Introduction: the sublime freedom of the ancients: Beauvoir, Cixous, and Duras on gender, the erotic, and transcendence : Antiquity and the acte gratuit in Simone de Beauvoir -- Orpheus in the cave: Hélène Cixous beyond transcendence -- Marguerite Duras: writing and the feminine -- Conclusion. 1 The dark continent: Luce Irigaray, The Cave, and the history of Western metaphysics : Theoretical and historical preliminaries: Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Lacan -- Reflective surfaces: The Cave, the Chora, and representation -- Mind the gap: the representation of presentation in Republic 5 and 6 -- Irigaray, The Ethics of Sexual Difference, and the Symposium -- Concluding dialogues. 2 Revolution in platonic language: The Chora in Kristeva : Dreaming of the Chora: poetic language and the mother -- From speaking subject to semiotic Chora -- Plato's Chora: Kristeva, Democritus, and Derrida -- Chora, Khôra, [Chora] -- Conclusion. 3 Platonic Eros: Kristeva sends her love to Foucault and Lacan : This love train requires a transfer -- Manic masculine Eros and the maternal sublime -- The third man theme: Socrates, Alcibiades, and Agathon in Lacan -- THe erotics of reciprocity: true love in Plato and Faucault -- Conclusion. 4 Socrates, Freud, and Dionysus: the double life and death of Sarah Kofman : The Cave and Capital: Derrida, Plato, and Marx -- Dreamwork: Plato, Freud, and Irigaray -- Socrate(s) bifrons: philosophy, irony, and castration. Epilogue: Plato and truth. Bibliography -- Index. |