Between East and West: From Singularity to Community (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

"A Leading Philosopher steeped in the Western tradition explores ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe: the result is a powerful challenge to discover the relevance of indigenous Asian philosophy to our lives. According to Luce Irigaray, yogic tradition can provide a vital link between the present and eternity, allowing us to reexamine and reenvision the patriarchal traditions of the West. Lacking personal experience with yoga or other Eastern spiritual practices, the Western philosophers who have tried to address Hindu and Buddhist teachings -- particularly Schopenhauer -- have frequently gone astray. Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Luce Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world. By returning to fundamental human experiences -- breathing and the fact of sexual difference -- she finds a way out of the endless sociologizing abstractions of much contemporary thought to rethink questions of race, ethnicity, and globalization. Book jacket."--Jacket. Read more... Abstract: Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world, and an ethic of sexual difference predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine. Read more...

With this book we see a philosopher well steeped in the Western tradition thinking through ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe, and urging us all at the dawn of a new century to rediscover indigenous Asian cultures. Yogic tradition, according to Irigaray, can provide an invaluable means for restoring the vital link between the present and eternity -- and for re-envisioning the patriarchal traditions of the West.

Western, logocentric rationality tends to abstract the teachings of yoga from its everyday practice -- most importantly, from the cultivation of breath. Lacking actual, personal experience with yoga or other Eastern spiritual practices, the Western philosophers who have tried to address Hindu and Buddhist teachings -- particularly Schopenhauer -- have frequently gone astray. Not so, Luce Irigaray. Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world. She looks toward the indigenous, pre-Aryan cultures of India -- which, she argues, have maintained an essentially creative ethic of sexual difference predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine.

Irigaray's focus on breath in this book is a natural outgrowth of the attention that she has given in previous books to the elements -- air, water, and fire. By returning to fundamental human experiences -- breathing and the fact of sexual difference -- she finds a way out of the endless sociologizing abstractions of much contemporary thought to rethink questions of race, ethnicity, and globalization.

Columbia University Press

incorporating Her Personal Experience With Yoga Into Her Provocative Philosophical Thinking On Sexual Difference, Irigaray Proposes A New Way Of Understanding Individuation And Community In The Contemporary World, And An Ethic Of Sexual Difference Predicated On A Respect For Life, Nature, And The Feminine.

library Journal

what Happens When A Distinguished French Feminist Philosopher And Psychoanalyst Takes Yoga Lessons? Irigaray Gets Some Shocks And Some Good Ideas, Too. She Chafes At The Male Sexist Attitude Of Some Yoga Teachers And Concludes That Patriarchal Censorships And Repressions Encroached Upon A Once Healthier Aboriginal Tradition In India. Irigaray Also Believes That The Differences Between Men And Women Can Play An Important Role In The Emergence Of The Love That Is Our Best Hope Something Quite Possible Within An Eastern Tradition That Understands Its Resources (western Misunderstandings, Including Schopenhauer's, Take A Beating Here). She Comes To Believe That Breathing Is A Way Of Focusing The Body And That The Idea Of Shared Breath Is More Fundamental Than The Idea Of Exchangeable Words. Most Readers Will Not Be Persuaded That, For Instance, There Is A Difference Between Male And Female Breathing, But This Is A Fresh Look At The Need For East And West To Get Together, And Irigaray's Notion Of A Community Without Gender Wars Is Important. Leslie Armour, Univ. Of Ottawa Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

With this book we see a philosopher well steeped in the Western tradition thinking through ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe, and urging us all at the dawn of a new century to rediscover indigenous Asian cultures. Yogic tradition, according to Irigaray, can provide an invaluable means for restoring the vital link between the present and eternity -- and for re-envisioning the patriarchal traditions of the West. Western, logocentric rationality tends to abstract the teachings of yoga from its everyday practice -- most importantly, from the. Read more... Abstract: Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world, and an ethic of sexual difference predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine. Read more... "A leading philosopher steeped in the Western tradition here thinks through ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe, and urging us all at the dawn of a new century to rediscover indigenous Asian cultures.". "Luce Irigaray's focus on breath in this book is a natural outgrowth of the attention that she has given in previous books to the elements - air, water, and fire. By returning to fundamental human experiences - breathing and sexual difference - she finds a way out of the endless sociologizing abstractions of much contemporary thought to rethink questions of race, ethnicity, and globalization."--BOOK JACKET. Content: Time of Life 21 -- Eastern Teachings 49 -- Way of Breath 73 -- Being I, Being We 93 -- Family Begins With Two 105 -- Approaching the Other As Other 121 -- Mixing: A Principle for Refounding Community 131. "There is much that is strange, but nothing that surpasses man in strangeness" (Sophocles, Antigone, vv. 332-333).