Irigaray's first and most well known book, published in , was Speculum of the Other Woman , which analyzes the texts of Freud , Hegel , Plato , Aristotle , Descartes , and Kant through the lens of phallocentrism.
Irigaray employs three different modes [ 8 ] in her investigations into the nature of gender, language, and identity : the analytic, the essayistic, and the lyrical poetic. Luce Irigaray received a bachelor's degree from the University of Louvain in , a master's degree from the same university in , [ 11 ] and taught at a high school in Brussels from to In , she moved to Paris to pursue a master's degree in Psychology from the University of Paris , which she earned in She also received a specialist diploma in Psychopathology from the school in In , she received a doctorate in Linguistics from Paris X Nanterre.
In , she earned a second PhD in Philosophy. This criticism brought her recognition, but she was removed from her position as an instructor at the University of Vincennes as well as ostracized from the Lacanian community. She held a research post at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique since , where she is now a Director of Research in Philosophy.
Her initial research focused on dementia patients, about whom she produced a study of the differences between the language of male and female patients. It has also been noted that in her writings, Irigaray has stated a concern that an interest in her biography would affect the interpretation of her ideas, as the entrance of women into intellectual discussions has often also included the challenging of women's point of view based on biographical material.
Her most extensive autobiographical statements thus far are gathered in Through Vegetal Being co-authored with Michael Marder. Overall, she maintains the belief that biographical details pertaining to her personal life hold the possibility to be used against her within the male dominated educational establishment as a tool to discredit her work. Her first major book, Speculum of the Other Woman, based on her second dissertation, was published in In Speculum, Irigaray engages in close analyses of phallocentrism in Western philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, analyzing texts by Freud, Hegel, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant.
