La difference des sexes recherches sur une forme de la connaissance
Institution:
Paris, EHESSDisciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
The notion of sexual difference does not belong to an already constituted field of research. In philosophy, it is not recognized as a philosophical object. In the last twenty years, my research's main objective has been the production of the epistemological conditions necessary for the constitution of such a field. Through the history of modern and contemporary feminist thought i have tried to answer questions of definition: the definitions of women's reason, of modern citizenship, of political emancipation. Dealing with the history of thought requires a genealogical reading of modernity: my purpose was to understand how women have been excluded from the res publica in the wake of the french revolution, and then how they have been at the same time included and discriminated against. My reading of modernity clearly shows how difficult it is to give a content to the notion of "equality" of the sexes. My analysis of modernity also allows and calls for an attentive reading of the major philosophers. Such a reading shows how the difference of the sexes intervenes in the very process of philosophical thought: the "women's question" raises interesting stakes for philosophers, while the difference of the sexes appears as an important operator in the dynamic process of the end of metaphysics. Thinking through the difference of the sexes thus becomes a philosophical objective. Western philosophical tradition both shows how eros and love have been used as a way to think about the sexes and, consequently, how philosophy has envisaged the place of sexual difference in its own history. In fact, the difference of the sexes intervenes in two ways in philosophical thought: first as a primal difference through which humanity thinks about itself, and second as a means of exchange within thought itself. For philosophers, sexual difference is thus not an object of thought but rather an origin and a means through which thought is produced.
Abstract FR:
Penser la difference des sexes ne releve d'aucun champ de recherche deja constitue. En philosophie, la difference des sexes n'est pas reconnue comme objet philosophique. La recherche menee depuis plus de vingt ans a eu pour objectif de produire des elements de savoir propres a constituer ce champ. En traversant l'histoire de la pensee feministe de l'epoque contemporaine j'ai tente de repondre a des questions de definition: definition de la raison des femmes, de la citoyennete moderne, de l'emancipation politique. Faire l'histoire de la pensee renvoyait alors necessairemment a une lecture genealogique de la modernite: il fallait comprendre l'exclusion des femmes de la respublica au lendemain de la revolution francaise, voir l'enchainement logique de leur inclusion, et deceler l'issue de cette dynamique sous le terme de "discrimination". La lecture de la modernite indique clairement la difficulte a donner un contenu au mot "egalite" des sexes. Or l'analyse de la modernite permet aussi de lire attentivement les philosophes. Avec le savoir historique et son analyse politique, l'abord de la philosophie de ces deux derniers siecles montre comment la difference des sexes intervient dans le travail de la pensee: "la question des femmes" et de leur egalite renvoie les philosophes a une lucidite des enjeux tres interessante; plus meme, la difference des sexes apparait comme un operateur non negligeable dans la dynamique de la fin de la metaphysique. Penser la difference des sexes peut ainsi devenir un objectif philosophique. La reprise de la tradition explique comment l'eros et l'amour tinrent lieu d'une pensee sur les sexes, et indique par la meme la double place de la difference des sexes dans l'histoire de la pensee: comme difference premiere a partir de quoi l'humanite se pense, comme un moyen d'echange dans la pensee. Ainsi la difference sexuelle est non pas ce qui est pense, mais ce avec et a partir de quoi on pense. L'ensemble de mes travaux releve d'une recherche d'intelligibilite, construction d'un champ epistemologique et genealogie de la modernite.