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