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Wittgenstein and Irigaray: Gender and Philosophy in a Language (Game) of Difference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Joyce Davidson  and
Mick Smith
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Abstract

Drawing Wittgenstein's and Irigaray's philosophies into conversation might help resolve certain misunderstandings that have so far hampered both the reception of Irigaray's work and the development of feminist praxis in general. A Wittgensteinian reading of Irigaray can furnish an anti-essentialist conception of “woman” that retains the theoretical and political specificity feminism requires while dispelling charges that Irigaray's attempt to delineate a “feminine” language is either groundlessly Utopian or entails a biological essentialism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Spring 1999 , pp. 72 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by Hypatia, Inc.

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