The Mediation of Touch

The first communication between human beings, the one between the newborn and the mother, happens through touch. Strangely this first way of relating to each other has barely been considered by our education and our culture, which have favoured sight to the detriment of touch. And yet touching and being touched means experiencing ourselves as living beings. For lack of such a t...

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The first communication between human beings, the one between the newborn and the mother, happens through touch. Strangely this first way of relating to each other has barely been considered by our education and our culture, which have favoured sight to the detriment of touch. And yet touching and being touched means experiencing ourselves as living beings. For lack of such a touch, we do not perceive the limits nor the sensitive potential of our bodies. Then we remain immersed in a natural or a cultural universe, incapable of reaching our own individuation and of knowing our fundamental difference from the other(s).

Desire, in particular sexuate desire, is a call for touching one another anew. But this touch requires us to have gained our autonomy and to be able to open up to and commune with the other as transcendent to ourselves while staying in ourselves. This book unveils and explores how touch can act as a basic living mediation in love and,more generally, in our comprehensive individual and collective human becoming. It also considers how touch can contribute to founding a culture respectful of difference instead of subjecting them to an ideal of sameness. We need touch as mediation to fulfil our humanity and to build a truly human thinking and world.

Luce Irigaray is a retired director of research in philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche scientifique (C.N.R.S.), Paris. She has doctorates in philosophy (1974), in linguistics (1968) and in philosophy and literature(1955). She is trained in psychoanalysis and in yoga. She has written more than thirty books translated in various languages. She has also co-edited thr...

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Luce Irigaray is a retired director of research in philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche scientifique (C.N.R.S.), Paris. She has doctorates in philosophy (1974), in linguistics (1968) and in philosophy and literature(1955). She is trained in psychoanalysis and in yoga. She has written more than thirty books translated in various languages. She has also co-edited three books composed of texts by early career researchers as part of a long term undertaking to give birth to a new human being and construct a new world.

Contents
1 Introduction: Expelled from the Nest 1 Part I Merged with the World 17
2 Born of Soma and Germ Cells 19
Divided Between Two Truths 19
The Dynamism of the Germ Cells 21
The Evolutional Potential of the Germ Cells 24
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Contents
1 Introduction: Expelled from the Nest 1 Part I Merged with the World 17
2 Born of Soma and Germ Cells 19
Divided Between Two Truths 19
The Dynamism of the Germ Cells 21
The Evolutional Potential of the Germ Cells 24
Effects of Germ Cells on Subjectivity 28
Touch as Mediation Between the Germ Cells and the Soma 31
3 The Space-Time of the Living 35
An Inhabitable Space 35
A Living Being Among Other Living Beings 37
Touch Between Natural Essences 40
Exiled in a Scientific Space-Time 44
Self-Production of the Natural Forms 47
4 The World of Human Beings 51
Generation of Forms Between the Genders 51
Evolution of the World Thanks to Germ Cells 54
How to Join Species to Genders? 57
Touch Does Not Stop at a Surface 60
The Micro-Milieu of the Relation of Couple 63
Part II Domination of Spirit over Soul 67
5 The Burial of Touch 69
Desire Aspires After the Beyond 69
Reciprocity of the Transcendental 73
Buried in the Common 76
When to Be Becomes a Substantive 80
Animate and Inanimate 83
6 Anesthesia of Soul by Spirit 87
A Universal Which Remains Particular 87
The Awakening of Soul by Desire 91
The Amorous Passivity of the Soul 94
The Place of Transformation of the Sensitive Feelings 98
A Sunny Soul 100
7 A History Cut Off from Germ Cells 105
The Link Absent from Dialectics 105
Overcoming the Master-Slave Relationship 109
In the Beginning, Difference Is 113
The Spiritual Character of the Union Between Different Subjectivities 116
The Absolute of Love 120
Part III The Question of Being 125
8 Confusion of the Living with the Made 127
Being That There Is 127
The Non-existence of the Generic 130
Living Being/Fabricated Being 133
Two Modalities of Presence 136
Entering into Presence 139
9 To Be as a Conjunctive Verb 143
The Subject Before the Apple Tree 143
The Path of Beauty 146
To Be as a Verb 149
When to Be Works Out the Gathering 152
To Be As Such Is Not Visible 155
10 An Ontology of the Living 159
How to Free Ourselves from a Traditional Ontology? 159
The Autonomy of the Living 162
Irreducible Singularity of Living Beings 165
The Non-perception of the Living by Sciences 170
The Lack of a Culture of Sensitivity 175
Part IV Feeling Nostalgic for the Dynamism of Germ Cells 179
11 What Desire Grants Us Life?—Beyond Laughter and Tears 181
The Artificial Ecstasy of Supra Sensitive Ideals 181
For What Ecstasy Longs Our Desire? 184
Overcoming Nihilism Through a Fleshly Transcendence 186
Giving Birth to One Another Anew 189
The Word of the Other 191
13‘My Dear Little Soul’ 197
A Hylemorphic Path 197
The Soul of Heidegger 202
Torn Between Things and Words 205
The Amorous Interlacing 208
A ‘to be’ Lacking in Words 211
The Dynamism Necessary for Our Becoming 215
The Other as a Source of Evolution 215
The Union Between the Same and the Different 218
The Driving Force of the Living 221
Natural Dynamism and Mechanical Energy 226
Part V Emergence of Germ Cells at Individual and Collective Levels 231
14 The Touch of Grace 233
Meaning of the Word ‘Grace’ 233
Wandering Outside Ourselves 234
Cut Off from the Touch of Grace 237
Awakening to the Innocence of Flesh 239
The Advent of the Beyond of Which Desire is the Messenger 241
15 From the Individual to the Couple and to the Community 247
Communication Between Sensitive Identities 247
Individuation and Individualization 250
Passage Through the Relationship Between Differently
Sexuate Individuations 254
What Does the Necessity of an Onto-Theology Mean? 258
16 Importance of Touch for a Democratic Culture 263
Citizens Lacking Identity 263
For What Do We Feel Nostalgic? 266
A Necessary Return to Self-Affection 269
The Functioning of a Real Democracy Needs Hetero-Affection 271
In Search of Self-Affection and Hetero-Affection in Supra Sensitive Ideals 276
Part VI Approach to Touch as Such 281
17 An Immediate Access to the Transcendental 283
The Innocence of Childhood 283
The Dialectical Relation Between I-Myself and You-Yourself 287
Forgetting a Conjunctive Potential 291
Touching One Another as Bodies and Souls 294
The Transcendental Dimension of Touch 297
18 The Communion Between Beings 301
The ‘Here’ of a Communion Between Different Living Beings 301
Intersubjectivity Needs Distance 305
Logos as Prosthesis 309
Origin of the Dynamism 312
The Touching of Our Lips 315
19 Elements of a Culture of Touch 321
The Crypt of Our ‘To Be’ 321
The Asymmetry Needed by the Living 325
Work of Art as a Projection of Touch 330
The Incarnation of the Divine 336
A Potential Revealed Thanks to Difference 341
By Way of Epilogue: The World Born of Our Embraces 347
Bibliography 359
Index 365
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