**What's This Book All About? The Concept of the "Interval"** At its heart, "The Interval" is about rethinking a concept that often gets overlooked: the interval. In our common understanding, whether in English or French (l’intervalle), the interval is usually just a gap – a calculable, homogeneous space between two things or a break between two events in time. Think of the intermission in a play, or the space between two cars. It seems simple, right? Well, Rebecca Hill argues against this simple view. Instead, she proposes that the interval is a _heterogeneous_ and _generative threshold_. This means it's not a uniform, empty space or time that you can easily measure. It's overflowing, dynamic, and fundamental. It's not just _between_ things; it's the very source of difference, preceding identity itself, and it's the place where the possibility of sexual difference emerges. Pretty cool, right? It turns the seemingly empty space into a vibrant, active force! **The Spark: Irigaray and Sexual Difference** The inspiration for this deep dive into the interval comes primarily from the groundbreaking work of Luce Irigaray, particularly her book "An Ethics of Sexual Difference". Irigaray suggests that moving into a "new age" requires a fundamental shift in how we perceive and conceive space, time, how we inhabit places, and our identities. Crucially, this requires a transformation of the _matter-form relationship_ and, most importantly for Hill's book, the _interval between them_. For Irigaray, the interval isn't something you can pin down with a static definition. Trying to define it permanently would miss its specific dynamics. She sees the interval as the very attractions, tensions, and acts between form and matter. It's also the "remainder" (reste) that's left over after a work is finished, and what subsists between what's already identified and what's yet to be identified. It's like the lingering echo or the potential for something new to emerge. While Irigaray is known for her critique of metaphysics as phallocentrism – arguing that Western philosophy has been built on a model congruent with the male body, repressing and denigrating the maternal-feminine – Hill shows that Irigaray's focus isn't just on "who speaks." It's a careful consideration of the relationship, the _interval_, between the philosophical tradition and the maternal-feminine condition it has repressed. This repressed maternal-feminine is, secretly, the ground on which phallocentric philosophy is built. It's fascinating to think about this: philosophy, often seen as abstract and universal, might actually be rooted in a hidden, sexed hierarchy. The interval, in this critical sense, is where that secret relation happens. But Irigaray's thinking on the interval isn't limited to this critique or even just to the relationship between woman and man (sexed intersubjectivity). She conceives of the interval as an _open threshold_ for _difference itself_. While she often focuses on sexual difference as perhaps the "most unthinkable of differences", her use of the word "perhaps" is key. It keeps the potential of the interval open, suggesting it can be a threshold for understanding many different kinds of relationships and processes of "becoming," not just those related to sex. This is a crucial point: the interval isn't just about gender; it's about the dynamic force of differentiation itself, which can take many forms. **Bringing in the Big Guns: Aristotle and Bergson** To explore Irigaray's radical idea of the interval, Hill doesn't just stick with Irigaray. She brings in two major male philosophers: Aristotle and Henri Bergson. Now, these guys aren't exactly known for being feminists! Aristotle's philosophy is famously seen as riddled with phallocentric violence, and Hill argues Bergson's is too, despite his lack of open contempt for women. So, why include them? Hill believes that reading Aristotle and Bergson _together_ with Irigaray is fruitful for the difficult task of conceptualizing the interval. - **Aristotle:** He's important because he was one of the first philosophers to define key concepts that Irigaray engages with: the relationship between form (morphē) and matter (hylē), the interval (diastēma), and place (topos). Irigaray's idea that place is built from the matter-form relation and the interval draws directly from Aristotle. While Aristotle explicitly puts the interval in a secondary position compared to the identity of things, Hill argues his writing on the interval is ambiguous. It's suppressed, yes, but there are moments where it pops up fleetingly, exceeding his definitions. - **Bergson:** Irigaray doesn't explicitly write about Bergson, but other scholars like Dorothea Olkowski and Elizabeth Grosz have noted strong connections between their ideas. Bergson was obsessed with time and, significantly for Hill, he privileges a concept of the interval as the opening of "duration" (la durée). For Bergson, this durational interval isn't just a gap; it's the very threshold of intuition – his preferred method for philosophy – and it's the source of difference, space, and matter, exceeding calculation. While this sounds remarkably similar to Irigaray's interval, Hill is careful not to say they are directly compatible. She argues Bergson's idea that space and matter come from duration is entangled in phallocentric assumptions, whereas Irigaray's interval is sexed and encompasses space, time, matter, and the transcendental. It's like Hill is using Irigaray's critical lens to look at these two giants of Western philosophy, finding places where their ideas resonate with Irigaray's concept of the interval, while also pointing out the hidden sexed biases she believes are at play. **Part One: Relations and Aristotle** The first part of the book delves into Aristotle's work through Irigaray's eyes. Hill argues that the interval of sexual difference is actually foundational to Aristotle's project, even if it's hidden, and that this fundamental "concept" is linked to place or the possibility of place. Hill reads Aristotle's approach to difference, particularly in relation to Irigaray's essay "How to Conceive (of) a Girl?". She argues that Aristotle's well-known tendency to make difference secondary to identity is built on a phallocentric cover-up. His favored concepts like form, substance, and identity are seen as aligning with masculinity, while concepts he sees as subordinate, like matter, privation (lack), and difference, are tied to a misogynist view of femininity. However, Hill points out that this hierarchy isn't as stable as Aristotle presents; it relies on repressing an interval that secretly distinguishes his masculine philosophical structure from the maternal-feminine. Hill also performs a close reading of Aristotle's difficult writings on _place_ (topos). Interestingly, she argues that Aristotle, perhaps without fully realizing it, actually affirms that place – understood as a sensible relationship between two bodies that are different – is the ground of thinking. Although he insists this relation isn't an interval (diastēma) but a fixed limit, this affirmation of a foundational sensible relation is significant for Hill because it links the sensible to the interval. It also anticipates Irigaray's idea that place _is_ an interval. Chapter Three focuses on Irigaray's key essay "Place, Interval". Here, Irigaray returns to her critique of Aristotle but moves beyond just pointing out the problems. She directly affirms the interval as the opening between woman and man, through which their relationship and identities as sexed subjects are formed. She also rethinks the matter-form relation using the interval, refusing Aristotle's hierarchical sexuation while still affirming matter and form as sexed in a nonhierarchical way. Irigaray sees the relationship between an "envelope" (like place or a vessel) and the "thing" inside it (like a body) as a central "aporia" in Aristotle and subsequent Western philosophy. An aporia, for Irigaray, isn't just a puzzle to solve like it might be for Aristotle, but a paradoxical entanglement that can't be resolved and serves as an _opening_ to thinking the interval of sexual difference. Drawing on Aristotle's analogy between place and a vessel, which is linked to the figure of woman's body in ancient Greek thought, Irigaray shows how his concept of place is tied up with sexual difference. She diagnoses a sexed hierarchy where man is the "thing" contained and woman is the "place" or envelope. However, Irigaray doesn't endorse this; she diagnoses it to move beyond it. She argues that Aristotle's concept of woman-place "leaks," showing she is an "uncontainable volume" that undermines his idea of place as a fixed limit and even shakes the identity of substance. This "unraveling" is part of how she subverts his system. Aristotle's idea of place as the "first immobile limit" surrounding a body ignores the dynamic threshold between them. This threshold is precisely what Irigaray calls the interval. She picks up on Aristotle's rejected candidate for place, the _diastēma_ (interval), but transforms it. While Aristotle dismissed it because it would imply infinite places and a mobile place, Irigaray embraces these very implications. For her, place _must_ be mobile and embrace a virtually incalculable "number" of places. Crucially, Irigaray's interval isn't an empty spatial gap like Aristotle's rejected diastēma. It's extensive, embodied, and deeply temporal, flowing beyond the present into pasts and futures that can't be captured or calculated. It's a "sensible, porous, and mobile threshold". It's sensible-transcendental, the very condition from which matter and form are reconceived in a nonhierarchical way. The interval, in this sense, is driven by desire, not a lack in matter, and it ceaselessly prompts new formations. Hill explores specific "modalities" or ways the interval appears in Irigaray's work, particularly related to woman's body. Two key examples are the membranes surrounding a fetus, like the placenta, and mucus. The placenta isn't just a fusion of mother and fetus; it's a distinct threshold, enabling an "almost ethical" relationship by implying possible futures. Mucus is seen as fundamental to articulating woman as a multiple place and thinking nonhierarchical sexual difference. It's described as "in subtraction from the order of number," highlighting its resistance to quantification. These bodily fluids and tissues are seen as tangible manifestations, or "incarnations," of the interval. It's a powerful idea: that philosophical concepts like difference and relation are deeply connected to our material, embodied existence. And, importantly, the interval isn't _only_ feminine; man's saliva could also be understood as a form of mucus. The book also discusses the interval in the context of relations, particularly carnal ones. While Irigaray focuses significantly on the interval as a generative relation between man and woman, which has led some critics to charge her with heteronormativity, Hill argues that her ideas offer insights for understanding other sexualities as well. The failure to think the interval of sexual difference has real, violent consequences in sexual life. Irigaray's ideal of heterosexual coitus isn't about fusion, but a mutual "enveloping" that creates an interval, a shared place, allowing each person to become and maintain their difference. Each body is mobile and open, and the passage between them generates this porous, dynamic place. Hill notes, however, that Irigaray's exclusive focus on two sexes and the description of coitus as "the most divine" are problematic, potentially marginalizing intersex and transgender people and other forms of sexuality. **Part Two: Becoming and Bergson** The second part shifts focus to Henri Bergson's philosophy, particularly his concept of "duration," and how it relates to the idea of sexual difference. Like Irigaray, Bergson gives central importance to the interval, seeing it as the opening of time and intuition. His interval isn't subordinate to identity or calculation; it's the very threshold of difference. Bergson's method often involves articulating "dualisms," like the one between duration and space. While some, like Deleuze, see these as temporary steps towards a unified view (monism), Hill suggests Bergson's tendency towards dualism might actually hide a sexed hierarchy. She argues that Bergson's thought is subtly sexuated through his metaphors: life, duration, and consciousness are linked to paternal imagery (erection, height), while space and matter are associated with denigrated femininity. Since Bergson relies heavily on metaphor to convey the elusive nature of duration, this isn't just a stylistic quirk; it's deeply embedded in his philosophy. Hill argues that Bergson's central idea of consciousness as duration, which he arrives at through intuition, is elaborated within these "paternal parameters" and relies on repressing the maternal-feminine. The maternal-feminine, in Irigaray's view, is the unacknowledged material ground that philosophy depends on but casts outside of itself. Hill suggests Bergson's denigration of matter and homogeneous space as "parasitic" to pure duration acts out this sexed hierarchy. This spatialized, secondary self, modeled on matter, is seen as a "phallocratic femininity" – a version of femininity defined and mastered by masculine thought. However, Hill argues that Bergson's attempt to separate duration from space and corporeality doesn't fully succeed. His idea of duration implicitly relies on the spatial and bodily limits between a living being and its outside. The discovery of duration isn't a solitary, disembodied act; it involves an encounter with the alterity (otherness) of the sexed other's duration. This suggests that even Bergson's "pure" duration is dependent on the maternal-feminine, a connection he doesn't explicitly acknowledge, thereby "occluding" the interval of sexual difference. Despite this critique, Hill finds Bergson valuable for understanding Irigaray. His detailed explanations of why duration resists definition and calculation help shed light on Irigaray's often aphoristic writing on the undefinability of the interval. Both agree that the interval is a threshold to the unpredictable future and the irreducible past, resisting calcification in the present. But while Bergson tries to distance himself from space and body to grasp time, Irigaray insists on the interval's inextricable link to a _heterogeneous_ spatiality and corporeality. The book also touches on Bergson's later concept of monism, where he tries to think difference beyond just human consciousness, focusing on the life-matter relation. Hill argues that even here, a humanist sexed hierarchy persists, but there are also aspects that push beyond this, offering ways to think life and matter differently. Bringing in thinkers like Manuel de Landa (inspired by Deleuze) challenges Bergson's view of matter as passive, suggesting matter has its own creative, inventive capacities. This leads to thinking about "becoming concrete extensity," where life and matter are seen together as enduring tensions and differences ceaselessly creating the new. **Conclusion: Interval as Relation, Interval as Becoming** Bringing it all together, Hill reiterates that for Irigaray, the interval is difference itself, giving rise to space, time, matter, and form. While Irigaray often focuses on sexual difference, her framework is open to understanding other forms of difference too. The fact that traditional metaphysics often ignores or suppresses the interval isn't just about sex; it creates many structural hierarchies. Hill contrasts Irigaray's more anthropocentric (human-focused) approach to Bergson's interest in difference beyond the human. However, she argues that in Western philosophy, the sexuation of knowledge is hard to escape. Her analysis of Aristotle and Bergson shows how both, in their own ways, tend to obscure the interval and rely on hierarchical, sexed understandings of key concepts. Yet, both also contain "countertendencies" that challenge these biases. In Aristotle, the countertendency is his affirmation of place as a relation between different bodies and his acknowledgement that difference precedes identity. This hints at the embodied, spatial, and relational nature of thinking, even if his emphasis on immobile limits and the present ultimately undermines it. Irigaray radicalizes this, seeing woman-place (and man-envelope) as mobile, open envelopes, with the interval as the enduring condition of their potential being, not a fixed limit between self-present bodies. Bergson helps illuminate the temporal aspect, showing how Aristotle's focus on present relations obscures the true, non-calculable temporality of place. Bergson's interval is a non-given threshold to the future and past. Hill, however, pushes against Bergson's separation of duration from matter, arguing they must be thought together as enduring tensions, as "concrete extensity". Ultimately, Hill argues that the interval can be understood in two interconnected ways: as _relation_ (the connection between subjects, or between matter and form, for example) and as _becoming_ (the dynamic process of differentiation itself). These aren't contradictory, but different perspectives on the same fundamental force. The interval as becoming is the threshold of emergence for all sorts of forces and rhythms, including those we might understand as masculine and feminine. And the interval as relation, even between two subjects, is an elaboration of this becoming – each person is becoming in relation to themselves and the other. The interval always remains in play, in reserve, as the potential for even more, for other becomings beyond what is actualized in any given relation. **Further Ideas and Questions to Explore:** Thinking through "The Interval" opens up so many possibilities! Here are a few questions and ideas that pop to mind: - How might Hill's understanding of the interval, particularly its connection to corporeality and its resistance to calculation, influence our thinking in fields like physics or biology, which often rely on quantifiable gaps and discrete entities? - Could the concept of the interval as an "almost ethical" threshold, seen in the placenta, be applied to other complex relationships, perhaps between species or even between humans and technology? - If the interval is "in subtraction from the order of number", what new ways of thinking or even "calculating" difference might we need to develop, outside of traditional mathematical models? - Hill notes the book's limitations regarding intersex and transgender experiences. How could the concept of the interval, as a threshold for difference and becoming, be used to articulate the complexities of gender and sex beyond a binary? - How does the idea of philosophy depending on a repressed "maternal-feminine" ground challenge our traditional histories of philosophy? What would a philosophical lineage look like if it explicitly acknowledged these roots? - If the interval is the generative force between matter and form, how does this change our understanding of creation, not just of living beings, but of art, ideas, or even the universe itself? - Bergson uses intuition to grasp duration, suggesting language is limiting. Irigaray uses language and metaphor to articulate the interval. How do language and conceptuality both limit and enable our ability to grasp the dynamic, uncontainable nature of the interval?