Beauvoir, Irigaray, and the Possibility of Feminist Phenomenology

Abstract

It is quite easy to quickly pass over these two remarks without granting them any particular significance or weight. And yet, if we linger upon these statements for a moment, an altogether obvious but nevertheless important affinity between Beauvoir and Irigaray comes into view. Indeed, we see that what Beauvoir identifies as a failure of philosophical inquiry, Irigaray formulates as its positive task. At stake for each of these thinkers is the possibility of raising the question of sexual difference as a philosophical question. Of course, it is hardly remarkable to suggest that what these two canonical feminist philosophers share is a desire to pose the question of sexual difference in these terms. This moment of congruence, then, is not significant in and of itself but, rather, in virtue of the horizon of questioning that is opened up by it. The issue it raises is this: What does it mean to pose Beauvoir, Irigaray, and the Possibility of Feminist Phenomenology