References
- I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer who generously provided insightful and detailed comments on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank members of the Merleau-Ponty Circle and the Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy for their feedback along the way, in particular Marjorie Hass and Gail Weiss for their articulation of the limit of sexual difference. And finally thanks to Felix O'Murchadha and our students in Wuppertal who provided the wonderful discussions that were the seeds for this text.
- See for example, Judith Butler, ‘Sexuelle Differenz als eine Frage der Ethik’, in Macht Geschlechter Differenz, ed. by Wolfang Müller-Funk (Vienna: Picus Verlag, 1994); Elizabeth Grosz, ‘Merleau-Ponty arid Irigaray in the Flesh’, Thesis Eleven 36 (1993), pp. 37–59; Gail Weiss Body Images: Embodiment as Intercorporeality (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 121–128.
- Cathryn Vasseleu, Textures of Light (New York: Routledge, 1998) develops this observation with reference to light.
- ‘The Invisible of the Flesh’, in An Ethics of Sexual Difference, trans. by Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993); originally published as ‘L'invisible de la chair’, in Éthique de la différence sexuelle (Paris: Les éditions de minuit). The book is abbreviated as “Ethics”. For all translated texts the second page number given will refer to the French.
- Alison Ainley develops this argument in her essay, ‘“The Invisible of the Flesh”: Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray’, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 28, 1 (1997), pp. 20–29.
- ‘Eye and Mind’, in The Primacy of Perception, trans. by Carleton Dallery (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 181; L'oeil et l'esprit (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 67; abbreviated as E.M.
- E.M., p. 164; p. 22.
- Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. 236; Le visible et l'invisible (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 289; abbreviated as “V.I.”.
- V.I., pp. 212–213; p. 266.
- Ethics, p. 5; p. 13.
- Ethics, p. 141; p. 134.
- Ethics, p. 98; p. 98.
- See Leonard Lawlor, ‘The End of Phenomenology: Expressionism in Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty’, Continental Philosophy Review 31(1998): pp. 15–34, for an interesting discussion of memory in Merleau-Ponty.
- Phenomenology of Perception, trans. by Colin Smith (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), p. 347; Phénoménologie de la perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), p. 399; abbreviated as p. p.
- Ethics, p. 180; p. 168.
- Ethics, p. 152; p. 144.
- Ethics, p. 145; p. 137.
- Ethics, p. 87; p. 88.
- SeePenelope Deutscher, ‘“The Only Diabolical Thing About Women…”: Luce Irigaray on Divinity’, Hypatia 9, 4 (1994), pp. 88–111 for an excellent elaboration of this aspect of Irigaray's thought.
- Irigaray, “Flesh Colors”, in Sexes and Genealogies, trans. by Gillian C. Gill. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 162; ‘Les couleurs de la chair’, in Sexes et parentés (Paris: Les éditions de minuit, 1987), p. 176; abbreviated as F. C.
- F.C., p. 159; p. 173.
- V.I., pp. 269–270; p. 323.
- See This Sex Which is not One, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1985); Ce sexe qui n'en est pas un (Paris: Les éditions de minuit, 1977).
- Interestingly, Charles A. Riley II reports that “research teams at the University of Washington in Seattle and at Johns Hopkins University tracked the genetic basis of red photo pigments, a type of protein, and show that the newly discovered amino acid affects the part of the cone cells where color perception begins. The studies show that there is a nearly infinite number of ways to see red alone. The variations are caused by subtle differences in genetic makeup, offering a biological explanation for the extreme subjectivity of chromatic response”. Color Codes: Modem Theories of Color in Philosophy, Painting and Architecture, Literature, Music, and Psychology (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1995), p. 2.
- E.M., p. 165; p. 23–24. V.I., p. 262; p. 316.
- Merleau-Ponty writes that the imaginary “does not present the mind with an occasion to rethink the constitutive relations of things”. E. M., p. 165; p. 24.
- V.I., p. 267; p. 320.
- p. p., p. xx; p. xv.
- p. p., pp. 318–319; p. 368.
- Merleau-Ponty, ‘Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence’, in Signs, trans. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 56; Signes (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), p. 70.
- p. p., pp. 213–214; p. 247.
- p. p., p. 430; p. 491.
- F.C., p. 155; p. 169.
- F.C., p. 161; p. 175.
- F.C., p. 154; p. 168.
- ‘Gesture in Psychoanalysis’, in Sexes and Genealogies, p. 92; ‘Le geste en psychanalyse’, in Sexes et parentés, p. 106.
- F.C., p. 154; p. 168.
- Ethics, p. 104; p. 102.
- V.I., p. 132; p. 175.
- V.I., p. 132; p. 174.
- F.C. p. 162; p. 176.
- Ethics, p. 141; p. 133.
- F.C., p. 165; p. 179.
- Ethics, pp. 141–142; p. 134.
- Ethics, p. 126; pp. 121–122.
- V.I., p. 132; p. 175.
- Ethics, p. 158; p. 149.
- F.C., p. 158; p. 173.
- Ethics, p. 143; p. 135.
- Riley, Color Codes, pp. 3–5.
- Je, tu, nous, trans. by Alison Martin (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 109.
- See Véronique M. Fóti, ‘The Dimension of Color’, International Studies in Philosophy 22/3 (1990), pp. 13–28.
- V.I., p. 132; p. 174.
- Ethics, p. 156; p. 147.
- Ethics, pp. 158; p. 149.
- Ethics, p. 156; p. 147.
- F.C., p. 163; p. 178.