Metaphor and Concept: Some Reflections on the Derrida-Ricoeur Debate

The debate between Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur on the philosophical status of metaphor has been seen as between two positions, one which privileges the destabilizing power of the metaphoric over the conceptual (Derrida) and the other which domesticates the metaphoric in the service of the conceptual (Ricoeur). Commentators on this debate, no matter where their sympathies lie, seem to predominantly be in agreement on this issue. In this paper I attempt to invert the frame within which this debate has been viewed. I argue that the debate can more fruitfully be read not as one on the status of metaphor in philosophy, but rather on the task of concept-construction in philosophy. I also argue that in reading this debate from this perspective, we come across a rather surprising conclusion: that it is Derrida, rather than Ricoeur, who provides us with a more robust and profitable mode of concept-construction that can accommodate scientific revolutions, epistemological breaks, and paradigm shifts. Ricoeur’s model of concept construction, I argue, only functions within what Thomas Kuhn has called ‘normal science’.