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Open Omara Dissfinaldraft.Pdf The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts FEMINIST REFLECTIONS ON THE NATURE/CULTURE DISTINCTION IN MERLEAU-PONTYAN PHILOSOPHY A Dissertation in Philosophy by Cameron Matthew O’Mara 2013 Cameron Matthew O’Mara Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2013 The dissertation of Cameron Matthew O’Mara was reviewed and approved* by the following: Dr. Leonard Lawlor Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Dr. Robert Bernasconi Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy Dr. Claire Colebrook Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English Dr. Véronique Fóti Professor of Philosophy Dr. Shannon Sullivan Professor of Philosophy, Women’s Studies, and African and African American Studies Philosophy Department Head *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT The purpose of this project is twofold: first, I trace the concepts of “nature” and “culture” throughout Merleau-Ponty’s corpus, drawing from select texts that highlight significant moments in the development of his thought. I show how nature and culture function as a problematic dualism that Merleau-Ponty is unable to collapse until his third course on Nature given at the Collège de France. I demonstrate that throughout Merleau-Ponty’s works, the human-animal relation serves to both trouble, yet reiterate this distinction. It is only when Merleau-Ponty begins to understand culture as institution, and to theorize the expressivity inherent in nature via institution, that he finds the means of positing the animal and the human, and later, the natural and the cultural, within a new model of difference that does not suggest an ontological divide between them. This model is what Merleau-Ponty calls the “flesh.” Second, I show how understanding the evolution of these concepts provides us with new ways to use Merleau-Ponty to theorize sexual difference and a multiplicity of gendered identities. I argue that situating nature and culture in the flesh allows us to advance beyond Luce Irigaray’s critique that the flesh does not provide for genuine difference. Following the model of the human-animal Ineinander, I offer a new reading of the flesh as an origin that resists any one gendered signification. Understanding the concept of the flesh in its historical place and the significance of the nature/culture divide in its development within Merleau-Ponty’s corpus opens up new possibilities for feminist appropriations of this ontology. This project thus serves to contribute another dimension to the small, but growing literature that seeks to employ Merleau-Pontyan philosophy in order to account for sexual difference beyond the binary. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. vi Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Project Outline ................................................................................................................. 2 Significance of Project for Feminist Philosophy.............................................................. 7 “New” Feminisms: From Nature to Culture and Back Again .................................. 7 Feminist Engagements with Merleau-Ponty .................................................................... 15 Feminist Phenomenology ......................................................................................... 16 Critical Responses .................................................................................................... 25 New Appropriations of Merleau-Ponty in Feminist Philosophy .............................. 28 Other Recent Scholarship ................................................................................................. 33 Chapter 2 Radical Reflection and Merleau-Pontyan Phenomenology ..................................... 38 Reduction ......................................................................................................................... 40 Essences ........................................................................................................................... 46 Intentionality .................................................................................................................... 49 Rationality ........................................................................................................................ 53 “A Violent Act”: Radical Reflection ................................................................................ 56 Chapter 3 Bodily Transcendence and the “Cultural World” in Phenomenology of Perception ........................................................................................................................ 62 From Scientific Objectivism to “the Phenomenon of the Phenomenon” ......................... 65 Theorizing Embodiment .................................................................................................. 77 The Spatiality, Motricity, and Unity of the Body ............................................................ 81 The Body in Its Sexual Being .......................................................................................... 97 Expression and Speech ..................................................................................................... 105 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 123 Chapter 4 Nature, Culture, and Expression.............................................................................. 131 Two Worlds, Revisited .................................................................................................... 142 “Cézanne’s Doubt”: A Phenomenology of Painting ........................................................ 153 From Perception to Ontological Interrogation: “Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence” .................................................................................................................... 160 Toward an Institutional Model of Expression .................................................................. 168 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 187 Chapter 5 Beyond Nature and Culture: Flesh and the Human-Animal Ineinander ................. 192 Institution ......................................................................................................................... 195 v General Overview .................................................................................................... 197 Institution and Life ................................................................................................... 207 La Nature.......................................................................................................................... 216 Beyond Substance: Cartesian Origins ...................................................................... 216 The Return to Animality .......................................................................................... 224 Eight Sketches of Nature .......................................................................................... 244 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 250 Chapter 6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 255 Project Findings ............................................................................................................... 255 Flesh and the Impasses of Feminist Theory ..................................................................... 263 Bibliography..................................................................................................................... 270 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project is the culmination of several years spent contemplating the nuanced, but often troubled relationship between feminist activism, feminist theory, and continental philosophy. I thank my mentors and colleagues at the University of Memphis for convincing me that my political concerns were important to philosophy, and for providing me with the tools to begin the long work of forging a place for them in the literature. To that end, I am forever grateful to the members of the University of Memphis feminist theory reading group, Dr. Mary Beth Mader, and the other members of the faculty for providing a warm and welcoming community to support my early philosophical development. I also thank Drs. Kristin Gissberg, John Nale, and Andrea Janae Sholtz for the many productive and inspiring exchanges we shared as students together. This work would not be possible without my partner, Katharine Smith, who continues not only to support my work as an academic, but also challenges me to question and think critically about all of my life’s endeavors. Drs. Mary McClanahan and Jeanne Stanley also deserve special thanks for giving me perspective and keeping my life balanced throughout this process. Finally, I owe immense gratitude to the faculty of the philosophy department at Penn State, and especially those on my dissertation committee: Drs. Robert Bernasconi, Claire Colebrook, Shannon Sullivan, and Véronique Fóti. I have been inspired by each of you in your seminars and writings,
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