The dynamics of a deep disagreement: Derrida and Ricoeur on metaphor and its relation to philosophy

Abstract

The first chapter is an examination of four projects of clarification which are all studies in one way or another of the deep disagreement between Derrida and Ricoeur. The objective is to show how these studies as clarifying projects simplify and even over-simplify the nature of this disagreement or, more broadly, Derrida's and Ricoeur's both convergent and divergent discourses on metaphor. The following four chapters are the analysis proper of the dynamics of the deep disagreement. These dynamics, being both ethical and epistemological, are as much about the indirect as the direct encounters between Derrida and Ricoeur. The second chapter analyses Derrida's essay, "La mythologie blanche," as challenge to the tradition which Ricoeur, its undeclared champion, must take up. Accordingly, the third and fourth chapters are devoted to analysing how Ricoeur meets this challenge in La metaphore vive. While the third chapter is devoted to analysing Ricoeur's indirect encounter with Derrida's project, the fourth is devoted to analysing his direct encounter. The latter is essentially his critical analysis of "La mythologie blanche" in the last study of La metaphore vive. In turn, Derrida responds to Ricoeur's critique with a polemic and an expose of sorts in "Le retrait de la metaphore." Analysing how Derrida takes aim at Ricoeur through Heidegger is the task of the fifth and final chapter.