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Minimal Pairs. AI art   Introduction: Between Flexibility and Limit The postmodern claim that “all interpretations are equally valid” has had a decisive influence on contemporary philosophy and the social sciences. Its appeal lies in the fact that, at first sight, it reflects common experiences: what feels cold to one person may feel warm to another; what for some counts as freedom may for others be restriction. Yet behind this interpretive flexibility hides a fundamental confusion: the difficulty of making certain categories explicit is taken as proof that limits do not exist. This mistake leads to a radical relativism that ignores the role of reality as a structuring framework. Although concepts such as heat, love, or truth cannot always be defined with precise conceptual clarity, this does not mean that any interpretation is valid. There are objective boundaries which, beyond our disagreements, impose the category. The Postmodern Confusion The genealogy of this confusion ...

Traces. AI art Introduction In his Poetics , Aristotle offered one of the most cited definitions of metaphor: it consists, he writes, in “giving the thing a name that belongs to something else” (Poetics 1457b6–9). Jacques Derrida recalls this formula in Margins of Philosophy (p. 231), where it becomes the point of departure for a wide-ranging deconstruction of the philosophical dream of literal language. If metaphor is alien naming, then its opposite must be authentic naming: a speech where every entity possesses its own proper designation. This apparent alternative, Derrida argues, is precisely what metaphysicians have pursued—the fantasy of a discourse purified of figurative intrusion. Yet the very idea of such purity is internally compromised, since it is framed through metaphors of ownership, propriety, and transfer. Aristotle’s Definition and Its Implications Aristotle’s wording situates metaphor as a form of displacement: a name is carried across from its rightful home to...

Only Traces. AI art 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 o...

Introduction Few concepts have exercised such enduring influence over the history of philosophy and linguistics as the sign . From Aristotle’s On Interpretation to Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics , the sign has been treated as a bridge between thought, language, and reality. Yet Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction in Of Grammatology demonstrates that this apparently stable structure is undermined by its own assumptions. By interrogating the metaphysical commitments underlying the sign, Derrida exposes the fragility of notions such as origin, transcendental signified , and logocentrism . This article explores Derrida’s critique in relation to classical and modern accounts of the sign, focusing on Aristotle, Augustine, Jakobson, and Saussure, and culminating in Derrida’s own proposal of arche-writing . The Classical Foundations: Aristotle and Augustine The Western tradition of the sign begins with Aristotle’s Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας ( On Interpretation ). For Aristotle, signs me...

Network of Signs. AI art Introduction The history of semiotics is a history of unease. From Aristotle’s earliest definitions to poststructuralist elaborations, the sign has always seemed to promise a simple mediation between thought and world, yet has repeatedly shown itself to be unstable. Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard stand as two of the most radical challengers to the metaphysics of presence built into this concept. At first glance, their projects appear distinct: Derrida deconstructs the privilege of speech over writing, while Baudrillard dramatizes the collapse of representation into simulation. Yet, on closer reading, the lines blur. Baudrillard, who seems to stage a linear progression from representation to pure simulacrum, writes instead in the mode of “as if”: a hinge that both affirms and undoes the binary opposition. This essay explores that tension, situating it within the wider genealogy of the sign. Classical Genealogies of the Sign In On Interpretation , Ari...