Textures of Light: Vision and Touch in Irigaray, Levinas and Merleau Ponty

In: Warwick Studies in European Philosophy

Abstract

Textures of Light draws on the work of Luce Irigaray, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas to present an outstanding and ground breaking study of the vital importance of light in Western thought. Since Plato's allegory of the cave, light and the role of sight have been accorded a unique position in Western thought. They have stood as a metaphor for truth and objectivity and the very axis of modern rationalism. More recently however, this status has come under significant criticism from continental and feminist thought which has stressed the privileging of subjectivity and masculinity in