Derrida and the Flesh of Metaphorical Language

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt has been made to uncover the problem of metaphorical language in its relation to fleshliness and embodiedness as found in the critical reading of the texts of Derrida. The fleshliness of metaphorical language is embodied in our bodily activity in such a manner that sensible writing in the Derridean sense and corporeal body become intertwined no-tions. Metaphor and metaphorical language is a point of intersection between the body and sensible writing. This materiality/corporeality/fleshiness of me-taphorical language can be understood as text. According to Derrida, writing and body have been viewed by the western philosophical tradition as exterior to speech and mind respectively, and he wants to deconstruct such hierar-chical binaries. With this, writing (as archi-écriture) is no more a literary no-tion, but the generic form of symbolic practice, always already metaphorical and embodied. This paper is centered on the oeuvre of Derrida to uncover the thinking for the fleshliness of metaphorical language from within the texts of western philosophical tradition.