Between East And West: From Singularity to Community

by Luce Irigaray

Leading philosophers in the western tradition explore ancient Eastern disciplines. According to the author, Yogic tradition can provide a vital link between the present and eternity.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Luce Irigaray is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst and cultural theorist. She is best known for her works Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One. Presently, she is active in the Women's Movements in both France and Italy.

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The necessity of seeing spirituality as two instead of submitting to the one. Even Buddhism submits to singularities of impermanence, desire, attachment, craving, and suffering. You need to go back to the contemplatives of Hinduism if not before monotheism all together to find the kind of polyvocality she’s talking about with these pronouns. When “I” and “we” can mean different things depending on who is saying it. Then you have a spirituality that invites all subjects. I like how she talks about breathing in one’s subjectivity. The breath is a common feature of many religions. Something that can restore emotional agency. Can bring awareness to presence when there are so many facets of comparing one moment to the next which miss the essence of simply being.

[Dieter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important. Makes a subtle argument. Loses some in its esoterism. But philosophically I think what she is doing is very crucial in terms of what sexual difference means and what it is tied to culturally.

[Sachin · Rating 2 out of 5]

What exactly does the good lady want to say by the way? Sounded good but cant make a head or tail out of it.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't decide if Irigaray's a provocative genius or a heteronormative etc. At least she's into yoga.

[Desca Ang · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The body is then no longer just a more or less fallen vehicle, but the very site where the spiritual to be cultivated resides. The spiritual corresponds to an evolved, transmuted, transfigured corporeal…(what is) also too neglected in our Western (ized) teaching, is that love come to pass between two freedoms. …Love is presented there as union, regressive in a way but ecstatically spiritual,… But the union of two lovers, man and woman, free with respect to genealogy, can realise something other in the incarnation of human love. Each lover, woman or man, can contribute to the rebirth of the other as both human and divine incarnation. In this case, the carnal union becomes a privileged place of individuation and not only of fusion, of regression, or of the abolition of polarities and differences. In love, women and men give back to one another their identity and the potential for life and creation that the difference of identity between them makes possible.”
- Luce Irigaray on Between East and West
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