Abstract

Operative Contradiction and the Description of 'Woman' argues that textual contradiction and incoherence play a functional role in two accounts, drawn from the history of philosophy, of the role of woman. ;In the first chapter, I consider how textual incoherence has been interpreted by anglophone feminist theorists. Examining the field of Rousseau criticism, we see that Rousseau's contradictions are frequently interpreted as accidental, or as invalidating the author's thought. They may provoke searches for the author's 'true' meaning or for 'explanations' of textual incoherence. ;In the second chapter, I consider alternative modes of interpreting textual contradiction. I examine deconstructive readings of Rousseau and develop the notion of 'operative' contradiction. In chapters four and five, I use this notion to argue that textual incoherence is not incidental in the work of Rousseau and Augustine, but rather enables their descriptions of the role of woman. I argue that these descriptions are legitimated by 'operative contradictions' relating to the representation of man as both 'like' and 'unlike' God, and to the multiple connotations of 'nature'. ;The thesis concludes by considering how self-contradictory or paradoxical structures sustaining these accounts of woman might be destabilised. I propose that the 'unveiling' of their generation by internal incoherence does not necessarily constitute a substantial disruption of their effect. For this reason, I turn to the recent work of Luce Irigaray. The material presented in the thesis is reinterpreted as a means of considering why Irigaray's concern for the subversion of traditional versions of feminine identity leads her to the proposal that 'woman needs her own divine'. While the thesis does not have a theological orientation, it does investigate the sense in which man/woman oppositions are already 'theologically grounded'. Irigaray's account of a feminine divine as the prolegomena to any future feminine identity is interpreted as a recognition of and critical response to the structure which I discuss in the preceding chapters: the interconnection between masculine and feminine identity-effects and the projection of ideal transcendental entities or laws