A guiding thread throughout the seminar is, no doubt, the repeated reference to "the ontic metaphor." For example, Derrida highlights Heidegger's recourse to Plato's Sophist, particularly to the Stranger's admonition to leave all storytelling behind when it comes to defining Being in itself and as such, or in other words, to resist all efforts to deduce Being from higher concepts, and, especially, to represent it by way of lower concepts. By highlighting this, Derrida makes clear that the thought of Being, and the quest for meaning, requires the destruction of the metaphor.

¶ 5:38 AM