Luce Irigaray’s Philosophy of the Child and Philosophical Thinking for a New Era
Sophia March 1, 2022 Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir 1 citation
Luce Irigaray's philosophy of the child, presented in her 2017 book To Be Born, reframes the child not as a rights-bearing subject needing care but as a metaphor for a new human being rooted in natural belonging. Building on her earlier work on sexuate difference and the repressed feminine, Irigaray argues that the child within each adult—a source of embodied, affective thinking—has been silenced and repressed. She calls for philosophical thinking to reconnect with these early experiential layers, aligning with methodologies like Claire Petitmengin's microphenomenology and Eugene Gendlin's felt sense. This approach offers a basis for embodied philosophical inquiry for a new era.