Luce Irigaray and Horizontal Transcendence

This book offers an interpretation of the work of the Belgian philosopher Luce Irigaray (1930) as an ethical and phenomenological endeavor and – building upon that interpretation – considers her thoughts about transcendence and spirituality. It continues and extends the investigation of Irigaray’s ethical notion of embodiment developed in the dissertation of the author, Dialectiek van de seksuele differentie (Dialectics of Sexual Difference, Amsterdam: Boom 1998). The present book concentrates on Irigaray’s embodied ethics of alterity, which implies that self-limitation leads to respect and openness for the other, and on her elaboration of these themes in terms of transcendence and spirituality. It tries to show among others that Irigaray’s work on religion and the divine is humanistic, in the sense that it is her aim to develop a perception of God and the divine that supports the development and fulfillment of both women and men. Irigaray calls for rethinking religion as an endeavor to help people become better human beings, that grow to become what is within their capacities, and that at the same time respect others as others.