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Philosopher

Luce Irigaray

Philosophy of Language

Luce Irigaray, born 3 May 1930, is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst and cultural theorist who examines the uses and misuses of language in relation to women, considered one of the founders of French difference feminism. Her first and best known book, Speculum of the Other Woman, published in 1974, analyzes the texts of Freud, Hegel, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant through the lens of phallocentrism, and she has written further works analyzing other thinkers, including This Sex Which Is Not One in 1977, which discusses Jacques Lacan's work and political economy, Elemental Passions in 1982, read as a response to Maurice Merleau-Ponty's essay on the chiasm, and The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger in 1999, which critiques Heidegger's emphasis on earth as the ground of life and speech and his neglect of air. Irigaray employs three modes of investigation into gender, language and identity, the analytic, the essayistic and the lyrical poetic, and as of October 2021 remained active in the women's movements of both France and Italy.

Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account
1930 1
Defining MomentSourced to the subject's own account
Publication of Speculum of the Other Woman (1974), a critique of phallocentrism in Western philosophy and psychoanalysis that led to her expulsion from the Ecole Freudienne de Paris and her recognition as a founder of French difference feminism. 1
Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account
1930-05-03 1
Notable PublicationSourced to the subject's own account
Speculum of the Other Woman (1974) 1
Office HeldSourced to the subject's own account
Director of Research in Philosophy, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), holding a research post there since 1964 1
BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own account
Blaton, Wallonia, Belgium 1
TraditionSourced to the subject's own account
Continental philosophy and French difference feminism; psychoanalytic and linguistic critique of phallocentrism 1
Classification
NationalitySourced to the subject's own account
France 1
Luce Irigaray
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Connections

Critiqued Here

Martin Heidegger, Philosophers
Source Luce Irigaray (Wikipedia)
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Philosophers

Why this is disputed. Status debated rather than attested: the cited article frames this as an interpretive reading ("could be read as"), not a flatly stated fact.

Source Luce Irigaray (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Luce Irigaray (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Infobox, birth_date field
    3 May 1930
  • Infobox, birth_place field
    Blaton, Wallonia, Belgium
  • Introduction, paragraph 2
    Irigaray's first and most well known book, published in 1974, was Speculum of the Other Woman (1974), which analyzes the texts of Freud, Hegel, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant through the lens of phallocentrism.
  • Education, paragraph 4
    She was expelled from this school in 1974, after the publication of her second doctoral thesis, Speculum of the Other Woman, which received much criticism from both the Lacanian and Freudian schools of psychoanalysis. This criticism brought her recognition.
  • Education, paragraph 5
    She has held a research post at the CNRS since 1964, where she is now a Director of Research in Philosophy.
  • Introduction, opening sentence
    Luce Irigaray (born 3 May 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examines the uses and misuses of language in relation to women. She is considered one of the founders of French difference feminism.
  • Influenced By: Martin Heidegger, Major works section
    in The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger (1999), Irigaray critiques Heidegger's emphasis on the element of earth as the ground of life and speech and his 'oblivion' or forgetting of air.
  • Influenced By: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Major works, Elemental Passions subsection
    Luce Irigaray's Elemental Passions (1982) could be read as a response to Merleau-Ponty's article 'The Intertwining-The Chiasm' in The Visible and the Invisible.
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