Irigaray’s Two and Plato’s Indefinite Dyad: The Space of Thinking

Danielle A. Layne

doi:10.54195/technophany.14049

Author(s)

Danielle A. Layne Gonzaga UniversitY

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54195/technophany.14049

Abstract

The following hopes to bring Plato’s unwritten doctrines into proximity with Irigaray’s concept of the Two as found in works like To Be Two or I love to you. By focusing on the the indefinite Dyad, Plato's reported co-archai with the One, it will be evidenced that Platonism begins and ends with a One which is not One (a kind of Two). Further, in this Dyad's failure to be One, it ultimately comes to possess its own productive and destructive power or, to use Irigaray's words, to love toward the Other in such a way as to produce or give birth to other others, real difference. Finally, Irigaray’s conception of the Two has dramatic social implications for her as a feminist, grounding a transformation of the political order of things. Due to this political import, the final section shifts to questioning whether Plato’s reported protological principles, the One and the indefinite Dyad, could perform a similar work.

Author Biography

Danielle A. Layne, Gonzaga UniversitY

Danielle A. Layne, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the MA in Philosophy at Gonzaga University, has published widely on Plato and the Platonic tradition. Notably publications include a translation with an introduction and commentary on Plotinus: Ennead I.5, “On Whether Well Being Increases With Time,” (Parmenides Publishing) and, most recently, the co-edited volume, Otherwise than the Binary: New Feminist Readings of Ancient Greek Philosophy and Culture (SUNY Press).