Many scholars have struggled with Irigaray’s focus on sexuate difference, in particular with her claim that it is “ontological,” wondering if this implies a problematically naïve or essentialist account of sexuate difference. As a result, the ethical vision which Irigaray elaborates has not been taken up in a robust way in the fields of philosophy, feminism, or psychoanalysis.By tracing the notion ofrelationthroughout Irigaray’s work, this bookidentifies a rigorous philosophical continuity between the three self-identified “phases” in Irigaray’s thought (despite some critics’...