ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by developing the notions of virile subjectivity and virile Eros, and argues that the history of Western philosophy from Plato to Sartre embraces a virile subject with its virile Eros. The virile subject relates to itself and its world as its property; virility is defined in terms of ownership and ownness. In "Battle of Wills," the chapter shows that paternal authority is built upon both rejecting nature and appealing to nature; paternal authority is based in the physical strength of the father's body even as it denies the importance of that body. It then responds to Paul Ricoeur's analysis of fatherhood in The Conflict of Interpretations to suggest that the evacuation of the paternal body in the name of paternal authority is a result of a fear of the contigency of that body's contribution to procreation. The chapter develops a notion of an abject father to diagnose our culture's attempts to erase and purify the paternal body.
