Le Doeuff, Michèle (1948–)

Michèle le Doeuff has created new possibilities for philosophical writing. By working between philosophy and Shakespearean drama, social history and personal letters, she demonstrates how philosophy’s concepts gather meaning by circulating between different forms of discourse. In so doing she takes up many of the main problems of philosophy, including the nature of the self, the possibility of philosophical ethics, and the place of women in society and in philosophy. She shows, too, how philosophy’s proper commitment to critical reasoning represses the role of imagery in its own creative thought; philosophy seems dedicated to achieving theoretical results beyond its means, and imagery is misused to disguise its inevitable incompleteness. The spectre of women, or of some other group typified as ‘irrational’ is used to reassure philosophy of its own integral rationality.