Alison Stone offers a feminist defence of the idea that sexual difference is natural, providing a novel interpretation of the later philosophy of Luce Irigaray. She defends Irigaray's unique form of essentialism and her rethinking of the relationship between nature and culture, showing how Irigaray's ideas can be reconciled with Judith Butler's performative conception of gender, through rethinking sexual difference in relation to German Romantic philosophies of nature. This is a sustained attempt to connect feminist conceptions of embodiment to German idealist and Romantic accounts of nature. Not merely an interpretation of Irigaray, this book also presents an original feminist perspective on nature and the body. It will encourage debate on the relations between sexual difference, essentialism, and embodiment.

Alison Stone offers a feminist defence of the idea that sexual difference is natural.

About the Author
Alison Stone is Professor of European Philosophy at Lancaster University. She works in feminist philosophy and theory, with particular interests in French feminism and debates around embodiment, essentialism, sexual difference, and sex and gender. She also works in post-Kantian European philosophy, especially German idealism and Romanticism, Marxism, and the Frankfurt school. She is the author of Petrified Intelligence: Nature in Hegel's Philosophy (2004), An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy (2007) and Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Maternal Subjectivity (2011). She also edited The Edinburgh Critical History of Philosophy, Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century (2011).


Book Information
ISBN 9780521118101
Author Alison Stone
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 390g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 15mm