Bierhanzl Jan, Ontology a ideology of femininity

Filosofický časopis 2018/2, s. 285 - 298

The concept of femininity plays a foundational role in Levinas’ conception of sociality throughout his work. Despite the various different forms that this concept assumes in Levinas’ ontology and ethics, we attempt to show, in agreement with several feminist interpreters, that in the background to this development one can perceive a certain ideological content which is fundamentally unchanging and which is not called into question, in a philosophically satisfactory way, in any of the author’s texts. The tension between the ideological and ontological content of the concept of femininity will ultimately be the key to a possible philosophical overcoming of this ideological content when Levinas’ thought is treated as a whole.