Talk:Luce Irigaray

Untitled
I moved this tag from the main page! Please put WikiProject tags in talk pages in future :) VivaEmilyDavies 22:59, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sexed equations and bombastic utterances
What, nothing in here about Irigaray's assertion that E=mc^2 is phallocentric? Nor her related claim that science cannot formulate an accurate model of turbulence because it refuses to acknowledge the Awesome Power of the Vagina? 85.64.246.205 21:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The lede on this article needs to point out that she's even more batshit insane than Dworkin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:9:7E02:5D25:54BA:BCE3:CEDA:2A2B (talk) 01:24, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Silly "criticism" sections
I removed the Sokal digression a couple months ago. I apologize that my edit summary was not descriptive... I would not normally do that: the poor summary was a glitch either by the software or by my brain, though I can't remember which now. (I had been experiencing problems with "save" timing out in the past, so the bad summary may have been a second try after I removed whitespace too).

In any case, I continue to be uncomfortable with spurious (less generous would be "moronic") criticisms stuck into articles on academics. Actually, not just academics: I've seen the same thing in technical topics, like ones about computer programming. There's this really terribly wrong idea of "balance" that floats around that every presentation of a topic has to have a critic or criticism. But the notability of academics is not firstly the fact that someone or another has criticized their thinking... in fact, any thinker notable enough for an article has probably acquired critics, since that's the nature of academia. It's in the nature of the beast, however, that every thinker who has been moderately widely read, has a dozen professors and hundreds of graduate students, who have written something criticizing some aspect of their thought. Heck, I've probably published something with criticism of Irigaray, albeit passing criticism... I don't want whatever little essay I published in grad school in this encyclopedia article.

I certainly think that whatever Sokal writes is notable in the article about him, or about his books in which the criticisms are stated, or like that. But the article on a criticized subject should not have the criticism unless it speaks in some notable way to their reason for notability. In this case, it's just barely plausible to qualify under that criterion. The stated issue about 'E=mc^2' and phallocentrism is roughly relevant to something actually in Irigaray; actually I'm not sure about that, since I can't recall that in Irigaray—it seems plausible that she comments something like that though. In contrast, there had been something in the Lacan article that said something like "Sokal says that even though he never read Lacan, he's sure it's gibberish" (which was utterly non-notable).

If some editor can make a plausible case that the passing criticism actually relates to Irigaray's notability, I guess it's not so terrible for the article. Not great, but maybe bearable. Such a case, of course, should not be: "Irigaray is wrong, and readers must be alerted to the fact". Right or wrong, it's not our job to ferret out the truth of philosophical claims. Absent a level of plausibility, I'll probably take out the paragraph as non-notable. LotLE × talk 00:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The only reason Irigaray came to my attention was due to the mentioned criticisms of such (hilarious) statements. I think that when something you have said becomes so widely discussed and commented, it becomes notable enough for inclusion in the article. --Lost Goblin 19:43, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Whether it was right or wrong, the attack on Irigaray by Sokal and Bricmont was certainly memorable. Since Sokal and Bricmont are well known figures, it does a disservice to readers of the Irigaray article not to let them know that they criticised her. Mentioning Sokal and Bricmont's criticisms is not the same as saying that they are correct; that can be left to the reader to judge.


 * The argument that Lulu made for deleting the mention of Sokal and Bricmont's criticisms is in my opinion not convincing, since they are primarily about Irigaray's alleged misunderstanding of scientific concepts generally, and Irigaray's views on science are certainly one reason for her notability. Skoojal (talk) 19:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I am by no means an expert on Irigaray and make no claims about the criticisms in question, but as in the Lacan article, I urge you reconsider the wholesale deletion of the criticism section. By removing or "integrating" criticism, we run the risk of producing articles that are POV-by-omission-- or in the case of integration, POV-by-reader-laziness. Notable, well-sourced criticisms belong in the articles on their subjects, irrespective of whether one editor believes they are "moronic." Whether we believe Sokal's attacks are convincing is immaterial-- his comments themselves ruffled quite a few feathers, and numerous secondary sources have documented that feather-ruffling. While I am certainly AGFing as always, the "biographical irrelevance" argument for en bloc removal of all criticism seems spurious and apologetic. --Kajerm (talk) 21:52, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:CRIT. Whatever the merit of some particular criticism in itself, it definitely does not belong in a separate WP:COATRACK section, but only if it can be integrated into the document flow.  LotLE × talk  22:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I was not familiar with the essay WP:CRIT; its reasoning for avoiding Criticism sections is rather thin (especially seeing as our entire encyclopedia itself is a troll magnet.) It is at least mildly disingenuous to blindly label criticism of an article's subject as wp:coatrack. Alas, it seems this is the consensus view and that any notable figure with well-placed editors who admire them has free license for the wholesale purge of any criticism with even a drop of venom in it. This is rather depressing. --Kajerm (talk) 05:29, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It is, and should be, consensus. Even more than consensus, governing policy is WP:BLP, which in fact takes precedence over any other policy (for legal reasons).  Nothing with "venom" has any place on Wikipedia, since any such thing is inherently unencyclopedic.  Perhaps a personal blog would be a better place if what you want to write is "venom" (about any topic, not just this biography).  LotLE × talk  07:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Coming two years after this debate, my impression is that there seems to be a mild (weak/apparent) approbation of the fact that the memorable criticism by Sokal and Bricmont should somehow be mentioned in the article, yet not in a specific "Criticism" section. I might be wrong in my appraisal of this old debate and I wouldn't be upset if my addition of today eventually gets removed - but if it is indeed removed, it wouldn't be bad to check once again if this episode should be mentioned at all. It does relate to the credibility of part of the works of this scholar, and I think it should be mentioned (as a sidenote, as one of the previous contributors said above, Irigary only came to my attention because of her hilarious statements about this equation). Camcom (talk) 10:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

CNRS and other affiliations
Like many people, I've never been able to find evidence of Luce Irigaray on the CNRS website or documents. Does anyone have a citation from CNRS to corroborate the claim that she's affiliated?

I'm adding mentions of universities at which she's recently taught. Shom02 22:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)shom02


 * This person is apparently not affiliated with CNRS (directory search). She might have been in the past, though; the maximum retirement age in France at CNRS is 65. The referenced biographies all seem to be older than 2008. Camcom (talk) 14:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

what about Freud?
there is nothing here about Freud? He was one of the biggest influences of Irigaray!!!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.50.104.23 (talk) 04:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

Incorrect characterization of arguments
The article said:
 * Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont's Fashionable Nonsense criticizes Irigaray, as a general example of what they believe is the anti-scientific tendency of "postmodernism". They cite her analyses of E = mc² as a "sexed equation" (because it privileges the speed of light) and her argument that fluid mechanics has been neglected by "masculine" science that prefers to deal with "masculine" rigid objects rather than "feminine" fluids.

This paragraph contains a very tendentious summary of of Irigaray's argument about fluid mechanics and an incorrect summary of the Sokal/Bricmont criticism of it.

If the problem is honestly your wanting to avoid mis-representing her own views, that has an easy remedy, quoting her directly. That quote has been deleted, I see from the history, again, and deleted again, along with any other criticism which includes the "E=MC^2". Clearly some people are willing to censor to achieve their aim of denying Wikipedia readers of any knowledge about this very famous and notable criticism of Irigaray. Clearly "you misrepresented her argument" is a ruse, because, again, otherwise there would not have been deletion also of her own words: ''' "Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest." '''

Yet that was deleted too. These censors will re-visit this page over and over again, as my reading of the January, February, through May of 2008 history shows: they will delete every reference to the embarrassing E=MC^2 claim, and even delete direct quotes like the above: they do NOT want anyone to now she uttered these words. So countless wikipedia articles giving biographies (E.g. on Chomsky) have a Criticism section so do articles about certain topics (E.g. Animal Rights); they also have a Criticism section. '''It is completely and utterly dishonest to the extreme to state there is anything remotely counter to wikipedia "coatrack" or other standards to include in a biography a Criticism section with well known (almost famous) criticism with a short summary. You can delete all you want, but this fact remains.''' -Patrick Henry, 02:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

First, Irigaray's argument. In the passages cited by Sokal and Bricmont (on pages 102–106 of the 1997 Profile Books edition), Irigaray does not claim that science is masculine, nor that rigid objects are masculine, nor that fluids are feminine. These claims appear in N. Katherine Hayles' interpretation of Irigaray quoted on page 101. Hayles' interpretation, in my opinion, goes considerably beyond what Irigaray says in the extracts that Sokal and Bricmont quote, and I don't think it deserves mention here. (Unless we're going to cite it as an example of the way caricatures of Irigaray have become well known among people who haven't read her work at all.)

Second, the Sokal/Bricmont criticism. This has nothing to do with the "anti-scientific tendency of postmodernism". Sokal and Bricmont's criticism is that Irigaray is incorrect about the history of the development of solid and fluid mechanics and has misunderstood the source of the difficulty of finding solutions to the equations of fluid mechanics.

I've rewritten the paragraph as best I can so that it's fair to both sides without making it any longer than it deserves to be. Gdr 20:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Good work! The rewritten version reads much better, and is more encyclopedic. I suspect Sokal and Bricmont are among that large group of people who criticize Irigaray (and most of the folks they "criticize") without having read her.  But your language is neutral and clear.  LotLE × talk  20:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. (But you're being unfair to Sokal and Bricmont. They quote more than three pages of "The 'mechanics' of fluids" and they imply that they have read the whole essay, although they have understandable difficulties with Irigaray's highly allusive language, hence their need to consider interpretations such as Hayles's.) Gdr 20:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * While I appreciate your effort, I'm not convinced the changes are a clear improvement, and I'm not sure why would you delete the link. One can agree or disagree with 'Fashionable Nonsense', but I think the previous version represents its criticism more accurately. --Uriel 10:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the link because I did not use the Dawkins review as a source for the revised paragraph. I worked directly from the Sokal & Bricmont book.

Why do you think the previous version was a better characterization of Sokal and Bricmont's criticisms? I have looked carefully and I can find nothing about the "anti-scientific tendency of postmodernism" in the Luce Irigaray chapter. Please be specific. Gdr 13:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been arguing over Sokal and Bricmont's interpretation of Irigaray's "E=MC^2" passage elsewhere, and with the help of others I think I can make a good case that at minimum it's in error, and at worst a deliberate misinterpretation.

One crucial detail is that in French, *every word* has a gender. This is a critical part of the language; as one website puts it, "You can’t master French if you don’t master French genders." This applies to abstract mathematical concepts, too; calculus ("calcul") is masculine while geometry ("géométrie") is feminine. In the original French, Irigaray asks "l'équation E=MC^2 est-elle une équation sexuée ?" "elle" is roughly equivalent to English's "she," and the word "équation" is female-gendered. So a strict translation of that sentence is "The female equation E=MC^2, is she a sexed equation?" Irigaray goes on to argue that the equation is masculine, due to the way it privileges the speed of light. This constitutes a Proof by Contradiction:


 * 1) Assume it makes sense for equations to have a gender attached.
 * 2) Show that an equation should be thought of as masculine.
 * 3) But French says all equations must be feminine. Contradiction!
 * 4) Ergo, it makes no sense to attach a gender to equations.

This is strengthened by the surrounding context. Before the "E=MC^2" part, Irigaray complains that science and philosophy have drifted apart, and scientists no longer think of the assumptions behind their methods. After that part, Irigaray points out that body parts are sexed (the French word for skin ("peau") is feminine, but how is skin "female?"), and that other cultures either don't agree on that gendering or don't gender at all. At the beginning of the chapter containing the "E=MC^2" passage, Irigaray lays out some critical questions. The second is about the ties between science and the written word (“des relations entre science et littérature“). The third covers the symptoms she sees within science today, and two examples she explicitly mentions are how discoveries are named (“les intitulés des découvertes”) and the invocation of female-sexed terms in scientific language (“la fonction des termes de sexualité féminine dans le langage scientifique”).

This is further strengthened when we look at Irigaray's education and area of study. She's a philosopher with a speciality in linguistics and how it influences the way we think. In an essay published at roughly the same time, “Is the Subject of Science Sexed,” she explicitly talks about how unintentional gendering may influence the way we think. An English translation of her French: "In order to ask if so-called universal language and discourse (languages and discourses, at least one of which is that of science) are neutral as far as the sex that produces them, it is appropriate to pursue research according to a double exigency: to the interpret authoritative discourse as one that obeys a sexual order that the speaking subject doesn’t see and to try to define the characteristics of what a language that is differently sexed would be."

But of course, English does not assign a gender to words. When translating from a heavily-gendered language like French, the convention is to erase all references to gender, since they're almost always irrelevant to the subject being discussed. When they are relevant, however, this habit erases critical context. Add in the omission of the passages before and after, and the fact that Sokal and Bricmont are apparently aware she's a linguist (they explicitly use that word when introducing her), and you can make a decent case that she was deliberately quote-mined.

I'm erasing that section, as Wikipedia shouldn't be spreading misinformation. I'd like to include some of the above, but it constitutes original research by me and the next-best source is the comment section of a blog which I participated in. Hopefully people will click-through to the "Talk" page if they're wondering why her page doesn't mention Sokal/Bricmont's criticism.

Hjhornbeck (talk) 08:04, 17 February 2016 (UTC)


 * That's a plausible explanation but without a source to back it up Wikipedia considers it unsuitable "original research". D.Creish (talk) 08:42, 17 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm caught in a pickle, then. Irigaray is obscure in feminist circles, and most of them either don't know of her work or don't care. I haven't seen anyone go into the same depth as I and a few others have, so the best source for this includes myself and my research. Either we continue to repeat Sokal/Bricmont's claims when we have a plausible reason to think they're false; I try to find someone else to duplicate my own research, making a mockery of the "no original research" rule; or we just delete the claim and remain somewhat neutral on the matter.
 * I'm not sure I follow your use of "mockery." Are you saying you have published research on the topic? If so it may be a valid source. D.Creish (talk) 07:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I figure the main reason anyone would publish some research would be because I slipped them my homework and said "mind looking into this?" That's dangerously close to socking, and even if not the results would be heavily influenced by my own research. Either way, it defeats the purpose of the "no original research" rule. As for publishing my work, I'm working well outside my area of expertise and I don't think I've done enough research to compensate for that. All I can do is establish plausibility, not act as definitive source. Hjhornbeck (talk) 18:15, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Alright, I see what you're saying now. As I understand it the purpose of "no original research" is not to prevent advancement of a field by discouraging wikipedians from contributing :) but to establish a baseline for source quality. The same way we can't use random tweets or tumblr posts as sources, we can't use our own talk-page edits. The assumption is that, if it is valid research it would be publishable in relevant journals. I know the sourcing rules well enough to say there's absolutely no problem if you passed your research to someone for publication - what I don't know is, assuming it were published, whether you could continue to edit the article. I know Wikipedia discourages editing when you're the subject of the article, I don't know the policy when you're the author of a cited source. Maybe the Help desk or a noticeboard could answer that. D.Creish (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Would it help if I dumped a bunch of citations here, on the Talk page, to buttress what I've argued above? Hjhornbeck (talk) 23:02, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Hjhornbeck makes a strenuous, convoluted effort into salvaging Irigaray's "E=mc²" as some sort of Sapir-Whorfian point on how gendered language would supposedly affect the development of hypotheses, but absolutely nothing of that is implied in the remainder of the citation, not even in the surrounding context. She somehow attributes the "sexual" quality to the equation never pointing it to the gendered grammar of French (shouldn't it be Einstein's German?), but on it "privileging the speed of light" over other speeds that may be "more necessary" (in contrast to "not by its use on nuclear weapons.") The immediate context was that someone questioned her on whether she would describe E=mc² as a "masculine equation" (so, apparently unrelated with the grammatical feminine French gender of équation) while mentioning discomfort with some of her extrapolations from one area of thought to another. She first denies she does such extrapolations and analogies, and concludes by saying many scientists, except perhaps some like Eisntein, do not really think about what they do. Then she proceeds to answer about the equation, which is replied with the E=mc² quote. That is followed by saying that maybe the whole "speed of light" thing makes people prone to endanger themselves with excessive speeds! Only after that she proceeds questioning the grammatical gender of body parts, not to make any argument in line with was suggested, but just randomly making free associations on how some organs are seen in different cultures as more masculine or feminine, and that therapeutic traditions ("western and eastern, like acupuncture") are based on an "economy" of the "sexual body", "not only regarding the sexual organs." That's how far the sources for the context I've seen have it. Nowhere there is the slightest rudiment of a Sapir-Whorfian point, it's just a grammatically coherent sequence of random free-associations, she could as well conclude that "colorless green ideas sleep furiously." Sounds much like some Fritjof Capra stuff or someone needing to take their dose of some psychiatric medication. If there's anything like a Sapir-Whorf type of argument there, it should be in the next page, after all this unrelated nonsense. Either that, or she's absurdly incompetent at expressing her ideas. The statement that saying the equation is "masculine" by "privileging the speed of light rather than other speeds (and rather than its use on nuclear weapons)" constitutes a "proof by contradiction" is simply a glaring non-sequitur (pretty much every phrase in that sequence), and actually kind of contradicts what Irigaray is saying (she does not say it makes no sense for the equation to be "sexed", but rather "perhaps the equation is sexed," implicitly masculine, as stated in the question someone asked her). Perhaps Hjhornbeck is the one who's "proving by contradicting" her, rather than she being the one who made such "proof"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.234.134.21 (talk) 02:57, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

False claim
This article currently claims that Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont admit to not having read Irigaray. No such admission appears in their chapter on Irigaray in Fashionable Nonsense, which contains a number of quotations from Irigaray's books and articles. The claim appears to be clearly wrong. Skoojal (talk) 03:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The admission by Sokal and Bricmont is not in their book itself, but in other statements they have made after the book. I know that's hand waving without a citation; but I concede that such a digression is going too far afield in any case (so would rather just remove the caveat that dig up a cite).  However, anything beyond a mere statement that S&B do criticize is really straying too far.  Articles on academics should really, really focus on discussion within their own fields, not just digress into vague ranting by people who don't like general fields of inquiry.  In any case the weird claim (that S&B don't even really make) about "sexed equations" is just too irrelevant for inclusion.


 * However, you are right that my edit earlier today was the wrong one. A simple mention of a well known popular text that mentions Irigaray negatively is fine to include, as long as it's not belabored.  Readers are free to read the linked article on Fasionable Nonsense if they are so inclined.  LotLE × talk  03:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Antoinette Fouque
The article describes Antoinette Fouque as a feminist leader. I'm not sure that Fouque considers herself a feminist (Theodore Zeldin says in An Intimate History of Humanity that she rejects the label), so possibly this should be changed.

The description of Hélène Cixous as a feminist is also open to question.

Skoojal (talk) 03:47, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

A suggestion: get rid of the criticism section
I think the criticism section of this article should be deleted. If anything it contains is relevant to Irigaray's biography, and I suspect that none of it is, then it should be integrated into the rest of the article. The rest should be deleted. Although I have objected to the deletion of Sokal and Bricmont's criticisms in the past, this is no longer my position; I think this stuff should be in article on Sokal. Skoojal (talk) 07:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Huzzah and hurray! I wholeheartedly agree with Skoojal here... and thank him/her for thinking so carefully and with an open mind about the proper focus of biographical articles.


 * I've tried to characterize this on some other talk pages that I know Skoojal has seen, but for other editors: IMO (and per WP:CRIT, etc) what belongs in a biography is (only) facts pertinent to understanding who a given intellectual is, what they did, and to a lesser extent to influence they had on contemporary thinkers.  It is pointedly not the job of WP to tell readers whether that thinker is "right" or "wrong", nor even really to give readers "everything they need to judge the correctness."  An intellectual certainly has positions on whatever issues, but s/he is not herself those positions, but rather a person who advanced them.  There might be some other article on a given intellectual position or concept; that article on the concept might appropriately set its advancers against its refuters.  Humans, however (living or dead) are still distinct from the concepts they are most associated with.  LotLE × talk  07:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm considering simply deleting the criticism section entirely, but I'm waiting to see whether anyone has a better suggestion. Skoojal (talk) 01:40, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If there are no objections, I am going to add this part of the criticism section, 'There is an extensive body of literature critiquing and engaging with the philosophy of Luce Irigaray. Margaret Whitford's Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine and her edited collection of essays Engaging With Irigaray provide a useful starting point', to the overview, and delete the rest. Skoojal (talk) 23:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Support LotLE × talk  01:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleting a section on criticism suggests that the editors of Wikipedia feel that her work may be perfect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.77.145.121 (talk) 10:35, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Destructive Irigaray edits
''Note: For some reason User:JCDenton2052 removed this from his talk page with the WP:CIVIL violating edit comment "rvv". I guess I'll have to put it here instead:''

I don't know why you are sticking in wrong words in Luce Irigaray.

Well, I think I do actually, but it's a completely silly reason. For some reason, as you've stated elsewhere, you want discussion to follow neat parallels where every word that has a morphological parallel has an identical distinction in meaning. So you took out Irigaray's own use of "masculinist" because she doesn't use it as the opposite of "feminist". And just some moments ago you changed her use of "feminine" to "feminist" (the latter a word I think Irigaray has never used in writing), I suppose because you think it would make a nice bookend to the word "masculinist" elsewhere in the article.

You just can't do this! Some silly word game puts meanings into Irigaray's mouth that she simply never had. In describing her books, we have to actually pay attention to what they say, not what we might wish they said. Where possible, we should use the same terms she does; but even where we aren't that literal, there are forms of language that don't involve antanaclasis nor antimetabole. LotLE × talk 22:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Syntactics
Does anybody understand the final sentence in the section "Contributions to feminist theory"? Aboctok (talk) 05:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Citation for the "sexed equation"
Right now, Irigarays claim/hypothesis that E=mc² is a "sexed equation" is being marked as "citation needed". I just came across this article which tracks down the original reference in great detail: https://zetetical.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-hunt-for-sexed-equation.html I think it would be nice to include this knowledge somehow, especially as Sokal&Bricmont are sometimes accused of fabricating this quote. 2003:D5:3F26:E304:2B96:283:C552:A04 (talk) 00:42, 12 May 2021 (UTC)