White Metaphor: Derrida on Myth, Philosophy, and the Illusion of the Proper

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Introduction

When Jacques Derrida published White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy in 1971, he struck at the core of philosophy’s self-image. Philosophy had long prided itself on speaking literally, distinguishing itself from rhetoric and poetry. Yet Derrida argues that philosophy is pervaded by metaphors, and that its central concepts are sedimented figures whose symbolic force has been effaced. The most vivid and unsettling claim of the essay is that philosophy is a white mythology: a mythology that has forgotten itself, appearing as universal reason while carrying the traces of Indo-European myth and image.

Aristotle and the Dream of the Proper

At the center of Derrida’s analysis stands a canonical definition:

“Metaphor (metaphora) consists in giving (epiphora) the thing a name (onomatos) that belongs to something else. The transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy” (Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b6–9).

For Aristotle, metaphor is a matter of transfer—of names migrating beyond their proper place. This assumes that there exists a language of propriety, where each entity possesses its authentic designation. Metaphor is secondary, a deviation from the literal. Philosophy, inheriting this framework, takes itself to be the guardian of proper language, forever seeking a discourse stripped of rhetorical ornament.

The Myth of Non-Metaphorical Language

Derrida exposes the incoherence of this quest. The very notion of “non-metaphorical language” is itself sustained by metaphors: we speak of the ground of being, the light of reason, the foundations of knowledge. Such terms present themselves as literal, yet they are inherited images, naturalized over time.

This produces a paradox. Metaphysics denounces metaphor while relying upon it. The discipline defines metaphor as a defective use of words, yet this definition presupposes the distinction between proper and improper—a distinction already structured by figuration. Metaphysics and metaphor are thus locked in what Derrida calls a reciprocal antagonism: philosophy cannot do without metaphor, yet it continually denies this dependence.

Whitening the Metaphor

Why, then, does Derrida speak of “white” mythology? The metaphor comes from Anatole France’s Garden of Epicurus, where metaphysicians are compared to knife-grinders effacing the designs from coins. In wearing away the image, the coins appear to gain universal value while losing their specificity. Likewise, philosophical concepts are metaphors that have been polished to the point of invisibility. Their mythological origin remains as a hidden trace, covered over but not erased.

Nietzsche had already described truth as “a mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms” that have been worn out like coins until they appear as fixed truths. Hegel, too, noted how living metaphors die through repeated usage, becoming indistinguishable from literal terms. Derrida radicalizes these insights by suggesting that there is no final distinction between the literal and the metaphorical. What appears white, neutral, and universal is in fact the residue of erased figures.

Philosophy as Invisible Myth

The consequence is striking: philosophy is mythology without recognizing itself as such. The Western tradition takes its own mythological idiom—its Indo-European linguistic heritage—and projects it as the universal logos. What metaphysics calls reason is thus already inscribed with myth, whitened by forgetting.

Moreover, any attempt to construct a general theory of metaphor collapses. The concept of metaphor itself is a metaphor—metaphora meaning “transfer.” One cannot step outside figuration to classify it from a position of purity. There will always be at least one metaphor—the “metaphor of metaphor”—that escapes systematization. The dream of a complete metaphorology is undermined from within.

Conclusion

Derrida’s essay reveals that philosophy is not the transparent medium it imagines itself to be. The very concepts that define its enterprise—truth, being, foundation, presence—are fossilized metaphors. By whitening them, philosophy masks its figurative dependence, recasting mythology as universal rationality.

To acknowledge this is not to collapse philosophy into poetry but to recognize that reason is inseparable from rhetoric. Philosophy is not free of myth; it is, in Derrida’s phrase, a white mythology which assembles and reflects Western culture. The provocation is that what philosophy calls pure thought is haunted by forgotten figures, and its dream of literal language is itself a metaphorical illusion.

References

• Aristotle. (1995). Poetics (S. Halliwell, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
• Derrida, J. (1974). White mythology: Metaphor in the text of philosophy (F. C. T. Moore, Trans.). New Literary History, 6(1), 5–74.
• France, A. (1908). The garden of Epicurus (A. Allinson, Trans.). John Lane.
•  Hegel, G. W. F. (1975). Aesthetics: Lectures on fine art (T. M. Knox, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
•  Nietzsche, F. (1979). On truth and lies in a nonmoral sense. In D. Breazeale (Ed.), Philosophy and truth (pp. 79–97). Humanities Press.