Hypatia, Inc.

Interval, Sexual Difference: Luce Irigaray and Henri Bergson

Author(s): Rebecca Hill
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2008), pp. 119-131
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 Interval, Sexual Difference:
Luce Irigaray and Henri Bergson

REBECCA HILL

Henri Bergson s philosophyhas attracted increasingfeministattention inrecentyears

as a fruitfullocusfor re-theorizingtemporality.
Drawing on Luce Irigaray'swell-known
criticaldescriptionofmetaphysics as phallocentrism,
Hill argues thatBergson s deduc
tionof duration ispredicated upon thedisavowal of a sexed hierarchy.She concludes
thearticle byproposinga way tomove beyondBergson s phallocentrism toarticulate
duration as a sensibleand transcendentaldifferencethatarticulatesa nonhierarchical
qualitative relation between the sexes.

This article offers a feminist critique of the primary intuition of Henri Berg
son's entire philosophy, his celebrated deduction of consciousness as duration
(1933/1992, 12-14). I will suggest that his intuition of the enduring self is
elaborated within restrictively masculine parameters. Now, I do not make this
claim simply in order to condemn Bergson's thinking in the name of feminist
theory. On the contrary, I want to consider how we may reread his intuition
of the enduring self in relation to Luce Irigaray's formulation of the interval
of sexual difference.
Let me briefly explain how I understand the interval of sexual difference
in Irigaray's work. As is well known, sexual difference has at least two senses.

First, "sexual difference" is a critical description of the violent sexed hierarchy

that covertly inaugurates as Second, "sexual dif
metaphysics phallocentrism.
ference" is the opening to thought and to life,which figuresman and woman
in a nonhierarchical relationship (Irigaray 1993).
According to Irigaray,hierarchical sexual difference elevates the conceptual
architecture of philosophy by positing a disavowed outside. Irigaray empha
sizes that the stakes of this violent relation are sexed. articulates
Metaphysics

Hypatia vol. 23, no. 1 (January-March 2008) ? by Rebecca Hill

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 120Hypatia

concepts that are isomorphically congruent with the male sex and excludes
what she calls "the maternal-feminine." For Irigaray, the maternal-feminine is

the unthematizable material foundation cast outside ofmetaphysics in order for

metaphysics to function. In this sense, sexual difference inaugurates philosophy
but is construed as a violent
hierarchy.
Now, Irigaray's project goes beyond describing the sexed hierarchy that
to posit a new
secretly underwrites metaphysics, formulation of sexual differ
ence. Her radical proposal situates man and woman in a horizontal relation that
is irreducible. In stark contrast to the phallocentric figuration of philosophy,
Irigarayproposes that themasculine and feminine poles of life should be recon
ceived as autonomous thresholds of becoming. The maternal-feminine would
no longer function as the repressed ground of knowledge because thoughtwould
from the sexuate relation or interval between man and woman. These
begin
sexed poles of lifewould not be given as static concepts; theywould be consti
tuted through the differentiatingmovement of the interval (1993, 48-49). In
this formulation, can no be understood as a neutral
thinking longer activity:
is articulated the interval as a sexuate relation.
thinking through
The privilege Irigaray confers upon the interval of sexual difference in its
radical sense?as thedifference fromwhich thinking emerges?has important
implications for her critique of the monosexual economy of conventional
metaphysics. Where radical sexual difference foregrounds the interval between
man and woman as the opening of thought, philosophy traditionally proceeds
from an obscurity. The inaugural act of differentiation enabling metaphysics
to separate itself from the maternal-feminine is unthought within metaphysics.
In other words, in the philosophical tradition, both thematernal-feminine and
the interval flounder together in obscurity (1991, 169).
The interval, then, is fundamental to Irigaray's project. In nonhierarchical

sexual difference, the interval is posited explicitly as the opening of thinking

and life,while in themonosexual economy ofmetaphysics, the interval is the
secret lever of differentiation that buries the material-feminine and elevates
philosophy as phallocentrism. Itmust be emphasized that the differentiating
movement of the interval is always understood by Irigaray as both spatial and
temporal.
As far as I am aware, Irigaray does not engage with Bergson's philosophy
specifically.Yet, as Dorothea Olkowski and Elizabeth Grosz have pointed out,
there are significantaffinitiesbetween Irigarayand Bergson's respective projects
(Olkowski 1999: 80-83; 2000; Grosz 2004, 14). I will suggest that Bergson's
on duration is, in some ways, remarkably resonant with Irigaray's figura
thinking
tion of the interval of sexual difference. Significantly formy purposes, Bergson
or
privileges a "concept" of the interval as the opening of time, what he calls
duration (la duree). And forBergson the interval of duration isnothing other
than the threshold of intuition, themethod he believes philosophy must pursue

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 Rebecca Hill 121

in order to become a rigorous form of knowledge. The Bergsonian interval is

not subordinate to identityor calculability. On the contrary,his interval is the
threshold of difference, the condition of possibility of identity,
matter, and space
that exceeds all attempts at calculation and prediction.
Like Irigaray,Bergson ascribes fundamental importance to a formulation of
the interval as the veritable opening of thinking and lifefromwhich space and
timemight be reconceived. In contrast toOlkowski and Grosz, I do not con
tend that this striking resonance between them should be construed as a claim
that Irigaray'sconception of the interval isdirectly compatible with Bergson's
interval and his method of intuition (Olkowski 1999: 80-83; 2000; Grosz 2004,
14).l On the contrary, I argue that Bergson's contention that space and matter
are products of the interval of duration is imbricated in the repression of the
maternal-feminine and the elevation of an exclusively masculine concept of
consciousness. For Irigaray, the interval is sexed and must be conceived as both

spatial and temporal and material and transcendental.

In spite of the monosexualism that scars his project, has a lot to
Bergson
offer Irigaray scholarship. Irigaray'swriting on the temporality of the interval
isdense and aphoristic. For example, she does not explain why the interval is a
"concept" that resistsdefinition (1991, 167-68). In this context, Bergson offers
a elaboration of the reasons duration must remain the
painstaking why beyond
strictures of conventional definition that is valuable for making sense of
Iriga
ray's difficult account ofthe ofthe interval. IfBergson's theorization
temporality
of duration ishelpful for thinking the Irigarayan interval of sexual difference,
Irigaray'sphilosophy is indispensable for a feminist reading of Bergson. Why?
Irigarayprovides a framework for diagnosing themonosexual assumptions of
Bergson's project, and also, for a transvaluation of his thinking. To read Berg
son with Irigaray is to affirmthe irreducibilityof spatiality and corporeality to
thinking the interval of duration.
The following section brieflydescribes Bergson's deduction of consciousness
as duration and the temporal interval.Then I sketch out how his theorization
of consciousness as duration is predicated upon the elision of spatiality and

materiality. Iwill suggest that space functions as the maternal-feminine

ground
for his articulation of enduring consciousness and that consciousness is figured
within masculine parameters. In short, I argue that Bergson's famous intuition
of the enduring self is bound up in a sexed hierarchy.
In the conclusion of this article, I propose a way in which restric
Bergson's
tivelymasculine account of the self as duration and the temporal interval can
be transvalued into a spatial and temporal relation that is articulated between
woman and man. on I will that this relation?the
Drawing Irigaray, argue
interval of sexual difference?should be conceived as the opening to thought
and to life.

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 122Hypatia

Consciousness as Duration

As Roland Breeur has noted, Bergson's famous deduction of consciousness as

duration begins negatively. In order to obtain an intuition of the enduring self,
all formsof spatial symbolismmust be put out of play (2001,180). Now Bergson
is not anti-space per se. Homogeneous space is the medium of practical human

knowledge or what Bergson calls "the intellect."And intellection is indispens

able to science and to the demands of practical life. It isparticularly useful for
matter. In these contexts, space functions as an
understanding homogeneous
immobile medium inwhich things can be readilymeasured, juxtaposed, and
divided and this facilitates human action (Bergson 1933/1992, 133).
Bergson argues thathomogeneous space has become such a habitual formof
human knowledge that themetaphysical tradition has failed to notice theway
inwhich itmasks the flowof real time. Space is themedium intowhich time
is contorted. The disfiguring influence of space isperhaps most pronounced in
the intellectual description of consciousness. Psychic life isfigured as a succes
sion of states. When life is presented as a succession of states,
psychic change
would seem to reside in the passage from one state to another. But for Bergson,

change is farmore radical than the intellect can admit. He insists that the self
is nothing but change; it consists of a continuous passage or flow of duration

(1907/1983, 1-2).
Now, to conceive of the self as a succession of discontinuous states is to
break up consciousness into a powder of equivalent moments that are readily
reducible to number. As number cannot account for the
Bergson emphasizes,
continuously evolving quality of the self's duration. And in order to identify
the succession of states as a consciousness this quantitative multi
particular
plicity must be posited as a unity.The intellectual thinker is thus compelled
to construct a "formless ego" (un moi amorphe), which holds all of the states of

consciousness together (1907/1983, 3-4).

For there is no "formless" ego and consciousness does not
Bergson spatial
consist of a collection of states. Instead, he argues that the inner lifeof the self
is an uninterrupted flow of duration. The of consciousness as dura
continuity
tion must also be understood as heterogeneous. The word should
heterogeneous
not be read in spatial terms. It refers to the qualitative alteration of enduring
consciousness in relation to itself.According to Bergson, the heterogeneity of
the self as duration has no affiliationwith number or space. It is an evolving
whole, whose aspects do not externalize themselves. It is purely qualitative

(1889/1913,104).
Bergson's conceptualization of the enduring self as a flow of interpenetrat

ing elements seeks to foreground the very passage of duration. He presents

the duration of consciousness as the hyphen or connecting link that brings
the past into the future (1907/1983, 22). In short, he conceives of enduring

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 Rebecca Hill 123

consciousness as the threshold of emergence that brings into being what did
not exist. In Time and FreeWill, the self as duration is celebrated as the very
condition of qualitative difference or what Iwill call "the temporal interval."
This temporal interval is the threshold of invention that introduces free acts
into the world. Even the act of generating a medium of homogeneous space is
a temporal act. Space, forBergson, isdependent upon the interval of duration
in order to exist.

In the next section, I argue that the status ascribes to

secondary Bergson
space in relation to the primacy of enduring consciousness is far less certain

than he admits.

The Enduring Self and Space

There isa paradox at work in the deduction of the enduring self,which Bergson
does not The intuition of consciousness as duration
analyze. depends profoundly
upon what Bergson would call an intellectual conception of the self.2In order to
identify"our own person in itsflowing through time," Bergson must maintain a
distinction between the inner lifeof the self and itsoutside (1933/1992, 162).
Now, this distinction between the inside and the outside of the self is spatial.
Despite his stated intentions inTime inFreeWill, then, Bergson is unable to
sustain a sharp separation between duration and space (1889/1913, 229).
We know that Bergson ascribes a status to space and its acts of
secondary
differentiation.They are the products of the temporal interval,which emerge
from the enduring self. However, because relies on the dif
Bergson instituting
ference between self and other, the primacy he attributes to his conception of
the temporal interval cannot be maintained. Bergsonian qualitative difference
is haunted an act of division, which, within the terms of his is a
by project,
spatial division. But in the context of deducing the durational self,this corporeal
difference cannot be a mere nor can it be purely it
practical exigency, spatial;
is irreducible to the identification of a particular enduring consciousness and
its specific temporal acts. In Irigarayan terms, this act of differentiation is the
constitutive gesture of philosophy which effects a violent sexed hierarchy by
casting thematernal-feminine as thematerial ground upon which thought is
erected. Iwill contend thatBergson's intuitionof the enduring self isyet another
manifestation of a sexed hierarchy.
I suggested above that Irigaray understands the maternal-feminine as the

unacknowledged substratum upon which philosophy depends in order to be

posited. Let me recall my argument. The maternal-feminine functions as the

place of philosophy, without ever constituting a place for herself. She has
no identity, except as the undifferentiated matter fromwhich
metaphysics
distinguishes itself as pure speculation. Her role as the necessary substratum
of thought cannot be acknowledged within philosophy because metaphysics

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 124Hypatia

depends upon her repression in order to function. Yet, Irigaray argues this
founding act of obfuscation leaves traceswithin philosophy. On the one hand,
the privileged articulations ofmetaphysics are unconsciously congruent with
phallic masculinity and, on the other hand, anything within philosophical
discourse that threatens to recall thematernal-feminine is denigrated. In this
sense, philosophy repeats the founding violence of its conception within its
own system. While does not address oeuvre in her writing
Irigaray Bergson's
directly, I believe her argument is confirmed when we pay careful attention
to the silenced condition the discovery of enduring consciousness.
enabling
Bergson's conception of the self isposited in apparent ignorance of the primary
material (ormaternal) conditions fromwhich it springs.However, as we will see,
his own text acts out a sexed hierarchy in the figurationof the relation between
the enduring self and the "parasitic" spatial self (1889/1913, 166).
Bergson's understanding ofmateriality isnot explicitly related to a phallocen
tricfigurationof the female sex inTime and FreeWill, but there isno question that
it isdenigrated at the expense of pure duration. Matter and homogeneous space
are denounced fordisfiguring the comprehension of consciousness. The intel
lect projects the self into homogeneous space because itmodels itsprocedures
upon matter. As I have argued, Bergson insists that philosophy must go beyond
this "parasitic" self in order to abide with the pure quality of fundamental con
sciousness. The spatialized self ismerely secondary, a product of the demands of
human action, which obscures the novelty of duration. In my view, the very act

of privileging the enduring self as the genuine version of consciousness betrays

a hierarchy between themasculine and the feminine.As Iwill argue shortly,the
sexuate status of this theoretical imperative is rendered explicit when Bergson
uses themetaphor of paternity to describe the relationship between the enduring
self and the free acts the self engenders. Matter, conversely, is rendered feminine

by implication, at least inTime and FreeWill. It'sworth noting that the feminine
status of matter ismore marked in Bergson's work on evolution. For example,
he claims inCreative Evolution thatmatter approaches "absolute passivity" and
inMind-Energy, matter in the hands of "Man" is forced into the status of a mere
"instrument" (1919/1920, 200; 1907/1983, 26).
because matter and space as a projection that
Curiously, Bergson presents
deforms the qualitative duration of the self, femininitywould seem to lurk
within spatialized consciousness. This might appear odd, given that Irigaray
(among others) has argued that philosophy has always defined consciousness
as masculine.3 However, consciousness is not true con
Bergsonian spatialized
sciousness. It is a mere construct that obliterates the genuine articulations of

thought. The spatial self ismerely the product of the temporal self; it isnot
credited with the ability to create. I contend that the degraded status of this
version of the self?as as as a mere construct that ismod
spatial, secondary,
eled matter?is the trace of its femininity. In this context, femininity is a
upon

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 Rebecca Hill 125

determined concept mastered by themasculine procedures of the philosopher:

it isphallocratic femininity.
I have argued that Bergson's durational consciousness is implicitly entangled
in corporeality and a certain order of spatiality. But this cor
(nonhomogeneous)

poreal specter lurkingwithin the enduring self isnot acknowledged by Bergson

and this enables him explicitly to devalue matter and space without appearing
to compromise his privileged version of consciousness. space or
Homogeneous
what I am calling "phallocratic femininity" functions as the bearer ofmatter
and space for the supposedly disembodied duree of the self.
Irigarayargues that the conceptual heritage ofmetaphysics has maintained
a complicity of long standing with solid bodies (1985b, 107). She identifies
an isomorphic congruence between the solidity of philosophical concepts
and phallic masculinity and, at the same time, she contends that metaphysics
exhibits repulsion toward fluidity. Irigaray suggests also that this abhorrence is

analogous to the horror of the female sex (1991, 64). The fluid, likewoman,
is that which exceeds presentation within philosophical discourse. She-it is
a threat to the identity of the subject. Uncontained fluiditydisconcerts the
ordered systematicity of phallocentric metaphysics.
Now Bergson is decidedly unconventional in this context. In his corpus,
solids are devalued at the expense of the pure fluidityof duration. And like
Irigaray,he is critical of logic as preeminently the logic of solids. For Bergson,
themain reason thatmetaphysics has privileged solids is that it is entangled in
the intellect's preoccupation with inertbodies. Concepts have been modeled
upon matter because philosophy has remained the unwitting prisoner of the laws
of practical life. In order to theorize duration, solid logic must be abandoned
and he proposes that the flowof consciousness should be understood as fluidity
itself (1907/1983, ix-x; xii-iii; 46). Inmy view, Bergson's elevation ofthe fluid
is no less masculine than a more traditional for
metaphysician's predilection
solid forms. In Bergson's case, the fluid is celebrated as a more means
promising
to suggest duration, while the solid is construed as a to the
blockage recovery
of true temporality. According to the terms discourse,
presented by Bergson's
I contend that a sexed hierarchy operates between the fluidityof paternal
duration and the solid determinism of feminine matter.4
For Bergson, the feminine space ofthe secondary self is thematerial obstacle
to the discovery of fundamental consciousness. She is figured as other to the
duration of psychic life. In Irigarayan terms, this phallocratic version of femi
ninity is not truly the other of consciousness because she is allowed no alter

ity.Her being is presumed to be entirely determined under the philosopher's

gaze as space. She can be divided and measured. In the works
homogeneous
subsequent toTime and FreeWill, Bergson concedes that solidity is a form the
intellect projects onto matter rather than a determined state of it (1896/1981,
199). Feminized matter inhis laterwork isnot purely calculable. But even when

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 126 Hypatia

feminine matter is not as coincident with space and the

presented homogeneous
calculations of the intellect, she threatens Bergson's argument because it is in
considering her thatwe realize durational consciousness is farmore dependent
upon matter than Bergson acknowledges. She threatens to recall the embodi
ment of paternal consciousness and thematerial outside fromwhich he was
born: thematernal-feminine. In this context, the denigration of the feminine
space of the secondary selfbecomes necessary to shore up the paternal privilege
of consciousness as duration.

Theradical alterity of the maternal-feminine must not be confused with

phallocratic femininity.The maternal-feminine cannot be presented within
the discourse of philosophy. In Bergson's text, she is the secret outside to the

repressed corporeality of the enduring self.Her constitutive role can only be

discerned as a tracewithin the concept of phallocratic femininity.
We find, then,
that phallocratic femininityobscures the inaugural acts of Bergson's philosophi
cal experiment. Her position as the material obstacle to the enduring self covers
over the corporeality of man's consciousness and the maternal-feminine ground
fromwhich he covertly differentiateshimself. Itmust be emphasized that this
unacknowledged act of differentiation is nothing other than the interval of
sexual difference acting to effecta violent hierarchization.
While the devalued femininity ofmatter remains implicit in Bergson's first
work, durational consciousness is explicitly rendered as sexed. The sexu
major
alization of the enduring self occurs when Bergson defends the primary thesis of

Time and FreeWill: the human capacity to introduce a free act into theworld.
The of this act is nothing other than the temporal interval. He writes:
genesis
"In a word, if it is agreed to call every act freewhich springs from the self and
from the self alone, the act which bears the mark of our personality is truly
free, forour self alone will lay claim to itspaternity" (1889/1913, 173).5 Here,
the Bergsonian self isposited as the father of the free act. In keeping with his
formulation,we could say that the purely qualitative differenceof the interval is
the seminal expression of the paternal personality. Indeed, the paternal genesis
of free acts isprecisely what defines fundamental consciousness as duration.
Some philosophers might object that this paternal scenario is merely
metaphorical. Aristotle, for instance,was wary ofmetaphor (1984, 97b31-39).
However, Bergson believes a rigorouslydeployed metaphor isa highly effective
means to convey duration. A cannot present an intuition, because
metaphor
a
language is spatial, yet metaphor can suggest the intuition of duration in
"direct vision" (1933/1992, 43). Bergson's use of the metaphor of paternity,
is not meant the father's creation of his child?the insemina
then, literally. Yet
tion of the unacknowledged matter of the egg?is suggestive of the relationship
between the enduring self and the act the self engenders.
According to Bergson's depiction of the paternal genesis of the free act in
Time and FreeWill, woman is implicitly denied the capacity to engender free

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 Rebecca Hill 127

acts. Or, insofar as she is capable of articulating a free act, she does not do so as

a woman. Imake this claim partly on the basis of a passage fromBergson's later
work. His depiction of the paternal genesis of the free act inTime and FreeWill
is remarkably consistent with this passage fromhis lastmajor study,The Two
Sources ofMorality and Religion.

I do not intend ... to enter a comparative of the

upon study
two sexes. Suffice it to say that woman is as as man,
intelligent
but that she is less capable of emotion, and that if there is any
facultyor power (puissance) ofthe soulwhich seems to attain less
in woman than in man, it is not intelligence, but
development

sensibility. Imean of course sensibility in the depths (la sensibilite

profonde), not agitation at the surface. (1932/1977, 44)

Bergson declares thatwoman isgenerally less capable of "profound sensibil

ity" than
man. Here,
"profound sensibility" refers to intuition, and the articula

tion of free acts is constitutive of intuition. In a footnote, he goes on to explain

that the reason attains less development in woman

"profound sensibility"
than man is probably ordained by nature.6 The best of her supra-intellectual

capacities are restricted to motherhood. Bergson does qualify his contention

that woman is less capable of intuition than man that there are
by admitting
As I read him, women who
"many exceptions." exceptional develop profound

sensibility,do so in spite of their sex (1932/1977, 44-5).

Ifwoman is implicitlydenied the power of generating a free act inBergson's
major work, his last book explicitly judges her as less capable of articulating
first
the free acts of intuition. For Bergson, the genesis of free acts is framedwithin
exclusively masculine parameters.
In my view, the invocation of a paternal metaphor to describe the endur

ing self's to articulate free acts should also be read as a trace of sexed
capacity
corporeal difference. On the one hand, Bergson's argument specifically expels
feminine matter and space in order to obtain an intuition of duration, and
on the other hand, he implicitly brings a certain sort of body back into the
experiment a sexuate status upon consciousness.
thought by conferring enduring
In short, the irreducible act of sexual differentiation between self and other
is obliquely played out in the metaphor of paternity. This metaphor betrays
the sexed hierarchy upon which the deduction of durational consciousness is
erected. The maternal-feminine is the silenced other ofthe embodied paternal
self.
Without unconsciously placing her there,beyond the focus of his intuition,
Bergson could not consciousness as such.7
identify
If the maternal-feminine were as the ground of the intuition
acknowledged
of duration, she could no longer remain as ground, and the selfcould no longer
be posited as purely duration. This amounts to the very
qualitative threatening
foundation of duration's priority over matter and space. The conferred
privilege

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 128 Hypatia

upon paternal duration would be rendered problematic because its progress

is revealed as upon the maternal-feminine in order to
radically dependent
articulate itself. In this context, Bergson's presentation of a hierarchical relation
between pure duration and spatiality?or Man and the phallocratic version
of the feminine?begins to unravel. Man can only know his duration as his,
thanks to his own sexed body. He does not discover himself in a solipsistic act
of identificationwith the pure flow of his person in time; rather,his embodied
duration is revealed in relation to the alterity of the maternal-feminine. In
terms, the differentiation between man and the maternal-feminine
Irigarayan
is the interval of sexual difference acting to establish a violent hierarchy.We
find then, that it isnot only thematernal-feminine that flounders in theoreti
cal obscurity. The interval of sexual difference is also occluded by Bergson's
intuitive to duration.
approach

My critique of Bergson rendershis deduction of enduring consciousness and

the interval of duration highly problematic. It suggests that his conception
the self as duration and the temporal interval are framedwithin restrictively
masculine parameters that exclude feminine subjectivity. I have also argued
that his relegation of space to a secondary status posterior to the qualitative

differentiations of the temporal interval does not hold up. A disavowed spatial
and corporeal differentiation is required to establish themasculine self as such.
Acknowledging these repressed conditions in Bergson's thinking does not
amount to a rejection of his groundbreaking work on the specific dynamics
of duration. On the contrary, I think his work remains extremely valuable for
thinking through Irigaray'shighly aphoristic account of the interval of sexual
difference. Let us see how.

Interval, Sexual Difference

Like Bergson, Irigaraypresents a formulation of the interval as the opening to

thinking and to life.But where Bergson's interval isdiscovered in relation to a
solitary and disembodied consciousness, Irigaray's interval is posited in direct
relation to the corporeality of sexed subjects. This is explicit inher work. The
interval of sexual difference is incarnated in the actual relationship between the
bodies ofwoman and man hereand now. Yet thispresent relation isparadoxical,
for the interval remains in play as an excessive locus to the past and the
always
future. In this context, she emphasizes that the interval resistsdefinition (1993,
49, 147; 1991, 167-68, 172).
insistence upon the excessiveness of the interval is crucial to safe
Irigaray's

guarding "its" status as the threshold of temporality that cannot be subjected

to calculation and homogeneous space. Why are calculation and homogeneous

space so problematic? Bergson's thinking on duration is instructivehere. As he

demonstrates, presupposes a medium of homogeneous space and
calculability

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 Rebecca Hill 129

homogeneous space pulverizes the qualitative change of the interval's duration

into a powder of equivalent moments that are readily reducible to number. In

other words, number cannot symbolize the evolving quality of the intervalnor
can number account for the interval's openness (Bergson 1889/1913, 79). For
Irigaray and Bergson, the intervalmust be conceived as the threshold to the
futureand to the past. Now forboth thinkers, the future is, inprinciple, unfore
seeable, while the being of the past always remains in excess of recuperation in

the present (Irigaray 1991,167-68,175,176; Bergson 1933/1992,35; 1896/1981,

168-69). To sympathizewith the becoming of the interval then,we must resist
imagining the interval as a calculable relation in homogeneous space.
As we know, believes it is necessary to retreat from
Bergson corporeality
and spatiality as such in order to overcome the obfuscation of the temporality
of the interval by homogeneous space. Irigaray's repeated emphasis upon the
of the interval demonstrates that she shares aver
undefinability Bergson's
sion to homogeneous space, but she does not seek to abandon per
spatiality
se. The order of spatiality that is at work inher formulation of the interval is
and irreducible to presence.
heterogeneous
My critical description of Bergson has shown that his claim to overcome
space fails. His deduction of the interval is predicated upon the irreducibly
extensive limitbetween a living body and "its" outside. The discovery of dura
tion is only achieved through the subject's encounter with the alterity of the
duration of the sexed other. Acknowledging this transcendence inscribes the
very limitsof subjectivity.And I do not think these limits can be overcome in
order to pursue a disinterested formof knowledge beyond the subject.
For Irigaray, the acknowledgement of a subject's limits does not foreclose
but serves as a threshold or passage toward the articulation of sexed
knowledge

intersubjectivity. She invites her readers to imagine a in the passage

subject
of her becoming who remains open to the unassimilable duration of the sexed
other (1993, 112). The subject's openness is not something that emerges from
her becoming, for this opening, the interval of sexual difference, is the very

possibility of her becoming. The interval is not outside her. On the contrary,
the interval acts at the threshold of her body, giving her a limit that is her
sexuate and also a passage toward the becoming of an other
identity subject,
man. This passage between woman and man is nothing other than the open

ingof thought and life.Subjects do not preexist this relation; for Irigaray,each
sex is constituted through this interval.And thinking isno
longer a solipsistic
inquiry conducted by a lone subject, thinking is reconceived as collaborative
work articulated by both sexes.
The interval, then, is the opening to thinking and subjectivity. It cannot be
overemphasized that this threshold isnot given once and for all. The interval
always remains in play, the sensible relation between woman and
exceeding
man as the very possibility of sexual difference (1993, 49, 147).

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 130 Hypatia

Notes

1. Olkowski's reading of Bergson and Irigaray effectively points out the fundamental
importance of the interval to their respective projects, but Olkowski (1999, 80-83; 2000)
does not address the divergences between Irigaray and Bergson. Grosz does not offer a
detailed account of the relationship between Bergsonian qualitative difference (what I
call the interval) and the Irigarayan interval of sexual difference. Like Olkowski though,
Grosz affirms a strong affinity between Bergson and Irigaray. In the introduction to The
Nick of Time, Grosz suggests that Irigaray's project "develops, perhaps more than any
other writer since Bergson, a practical metaphysics that rigorously develops Bergsonian
intuition as its primary method" (2004, 14). I disagree. The relationship between Iriga
ray's approach to the question of sexual difference and Bergsonian intuition is farmore

fraught than Grosz suggests here.

2. In a conversation in 2001, Paul Atkinson suggested to me that Bergson's con

ception of consciousness as duration upon a distinction between the inside

depends
and the outside of the self?a spatial difference. Without maintaining this intellectual
distinction, Bergson could not posit an inner life as such.
3. For instance, see Lloyd 1984.

4. Itwould be hasty to assume that Bergson's celebration of duration's fluidity allows

him to evade tendency to posit concepts which
metaphysics' phallocentric privilege
height and erection. Consider the well-known account of intuition as a monism inAn
Introduction toMetaphysics. Bergson figures the entire universe (the Whole) in terms of
different levels of temporal tension. At the bottom is the pure homogeneity of matter
and at the summit is the pure quality of duration (1933/1992, 187-88). I develop a
detailed analysis of the phallocentrism of Bergson's monism inHill 2006.
5. "En un mot, si l'on convient d'appeler libre tout acte qui emane du moi, et du moi

seulement, Vacte qui porte lamarque de notre personne est veritablement libre, car notre moi
seul en revendiquera la patemite" (1959, 114).
6. He praises woman's incomparable supra-intellectual ability as a mother. Itmust
be emphasized that Bergson's praise is directed toward the mother's role as the nurturer
of her child rather than as her child's creator.
7. The presentation of consciousness or thought as a self-originating act of fathering
is by no means novel inmetaphysics. Irigaray's famous reading of Plato's parable of the
cave devotes a great deal of attention to the presentation of the birth of the intelligible
Forms in exclusively paternal terms. She argues that the gesture of crediting the father
as sole creator of his offspring is only achieved on condition that the maternal-feminine
serves as the silenced ground of Plato's theoretical elaboration (Irigaray 1985a, 243-364).
Of course, the emphasis of Bergson's thought experiment upon duration has little in
common with the eternal forms of Plato. Nonetheless, both philosophers elide the
maternal-feminine and posit metaphysics as monosexual. Deleuze argued that Bergson's
was strongly attached to Platonic metaphors (Deleuze 1966/1991, 44-45). Perhaps the
echo of Plato's metaphor of paternity in Bergson's famous deduction of duration was
deliberate.

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 Rebecca Hill 131

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