“The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies. It’s matrix—If you will pardon me for demonstrating so little and for being elliptical in order to come more quickly to my principle theme—is the determination of Being as presence in all sense of this word.”

Structure, Sign and Play
Writing and Difference (1978)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies. It’s matrix…" by Jacques Derrida?
Jacques Derrida photo
Jacques Derrida 58
French philosopher (1930-2004) 1930–2004

Related quotes

“Either ghosts are a metaphor for history, or history is a metaphor for ghosts.”

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 133

Karl Rahner photo

“The immanence of grace always and everywhere does not make salvation history cease to be history, because history is the acceptance of grace by the historical freedom of human beings and the history of spirit coming ever more to itself in grace.”

Karl Rahner (1904–1984) German Catholic theologian

Meditations on the Sacraments (1977), Introduction, p. xi.
Context: Grace is everywhere as an active orientation of all created reality toward God, though God does not owe it to any creature to give it this special orientation. Grace does not happen in isolated instances here and there in an otherwise profane and graceless world. It is legitimate, of course, to speak of grace-events which occur at discrete points in space and time. But then what we are really talking about is the existential and historical acceptance of this grace by human freedom. … Grace itself … is everywhere and always, even though a human being's freedom can sinfully say no to it, just as a human being's freedoms can protest against humankind itself. This immanence of grace in the conscious world always and everywhere does not take away the gratuity of grace, because God's immediacy out of self-giving love is not something anyone can claim as his or her due. The immanence of grace always and everywhere does not make salvation history cease to be history, because history is the acceptance of grace by the historical freedom of human beings and the history of spirit coming ever more to itself in grace.

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.”

"Pascal’s Sphere" ["La esfera de Pascal"] (1951)
Variant translations: Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.
It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Terry Pratchett photo
Elizabeth Kostova photo

“Dracula is a metaphor for the evil that is so hard to undo in history.”

Elizabeth Kostova (1964) American writer

As quoted in "Raising the Undead" by Jessica Treadway, Chicago Tribune (12 June 2005)

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature
Viswanathan Anand photo

“The Bible deals with the sanctification of the actual history of nations and of human beings in this world as it is while that history is being lived.”

William Stringfellow (1928–1985) American theologian

Source: An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (1973), p. 47

Related topics