Untruth of woman : Luce Irigaray's deconstruction of Western metaphysics and its theological implications : a Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Theology, University of Auckland

Abstract

Untruth of Woman offers a post-structuralist feminist understanding of agency that considers how sexual difference, and thus woman, is the blind spot of Western metaphysics and on the other hand, how sexual difference is already at work in the constitution of Western metaphysics more intractable concepts. This approach is opened up by tracing Luce Irigaray’s deconstructive re-readings of Martin Heidegger, Plato, Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Frederich Nietzsche, and Jacques Derrida. I apply this analysis to the systematic theology of Paul Tillich, disclosing the way in which the ontical categories of his thought renders the factual body unthinkable. The final section looks at Irigaray’s pre-philosophy of sexual difference and how this impacts on the theology of Elizabeth Schiissler-Fiorenza and Mary Daly. This preliminary investigation lays the necessary groundwork for understanding why the question: what is woman is so difficult to answer, while providing a new direction for understanding female agency and her multiple embodiments.