Women, Philosophy and Desire —A Reflection on Philosophical Didactics1

Abstract

This article problematizes women's relation to philosophy and the meaning of the erotic within philosophical didactics. I argue, with Michèle Le Doeuff in her classical article on women and philosophy, that the absence of women and the feminine within philosophy is a problem concerning philosophy's relation to the erotic, on the one hand, and of philosophy's self‐understanding as autonomous and complete, on the other. In order to trace the role of the erotic within Western philosophy I turn to the Phaedrus. By reminding that erōs is not just self‐satisfying desire, but primarily a divine striving, the description of the good relation between the lover and the beloved in this Platonic dialogue underlines the incompleteness of all human thinking. It is therefore, I argue, a source for rethinking philosophical didactics, the role of desire within it, and the feminine‐masculine divisions that have traditionally defined both.