Tracing Sexual Difference: Beyond the Aporia of the Other :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Tracing Sexual Difference Beyond the Aporia of the other(a)ABSTRACT A reading of Luce Irigaray suggests the possibility of tracing sexual discrepancy in philosophical accounts of personal identity. In particular, I argue that Irigaray raises the possibility of moving beyond the aporia of the separate which lies at the heart of Paul Ricoeurs account of self-identity. My rivalry is that the self cin one caseived in Ricoeurs Oneself as Another is male insofar as it is dependent upon the patriarchal monotheism which has regulate Western culture both socially and economically. Nevertheless there remains the possibility of developing Ricoeurs reference to the trace of the Other in decree to give a non-essential meaning to sexual difference. Such meaning will emerge when (i) both men and women have identities as subjects, and (ii) the difference between them can be comported. I aim to elucidate both conditions by appropriating Irigarays Questions to Emmanuel Levinas On the Divinity o f Love. I. IntroductionHere I appropriate two questions from Luce Irigarays Questions to Emmanuel Levinas On the Divinity of Love in order to disruptively refigure Paul Ricoeurs account of self-identity, without assessing Irigarays reading of Levinas. Irigaray suggests the possibility of tracing sexual difference in philosophical accounts of personal identity. By tracing I mean to follow the marks left by that which is no longer present to that which is never entirely spoken, i.e. sexual difference. I argue that Irigaray makes possible moving beyond the aporia of the Other which lies at the heart of Ricoeurs account of self-identity in Oneself as Another. This aporia is a self-engendered paradox which, as I have demonstrated elsewhere, Ricoeur is not able to go beyond he cannot name the Other/other (whether lAutre as a general category for the Other or lautrui as a term for another person). My contention is that in appropriating Irigarays questions, we can begin to refigure Ricoeur s account of self-identity, extend his use of the trace of the Other and conceive the non-essential meaning of sexual difference. As it is Ricoeurs account of self-identity seems to eclipse sexual difference in being dependent upon the patriarchal monotheism which has shaped western cultures both socially and economically. Yet according to Irigaray sexual difference will be conceiveable once (i) both men and women can gain identities as subjects, and (ii) the difference between them can be expressed. Arguably Ricoeurs notion of narrative identity, to which I will return, could express this difference and these distinct identities.