy that we want to place any philosophical domain as opposed to another at the base. Maybe the basic questions are all wound up.
@@LeonardoGarcia-qt6lf Did we first evolve the ability to intuitively distinct this is this or that? Or do this or that? If I ask like that, "how to eat?" seems like a question prior to "what to eat and what not?" Enough of the first question might accidentally learn what to eat, but the second question might fail to eat it right because it didn't have the virtue of a skilled bite.
@@defenderofwisdom It sure is a dizzying matter...
The reason why I say that ontology precedes ethics is that, although thought not always precedes the deed (you eat since before knowing what eating was)the conscious decision to take action with respect to something (Eating is necessary, and thus I´ll find the means to eat) does precede the conscious pondering of the ethics of the action (what should I eat? How should I get food and eat it?). Philosophy is always a conscious, volitive activity, and in the realm of volitive action (as opposed to instinctive or unconscious action, for example) "what?" precedes "what about it?".
I might be wrong, but that´s my reasoning so far.
Something tell me Irigaray must be heterosexual and might not like transgender people...
Based!
alenka zupancic
Impossible to listen to this without thinking of Boghossian and Lindsay's hoax paper: "The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct"
wut
The very act of destroying a binary system is itself a binary struggle. 😉
Wow. A lot of imaginative play with random disconnected concepts. Unfortunately, so disconnected not only with each other but also with reality that it will not move anyone closer to the truth of the human condition. Who does it help exactly to try and ground our sexual understanding and understanding of the person with people's lips, just because both women and men have them and it seems to be neutral ground. Irigarays work as presented in your monologue, no doubt very accurately, is a fantastic play with words, much closer to pure fantasy than to philosophy. The dignity of philosophy is its attempt to move everyone closer to the truth. Irigarays work appears much closer to a delusional and/or deceptive play with words than to a genuine move towards the truth.
Hermeticism has had a profound affect on philosophy. I don't think even authors who make use of it heavily really appreciate this consciously.