Beauvoir, Irigaray, and Philosophy

Luce Irigaray’s view of her relationship to Beauvoir’s work is that “there are important differences between our positions.” This should not be surprising given that these two philosophers belong to different even if overlapping philosophical eras. Beauvoir is identified primarily with phenomenological–existentialism and Irigaray with psychoanalysis and linguistics. This essay takes up those differences from an ontological and epistemological point of view suggested by a number of feminist philosophers but not fully examined in the work of Beauvoir and Irigaray. This includes Beauvoir’s rejection of dualist thinking produced by the binary logic of the Law of Excluded Middle, and Irigaray’s critique of formal logic based on her psychoanalytic perspective. Beginning with Beauvoir and moving from there to Irigaray, the essay takes up the question of the ontological and epistemological structures utilized by each of these two feminist philosophers with an eye to their subsequent ethical implications.