Anyone who has studied philosophy is aware that it is very easy for a philosopher to wander off so far into the depths of their own mind that the concrete, physical world and what is capable of being real is lost to the ideal. I'm not bashing idealism, for without it why would we strive for anything better? At one point in history a world free of slavery was an ideal and look how far we've come to accomplishing that. Granted the concrete, what is possible must also hold weight. The concrete is what is capable of happening now, or at least beginning.
What I'm getting at is that both are proper and necessary. Each holds their own place and individual importance. The philosophers I have surveyed this semester have thus far pretty much belonged to one world or the other. Take Ayn Rand who's "free man" is pure idealism and where most of her philosophies fall. On the opposite of the spectrum is Wendall Berry who lives out his life philosophy on his farm with his wife.
It was not until reading Irigaray have I found a philospher that seems to balance living deep off in her own idealism, but yet manages to find ways to bring those philosophies into concrete living. Take her writing, sometimes it comes off as nothing but rude. However upon a closer examination and a realization of her philosophy on linguistics, she is not trying to be rude, she is simply trying to be clear and use a neuter linguistic to the best of her ability. Another example is found in her dialogue with Wheeler where they discuss how living dualisticlly is possible under the right architectural design or Stone and the practice of Yoga in daily life expanding ones breath and thinking space.
Irigaray's thoughts are often thought to be radical, but for such a radical idealism one cannot deny that her idealism is matched by her concrete ideas for how people can live out that radical idealism.
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