Get Your Smart On
The Story of Space: Plato’s Appropriation of Reproduction in the Timeaus and Beyond
In her classic “Hairy Cobblers and Philosopher Queens,” Elizabeth Spellman shows us how Plato argues for the education of women alongside men, and for the inclusion of women in all social classes (including the ruling class), not out of some proto-feminist tendency, but out of logical necessity.(1) Quite simply, if the ruling class is to reproduce itself through time, it needs to include both women and men in its ranks. (Plato’s body politic is segregated into classes of citizens distinguished by their different kinds of souls.) The inclusion of women solves one problem, but presents another problem for Plato. While it makes absolute class segregation and his ideal polis possible, it opens him up to ridicule and objection.
Likewise, space-chora in the Timaeus is designed by Plato to solve the two of the most important philosophical questions of his day: 1) the problem of how sensible beings partake in the intelligible Forms; and 2) the problem of the One and the Many that Plato inherits from the Presocratic philosophers. Similarly, the discourse about space-chora also leaves him open to ridicule and objection, which he tries to preclude by characterizing chora as strange, perplexing, and aporetic. He also puts some distance between the metaphysics of his middle dialogues (e.g., the Republic) and this late work by having the theory presented not by Socrates, his usual interlocutor, but by the newcomer Timaeus.
It is neither out of misogynist prejudice nor proto-feminist principle (depending whether one takes chora-space to be more or less progressive or regressive) that space comes to be conceived as a kind of womb/woman in Plato’s Timaeus. The concept of woman that emerges through space-chora (and later, Aristotelian matter-hule) is the result of Plato’s address to his contemporaries on the metaphysical and political issues of his day. Actual women where simply not a part of the equation — this is a conversation by patriarchs, for patriarchs, in which the concept of woman is used to accomplish ultimately patriarchal ends. In other words, it has almost nothing to do with women.
I say almost because it’s effects on actual women are being felt even today. It is the view of women as passive containers for reproduction that sets the stage for the social control of women’s reproductive bodies — e.g., the current onslaught of state legislation attempting to curtail abortion rights in the United States, in the latest push to overturn Roe vs. Wade. [Update: This was originally written before the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.] These notions are very deeply rooted in our contemporary realities, and accounts for how quickly and easily our rights can be reversed. Our subjugation runs as deep as the structure of our reality (the very definition for metaphysics).
Not only is an analogy made to women’s reproductive bodies, but also the concept of woman is being co-constructed along side the concept of space. “Woman” is being imagined as a kind of amorphous, mysterious, property-less space*.* In a deep ontological sense, women are but walking, breathing metaphors for space, passive receptacles for man’s reproduction through time, and for men’s pleasure. Obviously, we need to smashy-smash this concept of woman, but how?
Neither the Timaeus nor The Republic are Plato’s only attempt to appropriate women’s reproductive bodies for his own metaphysical ends. Page duBois has already made the case for “The Platonic Appropriation of Reproduction” in the essay by this same name.(2) You may recall that in the Theatetus Socrates identifies himself as a midwife of ideas, thus linking his philosophical dialectics to the work of midwifes in helping to bring life into the world. Socrates lays claim to midwifery and its practices as the son of the midwife Phaenarete, a name that means “she who brings virtue to light.” The youth to whom he speaks, Theatetus, who is said to resemble Socarates in the character of his soul, is thoroughly entranced by the philosopher and seduced by his philosophical dialectics. The use of the analogy makes Socrates (renown for his lack of beauty) appear rather sexy.
From one scene of seduction to another, Diotima delivers her wisdom to Socrates (and his interlocutors) in the Symposium. The Symposium tells the story of a drinking party where the men gathered together decide to tell each other stories about the nature of Eros, love. As Luce Irigaray argues in “Sorcerer Love,” Diotima is there only through Socrates’ ventriloquist’s trick, speaking without a body proper, a disembodied presence.(3) In her speech, which Socrates brings to his interlocutors in the place of his own, Eros is figured as a drive towards a vision of the immortal Forms, analogous but superior to the drive towards immortality through physical reproduction. Luce Irigaray argues that in so far as Diotima is made to assert this hierarchy of the intelligible over the sensible, she no longer speaks for herself, if ever she did. It is a mystification to which Diotima would not have agreed, according to Irigaray’s reading.
Arguably, what space-chora names is a similar mystification that makes it possible that there ever should be a “woman”, born of men’s metaphysical needs, that exists apart from women themselves and women’s experiences. At the same time, because Plato weaves “woman” into the fabric of Western metaphysics, he turns the social, political, and economic question of woman into a metaphysical and ontological problem. (Note how, when Simone de Beauvoir asks “Is there such a thing as ‘woman’?”, “if they even exist,” she asks this as a metaphysical question.) In order to own our reproductive and powerfully receptive bodies, we women will need to re-appropriate the concept of woman, and as Irigaray rightfully tells us, this will entail re-deploying space and spatial concepts.(5)
References
(1) Spellman, Elizabeth. 1991. “Hairy Cobblers and Philosopher Queens.” Feminist Interpretations of Plato (Penn State Press).
(2) Dubois, Paige. 1988. “The Platonic Appropriation of Reproduction.” Sowing the Body (Chicago: Chicago University Press); 169–183. It should also be noted that this intellectual appropriation of “woman” follows the practice of the physical appropriation of women in Ancient Greece: in most Greek city-states, women were sequestered in their homes and had no citizenship or property rights; see Jenifer Neils**’** *Women in the Ancient World (*J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011).
(3) Irigaray, Luce. 1993. “Sorcerer Love.” Ethics of Sexual Difference (Cornell University Press).
(4) de Beauvoir, Simone. 1949. “Introduction.” The Second Sex. (Vintage Books).
(5) Irigaray, Luce. 1993. “Sexual Difference.” Ethics of Sexual Difference (Cornell University Press).
Chora: A concept in Plato's Timaeus, often translated as "space" or "receptacle," representing a primordial, formless realm that receives the Forms and gives rise to the sensible world.
Forms: In Plato's philosophy, eternal, unchanging, and perfect concepts that exist independently of the physical world. They are the ultimate reality and the source of all knowledge.
Hule: The Greek term for "matter" used by Aristotle, often understood as the passive material that receives form.
Mystification: The process of obscuring or distorting something's true nature, often to serve ideological interests.
Patriarchy: A social system in which men hold primary power and authority, and women are systematically disadvantaged.
Polis: The Greek term for "city-state," the basic unit of political organization in ancient Greece.
Receptacle: A term used to describe chora, emphasizing its passive role in receiving the Forms.
Sensible beings: Objects and entities that can be perceived by the senses, as opposed to the intelligible Forms.
The One and the Many: A philosophical problem concerning the relationship between unity and multiplicity, a key concern for Plato and the Presocratic philosophers.