Reconciling Duality and Multiplicity

Drawing on Schelling, I have proposed a rethinking of Irigaray's philosophy according to which nature's process of self-differentiation becomes restricted by a culture which denies sexual difference, and would be released by a culture which recognises that difference. In conclusion, I want to bring together the strands of my argument in this book and show how my rethinking of Irigaray combines the strengths of her philosophy with those of Butler's – at least when Butler's philosophy is revised to recognise the natural multiplicity of bodies. By reviewing the respective strengths of these philosophies as a whole, and showing how the theory of self-differentiating nature can reconcile them, I aim also to provide a more integrated statement of this theory as a contribution to feminist thinking about nature, bodies, and culture.

I introduced Irigaray's philosophy of natural sexual duality by reassessing feminist debates surrounding her essentialism. I argued that her later writings affirm a form of realist essentialism according to which human bodies naturally have inherent characters, which they actively strive to express culturally. Opposing the widely held view that realist essentialism is untenable, I suggested that Irigaray's later position is appealing because it revalues bodies, and nature more generally, as active and self-expressive, intertwining the project of creating a sexuate culture with that of learning to ‘respect the realities that compose the pre-given world: that of the macrocosm and that of living beings’ (BEW, 16/27–8).