White Mythology

     As philosophy attempts to keep itself isolated from the so-called contaminating germs of metaphor so as to explicate the stark-truth in the plainest language without any deception Derrida proposes to prove that the so-called abhorred metaphor are inevitably present not only in language but also in the heart of philosophy. Thus in this essay, he dissolves the hierarchy traditionally drawn between philosophy and rhetoric stating further that language is metaphorical and metaphors are languages.

     To facilitate his argument, he brings reference of Locke, Renan and Nietzsche.
Locke: Our learning of the language is experience. Every experiences are metaphorical experiences. Our external experiences is first experience for articulation – from outside sound w are able to produce sound because the is always sound in nature. We derive some sense from the object. e.g. We normally associate stone with cruelty. So metaphor is an experience.

     Renan: Our alphabet is brought because of the external experience. Some of them are distinctively associated and some not.
Nietzsche: Language is the mobile armies of metaphor, metonymy and anthropomorphism. Truth is always changing its position, it is hidden behind the colour of the language.
Derrida’s major project in this essay is to rupture the hierarchy between rhetoric and philosophy regarding metaphors. Here he has taken two term form rumismetics i.e. u sure and exergue.
Exergue: Inscription on the coin.
U sure : gradual fading away of inscription due to own handling.

     According to Derrida, a word is a coin. In a word also there are metaphorical inscriptions and also they fade away in due course of time. when we start using words which initially contain metaphorical implication, those inscription of metaphor (exergue) get gradually wiped (usure) and get rendered into plain, white words. We pressure that those already faded inscription had never been attached to the words.

     But is reality, if we go into tracking back its history we notice the inherent metaphorical ness imbedded in the word but now just appearing different. Thus Derrida by exergue implies the metaphorical ness of the word and by usure he implies the handling of the word into the slow erasing of the primary metaphor.

     The study of Western Philosophy as a plain white coin or paper on which metaphors are inscribed in imperceptible white ink. The title even refers to metaphors as blood in philosophy. As long as philosophy exists metaphorical meanings are inevitably lurking. If a philosopher claims to have used a white world-word without metaphorical implication-then philosophy suffers from bloodlessness. Derrida thus proposes metaphorology to merge both philosophy and rhetoric through metaphor. Another possible implication of the title can be European or white mythology/philosophy which has no-distincture attributes as truth seeking means. On the basis of uncontaminated language or words.

Friedrich Nietzsche “The Use and Abuse of History” deals with the dynamics of remembering and forgetting, which Nietzsche sees as the exclusive characteristic of human animal. Unlike the beast, human beings have to come to grips with the problem of leaving to forget an action, which presupposes the prior ability to remember. Whether he wants it or not, man has history. Read More...

Immanuel Kant The enlightenment, an intellectual movement in eighteenth century Europe celebrated human reason and scientific thought as the instrument of liberation from the superstition and ignorance inherited from the past. Read More...

Mikhail Bakhtin Bakhtin says that traditional stylistics and philosophy of language failed to read novelistic genre since they did not understand the artistic uniqueness of novelistic discourse. Their basic focus is on poetic language, individuality of language, image, symbol, epic style, they do not give spacious room to extra-linguistic affairs.Read More...

Adorno and Horkheimer According to Adorno and Horkheimer, individuals are becoming subservient to the absolute power of capitalism in this age of mechanical reproduction. In this age, we are losing our subjectivity and we are all the time judged by the market value exchanged system which makes different between appearance and reality. Technology has acquired power in the society. Read More...

Levi-Strauss Levi-Strauss is a sociologist, anthropologist and structuralists. As a structuralists, he sees structure in everything. In this essay he basically takes about structure of myth. He says that myth has internal and external structure. Regarding the myth there are different opinions. Sociologists say that a society expresses itself in the form of myth. Read More...

Jugen Habermas Modernity is rooted in the development of Enlightenment. Habermas talks of Max Weber’s separation of religion and metaphysics into three independent spheres. Science, morality and art. This division, Habermas says, ultimately gave space to three dimensions of culture, truth, morality and beauty, knowledge, justice and taste. Read More...

Walter Benjamin Benjamin in this essay focuses upon the relational between original art and its reproduction and here he is in favour of mechanical reproduction of work of art. Now, the world has progressed a lot in the field of science and technology as a result of this progress the reproduction has become possible. Read More...