This week's question on Derrida was delayed in getting out, so it will be
optional. For those of you who wish to contribute, I open up the following
post to the Derrida list for your commentary. Your "reply" will, of
course, be distributed only to members of the Metaphor list. If anyone is
motivated to respond to the sender, write to her directly. To respond to
the Derrida list, please contact David Erben (owner of the list). --PS
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 10:06:22 +1000
From: Christina McWilliam
To: Multiple recipients of list DERRIDA
Subject: metaphor
From: Christina McWilliam
Subject: Metaphor
I am trying to understand Derrida's argument in the "Exergue"and
"Plus de Metaphor". He says that any definition of metaphor will beg the
question because it will always include the defined within the definition.
It seems to me that there might be two problems with his objection. First,
it seems to involve a conflation of the definition of metaphor with the process
of metaphor - of the name with the dynamic. The description of a metaphor is
not itself a metaphor, except in a very broad sense that is not
relevant to the present definition in any logical way. Second,(a
reformulation of the first problem) even if one did accept that it is
relevant that the definition of metaphor involves the use of metaphors, for
this to have any weight we would have to accept, wouldn't we, that all
metaphor is the same? We know this is not the case however, because Derrida
himself believes that he can distinguish at least two types of metaphorical
structures: straight forward metaphoricity and quasi-metaphoricity. I know
he says that his quasi-metaphoricity is under erasure, and somehow immune to
the objection that it is necessary to understand it in opposition to a type
of metphoricity that is not "quasi". But I don't see how this can be successful.
Yet, even if this business of having to borrow from metaphor in order
to describe it is the case, I still do not see how this causes
insurmountable problems for the theory of metaphor. After all, one cannot
describe logic without presupposing the laws of logic. This fact does not
incline us to challenge the existence or validity of logical discourse.
I would be very happy if someone could put me straight on this matter.
Christina
Christina McWilliam
Christina McWiliam
A student philosopher in Paddington
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Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 08:14:37 -0500
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From: "Phillip Sipiora (LAN)"
To: erben@satie.arts.usf.edu
Subject: WEEK SIX QUESTION: BORROWING
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X-Comment: This list will serve as a major vehicle for discussion in the Spring, 1996 graduate course, "Theories of Metaphor and Contemporary Latin American Literature" (ENG 6018).
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Comment on the following quotation, which capitalizes on the metaphor of
"borrowing."
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"Borrowing is the law. Within each language, since one figure is always a
borrowed language, but also from one discursive domain to another, or from
one science to another. Without borrowing, nothing begins, there is no
property. Everything begins with the transfer of funds, and there is
interest in borrowing, it is even the first and foremost interest.
Borrowing brings a good return, it produces surplus-value, it is the
primary motor, the prime motor of all investment. One begins thus by
speculating, by betting on a value to produce as though from nothing. And
all these 'metaphors' confirm, as metaphors, the necessity of what they
say."