The concept of metaphor as primarily a vehicle for conveying ideas, even if unusual ones, seems to me as wrong as the parent idea that a metaphor has a special meaning. I agree with the view that metaphors cannot be paraphrased, but I think this is not because metaphors say something too novel for literal expression but because there is nothing there to paraphrase. Paraphrase, whether possible or not, inappropriate to what is said: we try, in paraphrase, (...) to say it another way. But if I am right, a metaphor doesn't say anything beyond its literal meaning. This is not, of course, to deny that a metaphor has a point, nor that that point can be brought out by using further words.... My disagreement is with the explanation of how metaphor works its wonders. To anticipate: I depend on the distinction between what words mean and what they are used to do. I think metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of use. It is something brought off by the imaginative employment of words and sentences and depends entirely on the ordinary meanings of those words and hence on the ordinary meanings of the sentences they comprise. Donald Davidson is University Professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many important essays, including "Actions, Reasons and Causes," "Causal Relations," and "Truth and Meaning," coauthor of Decision-Making: An Experimental Approach, and coeditor of Words and Objections, Semantics of Natural Language, and The Logic of Grammar. (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to propose a conception of metaphorical meaning on which the meaning of a metaphor includes propositional as well as non-propositional features. I will make two general claims on behalf of the proposed account: first, it is intuitive; second, it is of theoretical value. In claiming that the proposed account is of theoretical value, I mean only that its adoption leads to an increased understanding of the nature of metaphor: of metaphorical thought and ofmetaphorical (...) communication in particular. (shrink)

Milan Kundera is one of the most influential writers in contemporary world literature. In his novels, there are many symbolic metaphors related to numbers, dreams, and animals. Combing through the plots of Kundera’s novels, we can discover that among all the numbers, seven and twenty are used most frequently. These two numbers have rich metaphorical meanings. Besides, there are many other digital metaphors in Kundera’s novels, including 6, 4, etc. Apart from number symbols, Kundera has also inserted various (...) kinds of dream symbols in his artistic creation. For Kundera, dreams are not just an individual’s physical and psychological activities, but also a continuation and supplement of real life. It can be concluded that dream narration is a perfect medium for the author to express his philosophical ideology. In addition, dream symbols also serve as an important medium for Kundera to demonstrate narrative skills and present important themes. In Kundera’s novels, animal symbols are integrated with the plots, revealing the personal traits of the relevant characters, and mirroring their spiritual world at the same time. Besides, Kundera also expressed his ecological ethics through the narration of animals’ death. In conclusion, the metaphorical meanings of different symbols in Kundera’s novels play an active role in highlighting the themes, revealing the inner thoughts of the characters, showing the special features of the characters, and expressing the author’s philosophical thoughts. These symbols help Kundera to break the limitations of time and space, which has become an important part of his polyphonic art. What’s more, Kundera has also tried to expand the original metaphorical meanings of these symbols to create some new poetic meanings. (shrink)

That the central thesis of Donald Davidson’s classic article on metaphor “What Metaphor Means” (WMM) is ambiguous between a weak and a strong interpretation is the primary claim that I sought to establish in my article “Sentence Meaning, Speaker Meaning, and Davidson’s Denial of Metaphorical Meaning.” In addition to this, I argued that the weak claim is trivially true and the strong claim is obviously false. Therefore, I concluded that when the central thesis of WMM is disambiguated, it is (...) insignificant. Finally, I explained the ambiguity in that thesis in terms of Davidson’s neglect in WMM for the concept of speaker meaning and this, in turn, in terms of a certain theoretical orientation to language that Davidson held at the time of writing WMM. In his commentary on my article, “Speaker Meaning and Davidson on Metaphor: A Reply to McGuire,” Robert J. Stainton raises objections to several of the foregoing claims. In this article, I review and defend each of these claims against Stainton’s objections. (shrink)

In his paper "What Metaphors Mean", Donald Davidson attacks various theories of the metaphorical meaning. His radical thesis is that the metaphor has except the literal meaning no other (metaphorical or secondary) meaning. He refuses primarily the idea that the metaphor is some sort of communication-the speaker puts a hidden message in it and the recipient have to decode it. Davidson supported this negative attitude with a number of more or less conclusive arguments. I would like to (...) discuss some of them in this essay. My interpretation of Davidson's argumentation can be summed up as that the idea of the metaphorical meaning is not nonsensical, but it is unsuitable for explaining the intricate role of metaphors in our language. A positive theory of metaphor was only suggested by Davidson, but not properly elaborated. This was a task of his followers, in the first place of Richard Rorty. He emphasized, however, the causal character of a metaphorical effect, which radicalizes Davidson's account. As opposed to Rorty, Davidson shared with his predecessors an opinion that in a metaphor one thing is seen as another thing. None of the authors was able to explain this metaphorical definition of the metaphor. (shrink)

In On What We Mean, Arnold Chien discusses the meaning of a speaker, a notion we use in everyday conversation. Speaker's meaning is a fundamental notion of pragmatics, i.e. the study of the relation between words and speakers. Yet everyday speaker's meaning has not been systematically studied in philosophy or linguistics. Chien's approach to these issues is to take a speaker's meaning as an answer to "what do you (s/he) mean" (WDYM) questions. He then analyzes WDYM-questions (...) in terms of Bas van Fraassen's analysis of why-questions, according to which, a question consists of a set of parameters whose values vary according to the context. The constraints on speaker's meanings are analyzed in terms of certain constraints on answers to WDYM-questions. The account is extended to metaphor, understood to be a kind of conceptual indeterminacy. (shrink)

What is Meaning? Fundamentals of Formal Semantics is a concise introduction to the field of semantics as it is actually practiced. Through simple examples, pictures, and metaphors, Paul Portner presents the field’s key ideas about how language works. Explains the fundamental ideas and some of the most significant results of modern semantic theory Combines foundational discussion with simplified analyses of complex phenomena to provide readers with a sense of the fascination to be found in the details of the (...) human language Includes exercises and thought-provoking questions to facilitate learning. (shrink)

In 1978 Donald Davidson published an article entitled “What Metaphors Mean” (WMM), in which he championed the idea that “metaphors mean what the words, in their most literal interpretation, mean, and nothing more.” In 1986 Davidson published a somewhat related article entitled “ A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs” (NDE), in which he defended a unique and controversial theory of literal meaning according to which the literal meaning of an expression is determined by the (...) speaker’s first intention in uttering it. Both of these articles (WMM and NDE) have attracted a considerable amount of attention in the literature. However, the connection between these two articles has received much less attention, and those interested in Davidson’s philosophy of language have had to conjecture about whether the ideas expressed in WMM are consistent with those of NDE. The principal goal of this article is to clarify the connection between the main ideas expressed in those two articles. (shrink)

John Michael McGuire presents a dilemma for Donald Davidson’s denial of metaphorical content in the latter’s “What Metaphors Mean”. Probably, says McGuire, Davidson has simply overlooked the possibility that speakers mean propositions when they speak metaphorically. If so, all Davidson is saying is that expressions do not have additional metaphorical meanings. This is so obvious as to make Davidson’s paper “insignificant”. Besides which, McGuire continues, if Davidson intended to deny that speakers mean propositions in speaking (...) metaphorically, his view is “obviously false”. This again would make Davidson’s supposedly classic paper “insignificant.”. (shrink)

This paper defends the view put forward by Donald Davidson in his paper 'What Metaphors Mean' that metaphorical utterances have no propositional meaning or message content other than the literal content of the expressions uttered. Davidson's own arguments for this position are examined, and found on the whole to be unconvincing, but further considerations are offered in support of his conclusion.

I compare two of Davidson's main discussions of metaphor. I argue, first, that despite some puzzling inconsistencies, the overall thrust of “What Metaphors Mean” is a radical form of noncogitivism, on which speakers of metaphors merely cause their hearers to perceive certain features in the world, but do not claim or implicate that things are any particular way. By contrast, in “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs,” Davidson endorses a neo‐Gricean account of metaphor as a form of (...) speaker's meaning. However, he also now advocates a radical anticonventionalism about linguistic meaning in general, which threatens to undermine his new view of metaphor. Finally, I articulate and evaluate a neo‐Davidsonian view of metaphor, which retains as much as possible from both papers. (shrink)

Since the publication of Donald Davidson's essay “What Metaphors Mean” (1978) – in which he famously asserts that metaphor has no meaning – the views expressed in it have mostly met with criticism: prominently from Mary Hesse and Max Black. This article attempts to explain Davidson's surprise-move regarding metaphor by relating it to elements in the rest of his work in semantics, such as the principle of compositionality, radical interpretation and the principle of charity. I conclude that (...) Davidson's views on metaphor are not only consistent with his semantic theory generally, but that his semantics also depend on these insights. Eventually, the debate regarding Davidson's views on metaphor should be conducted on the level of his views on the nature of semantics, the relationship between language and the world and the possibility that there is some thing like conceptual schemes. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.20(4) 2001: 55-72. (shrink)

Donald Davidson holds that metaphors have no linguistic meaning in addition to their literal meaning. Max Black and Frank B. Farrell each contends that Davidson’s view is inconsistent with the fact that metaphors are appropriate objects of explication and evaluation. However, as I show, Davidson’s view actually is entirely consistent with this fact. I also argue that Black’s and Farrell’s own accounts of metaphor imply that sometimes the linguistic meaning of a sentence is other than a product of (...) the meanings of its words and its logical form, and I give a reason why accounts of metaphor with this implication are best rejected. E.M. Zemach, for his part, agrees with Davidson about what metaphors mean, but contends that, on Davidson’s recent account of language and interpretation, all metaphors turn out to be true; metaphors express novel or impractical but nonetheless literally true comparisons or categorizations. Zemach, however, I argue, has neglected the distinction between how speakers actually apply their words to things and their standards of correct application. (shrink)

The author takes on the task of describing the interface between emotion and cognition by way of a narrative about psychology, and its meaning to his life. Using time as an overall metaphor, or perhaps a foundation stone underpinning a series of seemingly unconnected events, some insight is given into the author's personal life. The author invokes the works of feminist philosopher and author, Susan Faludi, to portray some aspects of his journey through fantasy, and then the reality of a (...) disparate practice on two continents in psychology and neuropsychology. With particular reference to Faludi's portrayal of men as failed heroes without a role in modern society, the author discovers that all of his work with others has been a work with his own troubled soul, and his failed heroism. Calling on his early role models, and life with and without a sense of purpose, he learns from his clients the value of courage and patience, a spiritual as well as intellectual journey that leads him to become many things to many people in order to heal them, and himself. (shrink)

According to one widely held view of metaphor, metaphors are cases in which the speaker (literally) says one thing but means something else instead. I wish to challenge this idea. I will argue that when one utters a sentence in some context intending it to be understood metaphorically, one directly expresses a proposition, which can potentially be evaluated as either true or false. This proposition is what is said by the utterance of the sentence in that context. We (...) don’t convey metaphorical meanings indirectly by directly saying something else. One consequence is that, contrary to what Searle (1993: 110) suggests, we do not arrive at the metaphorical meaning that the speaker intended via a literal interpretation of the sentence the speaker utters. The defense of this view depends on articulating a conception of what is said that is more generous than that allowed for by Searle (1993) and others such as Bach (2001). I hope to motivate this broadened conception of what is said (what I call a contextualist conception of what is said), and to show some of the benefits of adopting a direct expression view of metaphor. (shrink)

This article arises indirectly out of the development of a particular approach, called ATT-Meta, to the understanding of some types of metaphorical utterance. However, the specifics of the approach are not the focus of the present article, which concentrates on some general issues that have informed, or arisen from, the development of the approach. The article connects those issues to the questions of metaphorical meaning and truth. -/- A large part of the exploration of metaphor in fields such as Cognitive (...) Linguistics and natural language Pragmatics takes metaphor to rest on complex mappings between a target subject matter and a source subject matter (see, e.g., Lakoff 1993, 2008). This is one main way in which some aspects of the source, generally including some structural aspects, can have parallels in the target. It is typical for much, and perhaps the whole, of the meaning of a metaphorical expression to be explained by means of these parallels. We will talk about “parallelism” rather than “isomorphism,” or even “analogy,” because “isomorphism” implies a strict one-to-one correspondence between items in the source scenario and items in the target scenario, and analogy theorists often hold that analogy rests on isomorphism. We wish not to prejudge the question of whether looser, messier forms of parallelism are sometimes needed. Also, we will talk about parallels rather than mappings, because our discussion will embrace the question of parallelism that may be discernible, albeit implicitly, in accounts of metaphor that are not presented as being based on mappings. Three main cases of such accounts are Relevance Theory (RT: e.g., Sperber & Wilson 2008, Wilson & Carston 2006), the categorization-based or "class-inclusion“ approach (Glucksberg 2008), and Ritchie’s (2006) CLST account (Context-Limited Simulation Theory). -/- One main issue we will address is that of substantial non-parallelism that can exist between source and target subject-matters in metaphor: more precisely, the issue that there may be source aspects that are exploited by the utterance and have a deep effect on metaphorical interpretation but that do not themselves have a natural parallel in the target subject-matter (although we will point out that artificial parallels can generally be created). This is part of a broader point that the content of metaphorical discourse should often be seen as being derived in a rather holistic way from several metaphorical bits of the discourse, which conspire to describe some source-domain scenario, rather than being derived by putting together metaphorical meanings of each metaphorical bit (even if each bit could in principle be assigned its own separate metaphorical meaning). As a result, we suggest that it is misguided to think of the propositions making up the content (or, if you like, "meaning“) about the target scenario that is being described is a matter of metaphorical meaning of specific grammatical units such as sentences, clauses or other constituents that a traditional semantic theory would assign propositional meaning to. Rather, grammatical units (that are to be taken metaphorically) have meanings in source-domain terms; content in target-domain terms is derived from the source-domain scenario depicted by those units and fleshed out through inference; and the target-domain content is only (in general) fuzzily relatable to particular grammatical units. This view is on a spectrum at whose extreme point we could place Davidson’s (1984) view that metaphors only have literal (i.e., source-domain) meanings, with other effects on the understander not being a matter of propositional content. However, on our view it is proper to take metaphorical discourse as having non-literal meaning, couched as a collection of propositions, among other things possibly; it is just that the propositions are not to be thought of (in general) as meaning of specific sentences, clauses or other grammatical units rather than of a possibly only fuzzily delineated piece of discourse. -/- A second main concern of the article is the question of how much, and what types of, inference are involved in the derivation of metaphorical meaning. While our own ATT-Meta approach accords with, amongst other accounts, Relevance Theory (RT) as to the centrality of inference in metaphor interpretation, we disagree with RT on its claim that metaphor interpretation is a matter of (a relatively high degree of) concept "broadening“ and (often) "narrowing“. We argue that almost all inference can in fact be theoretically re-described as concept broadening and/or narrowing, and what is left over should be included in the metaphor interpretation process anyway. Thus, the RT claim about broadening and narrowing really just says that inference, of unrestricted type, is involved in metaphor understanding, in accord with what ATT-Meta claims. (shrink)

Davidson argues that metaphorical sentences express no propositional contents other than the explicit literal contents they express. He offers a causal account, on the one hand, as an explanation of the supposed additional content of a metaphor in terms of the effects metaphors have on hearers, and on the other hand, as a reason for the non-propositional nature of the “something more” that a metaphor is alleged to mean. Davidson’s account is meant to restrict the semantic notions of (...) meaning, content, and truth, to literal sentences. I argue that the Davidsonian causal account does not satisfactorily account for metaphor’s figurativeness, speakers’ assertion and hearers’ uptake of metaphor, and our discursive practices of using metaphors in disagreements and argumentation. I offer a non-compositional analysis of a semantic account of metaphor within which one can make sense of the applicability of the notions of meaning and content to metaphor. This analysis shows that metaphorical sentences have meanings other than, and in addition to, their literal meanings and what speakers can use them to mean. (shrink)

Die Arbeit liefert im Rahmen eines kognitiv-konstruktivistischen Ansatzes eine theoretische Grundlage für die systematische Integration von Metaphern in den Fremdsprachenunterricht. Es wird dargestellt, wie Menschen ihre Umwelt und ihr auf diese Umwelt gerichtetes Denken und Handeln kognitiv erfassen und auf der Basis dieses Wissens Vorstellungen von Welt entwickeln, die sich in Sprache niederschlagen. Die Rolle kognitiver mapping-Prozesse für die Konstruktion von Wissen und Bedeutung, d.h. für Lernprozesse im Allgemeinen, wird erläutert, und es wird demonstriert, wie sich das Ergebnis solcher Prozesse (...) häufig in Form metaphorischer Ausdrücke in Sprache widerspiegelt. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie sich die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse für den Fremdsprachenerwerb nutzen lassen. (shrink)

I propose that an account of metaphor understanding which covers the full range of cases has to allow for two routes or modes of processing. One is a process of rapid, local, on-line concept construction that applies quite generally to the recovery of word meaning in utterance comprehension. The other requires a greater focus on the literal meaning of sentences or texts, which is metarepresented as a whole and subjected to more global, reflective pragmatic inference. The questions whether metaphors (...) convey a propositional content and what role imagistic representation plays receive somewhat different answers depending on the processing route. (shrink)

On a familiar and prima facie plausible view of metaphor, speakers who speak metaphorically say one thing in order to mean another. A variety of theorists have recently challenged this view; they offer criteria for distinguishing what is said from what is merely meant, and argue that these support classifying metaphor within 'what is said'. I consider four such criteria, and argue that when properly understood, they support the traditional classification instead. I conclude by sketching how (...) we might extract a workable notion of 'what is said' from ordinary intuitions about saying. (shrink)

The current emphasis on rising educational standards in Australian society (eg A Commonwealth Government Quality Teacher Initiative, 2000) has stimulated a growing interest in Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory widely renowned for its profound understanding of teaching and learning. The metaphor of scaffolding commonly viewed as underpinned by socio-cultural theory and the zone of proximal development in particular, has become increasingly popular among educators in Australia (Hammond, 2002). Teachers find the metaphor appealing as it "offers what is lacking in much literature (...) on education - an effective conceptual metaphor for the quality of teacher intervention in learning" (Hammond, 2002, p.2). However, there is no consensus of opinion among educators on the specific characteristics that constitute successful scaffolding. On the contrary, the current interpretation of scaffolding seems to have been drifting away from the Vygotskian view of teaching and learning and appears to have become an umbrella term for any kind of teacher support (Jacobs, 2001) and therefore, cannot serve the purpose of justifying the quality of teacher intervention. Furthermore, when taken out of its theoretical context, scaffolding tends to be interpreted as a form of direct instruction (Donovan & Smolkin, 2002), which invalidates the Vygotskian idea of teaching as co-construction of knowledge within student-centred activities. Such an interpretation of the metaphor of scaffolding is an unfortunate step back to a traditional, pre-Piagetian way of teaching which is adult-driven in nature and often results in "the imposition of a structure on the student" (Searle, 1984, in Stone, 1998, p. 349). In spite of a number of limitations of the metaphor, that have been discussed by socio-cultural theorists (e. g., Stone, 2001), it remains highly popular among educators. To fulfil teachers' expectations of scaffolding as being an effective teaching tool, it needs to be understood within the framework of its underlying theory. This project aims to analyse understanding of the concept of scaffolding by educational researchers and practitioners in its connection to the Vygotskian view of the role of instruction in nurturing children as active learners. (shrink)

In the Nyāya school of Classical Indian Philosophy, the concept of word meaning is described in detail; however, the theory of metaphor seems to clash with the theory of word meaning. This paper explores the theory of meaning in the early Nyāya theory and whether metaphor is compatible with it. The Nyāya theory of meaning is a 'basis for application' (pravrttinimitta) model: words pick out references because of the conventions and practices of use. Yet, these words can come to refer (...) to something completely different by pushing off its conventional usage and taking on a metaphorical meaning. If the referent is determined on the basis of the properties it possesses, how it is possible that only some properties are applied to a referent in metaphorical cases when, conventionally, a referent must possess all of the properties before the word is applied to it? This paper will investigate three main questions: 1) what is the nature of a referent according to the Nyāya?; 2) what is the mechanism for metaphorical transfer that allow some properties to transfer and not others?; and 3) what are the philosophical implications of the Naiyāyikas understanding of meaning? (shrink)

ABSTRACTComputers are now able to automatically generate metaphors, but some automatically generated metaphors are more well received than others. In this article, we showed participants a series of “A is B” type metaphors that were either generated by humans or taken from the Twitter account “MetaphorIsMyBusiness”, which is linked to a fully automated metaphor generator. We used these metaphors to assess linguistic factors that drive metaphor appreciation and understanding, including the role of novelty, word frequency, concreteness, (...) and emotional valence of the topic and vehicle terms. We additionally assessed how these metaphors were understood in three languages, including English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese, and whether participants thought they had been generated by a human or a computer. We found that meaningfulness, appreciation, speed in finding meaning, and humanness ratings were reliably correlated with each other in all three languages, which we interpret to indicate a mor... (shrink)

At the time of its introduction in the end of the 1980s, the concept of natural capital represented new, more ecologically aware thinking in economics. As a symbol of novel thinking, the metaphor of natural capital stimulated a debate between different disciplinary traditions on the definitions of the concept and research priorities and methods. The concept became a means to control the discourse of sustainable development. In this paper, I focus on the power/ knowledge implications of the use of the (...) concept, and I follow the career of the concept of natural capital in ecological economic publications between the years 1988 and 2000. The main interests are in the use of the concept to affect the rules according to which claims concerning sustainable development can be made and in the constitution of objects of environmental knowledge. (shrink)

Schutz’s references to literature and arts in his theoretical works are manifold. But literature and theory are both a certain kind of a finite province of meaning, that means they are not easily accessible from the paramount reality of everyday life. Now there is another kind of referring to literature: metaphorizing it. Using it, as may be said with Lakoff and Johnson, to understand and to experience one kind of thing in terms of another. Literally metapherein means “to carry over”. (...) Metaphorizing in this view is then a specific kind of border-crossing between different provinces of meaning. That poses two questions: 1. What means finiteness of those provinces of meaning, what kind of border crossings are possible? What is the ground for metaphorizing meaning? 2. Could this concept used for founding a theory of the constitution of the societal and of society, that overcomes the dichotomy of structure/agency? These questions will be answered with one example in view: Schutz’ report to Kaufmann of his first visit of Husserl describing his experience as feeling like Wilhelm Meister at the Society of the Tower. In a first step this metaphor is presented together with some crumbs of metaphor theory. In a second step these crumbs will be connected to Husserl’s concept of experience. After developing a short overview over Schutz’ “finite provinces of meaning,” the relation of experience, metaphors to the intersubjectivity of these provinces in their dependence from writing and printing is discussed. (shrink)

The article analyzes the metaphor “Copernican revolution,” used by Kant to highlight the core idea of his philosophy. The author argues that Kant uses the analogies with mathematics and natural science for establishing criteria of scientific character of knowledge. These criteria include the hypothetic-deductive or a priorimethod of thinking, which determines the apodictic, i.e. necessary and objective, character of the basic laws of nature, as well as the verification of laws a priorithrough experiments.The author focuses on Kant’s idea of the (...) possibility of scientific metaphysics based on these criteria. She claims that the structure of scientific metaphysics and the epistemological status of its statements depend on what kind of objects it deals with: with phenomena given to us by sensuality, with only conceivable “things in themselves” or with supersensitive “objects of an idea.” In the last part, the author interprets the meaning of the metaphor “Copernican turn” as the upgrading of logic, the idea of “transcendental idealism” and discusses the possibility of using the metaphor “Ptolemaic system” to characterize the practical philosophy of Kant. (shrink)

This paper investigates the issue whether metaphors have a metaphorical or secondary meaning and how this question is related to the borderline between philosophy and linguistics. On examples by V. Woolf and H. W. Auden, it will be shown that metaphor accomplishes something more than its literal meaning expresses and this “more” cannot be captured by any secondary meaning. What is essential in the metaphor is not a secondary meaning but an internal relation between a metaphorical proposition and (...) a description of its effects. In order to understand metaphors, we have to share an ability to construe metaphorical meanings at once. The aim of this ability is to uncover an internal relation, which lies behind a particular metaphor. (shrink)

In this paper I explore two distinct but related emphases in Deleuze's later philosophy, both on his own and in collaboration with Félix Guattari, having to do with literature. The first is the emphasis on the work of literature as an assemblage whereby the author constructs lines of flight in the pursuit of self-experimentation and self-transformation. The second is the rejection of metaphor across Deleuze's work. I use Difference and Repetition to chart the origins of these emphases, by unpacking the (...) metaphysics of language contained in Difference and Repetition. I first recount the basic structure of Deleuze's intensive ontology, before going on to discuss the way in which the ‘fundamental encounter’ forces thought to formulate Ideas, which, as they are transmitted through the subject, alter her nature. This self-transformation is tantamount to a kind of ‘death’, whereby one is continually explicated, but this explication implies the transcendental Other-structure at the end of Difference and Repetition, wherein the Other, through language, gives birth to ‘possible worlds’. I end with the development of an unexplored concept in Difference and Repetition, the loquendum, which is what must be spoken precisely because it is inexpressible, the purely intensive. Language comes closest to this intensive use in its aesthetic, poetic, literary modes whereby authors distort their own languages. (shrink)

It was a bad day. First I presented my idea about a Central America protest to the faculty committee, but the committee played ping-pong with the idea until it was crushed. Then I met Robinson, who has somehow been able to present his theory of action in a serious journal. But the theory is a house of cards, and once his critics rattle the table a bit, the theory will come crashing down. And his book on the history of philosophy, (...) just published, is a cheap TV dinner. He does not understand how to study the history of thought. It is necessary to dig into hidden layers of thought, to uncover earlier strata, to map the subterranean patterns, and then to explain why upheavals take place when they do.The above paragraph contains a number of metaphorical sentences. Now all of the following are, I believe, facts about, or relevant to, those sentences. They can be true or false, and our behavior towards them shows that we take them as candidates for truth. I will be expected to offer evidence in support of their truth, and Robinson's supporters on the faculty, if they hear me state the sentences about him, will accuse me of having made false claims. It is generally clear, in regard to the metaphorical sentences under consideration, what would count as evidence for them and against them. (shrink)

This study is a semantic analysis of metonymic and metaphoric expressions involving body-part terms for the face in Chinese. These expressions are discussed regarding four perceived roles of face, namely, as highlight of appearance and look, as indicator of emotion and character, as focus of interaction and relationship, and as locus of dignity and prestige. It is argued that the figurative extensions are based on some biological facts about our face: it is the most distinctive part on the interactive side (...) of our body capable of revealing our inner states. Referring to English the study shows that the terms for the face in both languages have developed figurative meanings along similar routes with similar stops. It also shows that the concepts of “face and facework”, admittedly ubiquitous in all cultures, are manifested more richly in Chinese than in English — a reflection of cultural differences in values attached to those concepts. Finally, a hypothetical “Triangle Model” is proposed to account for the relationship between language, culture, body, and cognition. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that causation, when described and treated as a metaphor, increases in explanatory power, while diminishing the problems associated with standard analysis of it. I first present a description of the uses of metaphor in scientific and literary language. This is drawn primarily from Max Black's interaction view of metaphor, as well as the view forwarded by Donald Davidson in his What Metaphors Mean. I then outline some of the standard analyses in (...) the field of causation, followed by some of the standard replies to those analyses. Finally, I show how describing causation in terms of a metaphor will bypass many of these objections, while maintaining or increasing its explanatory power. (shrink)

When athletes make significant plays in sporting competitions, such as scoring a goal in soccer, a touchdown in American football, they often immediately express their joy by performing some bodily action for others to see and understand. Many sports celebrations are staged pantomimes that express metaphorical meanings as a part of athletes’ pretending to perform certain source-path-goal sequences of action from other competitive events. This article examines the possible metaphoricity in different sports celebrations and whether casual observers may understand these (...) actions as conveying metaphorical messages. Studies 1 and 3 present analyses of some of the important, possibly metaphorical, characteristics of a corpus of sports celebrations, both those that are performed by individual athletes (Study 1) and those where several athletes jointly enact some celebratory action (Study 3). Studies 2 (individual athletes) and 4 (group performances) investigated whether casual spectators interpret some celebrations as conveying metaphorical messages beyond simply expressing an athlete’s positive emotions. These studies demonstrate that many sports celebrations express metaphorical meanings where athletes provide bodily commentary on the significance of what they have just accomplished. (shrink)

To be able to produce and understand metaphorical statements is nothing much to boast about: these familiar skills, which children seem to acquire as they learn to talk, are perhaps no more remarkable than our ability to tell and to understand jokes. How odd then that it remains difficult to explain what we do in grasping metaphorical statements. In a provocative paper, "What Metaphors Mean,"1 Donald Davidson has recently charged many students of metaphor, ancient and modern, (...) with having committed a "central mistake." According to him, there is "error and confusion" in claiming "that a metaphor has, in addition to its literal sense or meaning, another sense or meaning." The guilty include "literary critics like Richards, Empson, and Winters; philosophers from Aristotle to Max Black; psychologists from Freud and earlier to Skinner and later; and linguists from Plato to Uriel Weinreich and George Lakoff." Good company, if somewhat mixed. The error to be extirpated is the "idea that a metaphor has a special meaning". If Davidson is right, much that has been written about metaphor might well be consigned to the flames. Even if he proves to be wrong, his animadversions should provoke further consideration of the still problematic modus operandi of metaphor. · 1. In "What Metaphors Mean," Critical Inquiry 5 : 31-47. All further references in text. Max Black is Susan Linn Sage professor of philosophy and humane letters emeritus at Cornell University and senior member of the Cornell program on science, technology, and society. His many influential works include Models and Metaphors, A Companion to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and, most recently, Caveats and Critiques. During the fall of 1978 he was Tarner Lecturer at Cambridge University and is currently preparing a book on rationality based on those lectures. (shrink)

The acknowledged difficulty and even impossibility of finding a literal paraphrase for most metaphors is offered by [Donald] Davidson1 as evidence that there is nothing to be paraphrased - that a sentence says nothing metaphorically that it does not say literally, but rather functions differently, inviting comparisons and stimulating thought. But paraphrase of many literal sentences also is exceedingly difficult, and indeed we may seriously question whether any sentence can be translated exactly into other words in the same or (...) any other language. Let's agree, though, that literal paraphrase of metaphor is on the whole especially hard. That is easily understood since the metaphorical application of terms has the effect, and usually the purpose, of drawing significant boundaries that cut across ruts worn by habit, of picking out new relevant kinds for which we have no simple and familiar literal descriptions. We must note in passing, though, that the metaphorical application may nevertheless be quite clear. For just as inability to define "desk" is compatible with knowing which articles are desks, so inability to paraphrase a metaphorical term is compatible with knowing what it applies to, And as I have remarked elsewhere,2 whether a man is metaphorically a Don Quixote or a Don Juan is perhaps easier to decide than whether he is literally a schizoid or a paranoiac. · 1. In "What Metaphors Mean," Critical Inquiry 5 : 31-47.· 2. In "Stories upon Stories; or, Reality on Tiers," delivered at the conference Levels of Reality, in Florence, Italy, September 1978. Nelson Goodman, emeritus professor of philosophy at Harvard, has written The Structure of Appearance; Fact, Fiction, and Forecast; Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols; Problems and Projects; and, most recently, Ways of Worldmaking. His contributions to Critical Inquiry include "The Status of Style" , "Twisted Tales; or, Story, Study, and Symphony" , and "The Telling and the Told". (shrink)

In cognitive semiotics, metaphor and metonymy are crucially treated as special forms of sign use. In contrast, researchers in cognitive linguistics have extended the scope of metaphor and metonymy far beyond the traditional understanding of these semiotic figures based on, respectively, iconicity and contiguity into purely mental processes. I argue that this has led to unbounded over-extension, and general confusion about what metaphor and metonymy actually are, and thus on how to be able to reliably identify them in language (...) and other semiotic systems like gesture and depiction. There is therefore an urgent need to constrain the concepts of metaphor and metonymy to more reasonable proportions, and in this article I propose such a more constrained approach, using the Motivation & Sedimentation Model (MSM) of meaning-making. For the purpose, I spell out an integrated definition of metaphor and metonymy along traditional lines, but not limiting them to language. I illustrate the applicability of this definition by offering analyses of political cartoons, showing how the two semiotic figures interact in complex ways, sometimes allowing for different interpretations. (shrink)

One way in which the characteristic gestures of philosophy and criticism differ from each other lies in their involvements with disillusionment, with the undoing of our naivete, especially regarding what we take ourselves to know about the meaning of what we say. Philosophy will often find less than we thought was there, perhaps nothing at all, in what we say about the “external” world, or in our judgments of value, or in our ordinary psychological talk. The work (...) of criticism, on the other hand, frequently disillusions by finding disturbingly more in what is said than we precritically thought was there. In our relation to the meaningfulness of what we say, there is a disillusionment of plentitude as well as of emptiness. And no doubt what is “less” for one discipline may be “more” of what someone else is looking for.In recent years, metaphor has attracted more than its share of both philosophical and critical attention, including philosophical denials of the obvious, as well as critical challenges to the obviousness of the ways we talk about metaphor. In this paper I discuss a problem of each sort and suggest a complex of relations between them. The particular denial of the obvious that I’m interested in is the claim recently made by Donald Davidson that “a metaphor doesn’t say anything beyond its literal meaning ,” nor is it even correct to speak of metaphor as a form of communication.1 There’s disillusionment with a vengeance; and even if not strictly believable, it is still not without its therapeutic value, as we shall see. 1. Donald Davidson, “What Metaphors Mean,” in On Metaphor, ed. Sheldon Sacks , p. 30; hereafter abbreviated “WMM.” Davidson’s view has found supporters among both philosophers and literary theorists. It is, for example, important to the early argument of Richard Rorty’s recent book. See his Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity , p. 18. Richard Moran is an assistant professor of philosophy at Princeton University. He is currently working on a book on subjectivity and contemporary concepts of personhood. (shrink)

Contextualist theorists have recently defended the views (a) that metaphor-processing can be treated on a par with other meaning changes, such as narrowing or transfer, and (b) that metaphorical contents enter into “what is said” by an utterance. We do not dispute claim (a) but consider that claim (b) is problematic. Contextualist theorists seem to leave in the hands of context the explanation about why it is that some meaning changes are directly processed, and thus plausibly form part of (...) “what is said”, while some others are not. While granting the role of context in this respect, we contend that there are elements that play an instrumental role in providing direct access to the metaphorical content, namely, the conventionality of the expressions and the salience of the concepts involved. We will start by criticizing Recanati’s and Relevance Theory’s accounts of metaphor. Then we examine the claims of Carston’s and Giora’s two-process accounts that set the stage for a revision of the main elements involved, namely, the properties of conventionality and salience. Finally we examine a number of representative examples, explaining why some cases involve a direct access to the metaphorical content and others require an intermediate non-figurative interpretation. (shrink)

What is the status of metaphorical meaning? Is it an input to semantic composition or is it derived post-semantically? This question has divided theorists for decades. Griceans argue that metaphorical meaning/content is a kind of implicature that is generated through post-semantic processing. Others, such as the contextualists, argue that metaphorical meaning is an input to semantic composition and thus part of “what is said” by an utterance. I think both sides are right: metaphorical meaning is an input to (...) semantic composition and it is also derived post-semantically. I explain how this is possible by positing that successful metaphor involves coining a new word on the spot; this new metaphorical word is ambiguous with its literal counterpart. I show that an ambiguity theory of metaphor, far from being the obvious non-starter that it has long been treated as, actually offers elegant predictions of a whole suite of otherwise recalcitrant linguistic data. (shrink)

The paper addresses the main questions to be dealt with by any semantic theory which is committed to provide an explanation of how meaning is possible. On one side the paper argues that the resources provided by the development of mathematical logic, theoretical computer science, cognitive psychology, and general linguistics in the 20th Century, however indispensable to investigate the structure of language, rely on the existence of end products in the morphogenesis of meaning. On the other, the paper argues that (...) philosophy of language, which, either in the analytic or the structuralist or the hermeneutical tradition, made little use of such resources (when they are not simply rejected). Left the main question unanswered. Though phenomenology intended to focus on the constitutive process, it ended up mostly with philology. Cognitive semantics paved the way to focus on patterns of bodily interaction within the natural environment out of which basic schemes emerge and are metaphorically “lifted” to any universe of discourse. The explanatory commitment is thus endorsed through two hypotheses: (1) these schemes, of topological and kinaesthetic structure, determine the range of forms of atomic sentences of any natural language, and (2) the category-theoretic notion of universality allows for a proper analysis of how such schemes are “lifted”. (shrink)

Conceptual metaphor theory provides a useful tool with which to think about different philosophical traditions, as it can reveal the deep structure of networks of ideas. Conceptual metaphors are not just linguistic devices, rather they organise whole networks of thought, experience and activity. Paying special attention to the role of the metaphor of sight in certain Indian traditions and that of Dao in Chinese traditions, I explore the idea that different philosophical traditions have developed and matured around particular conceptual (...) metaphors, each giving rise to a distinctive conception of both the practice and the goal of philosophy. I suggest that what it means to practice philosophy in these traditions is governed by the dominant conceptual metaphor in use. I consider the implications of this for the traditional Western conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom. I conclude with some reflections on analytic philosophy, considering to what extent it too can be regarded as a philosophical tradition structured by a dominant conceptual metaphor. (shrink)

Michael Polanyi’s conceptions of tacit knowing and emergent being are used to correct a reductionism that developed from, or reacted against, the excesses of several Cartesian assumptions: (a) the method of universal doubt; (b) the emphasis on reductive analysis to unshakeable foundations, via connections between clear and distinct ideas; (c) the notion that what is real are the basic atomic substances out of which all else is composed; (d) a sharp body-mind substance dualism; and (e) the notion that the (...) seat of consciousness can be traced to a point in the human body. The reductivist project in biology began with the emphasis Descartes put on the body as a machine. Polanyi reappropriates the machine metaphor to demonstrate how mechanistic explanations are not fully reductive. He shows how an eliminative materialism that would reduce mind to brain is unwarranted if either an interlevel mechanistic reduction or an intralevel successional reduction is posited. (shrink)

Philosophers have alleged that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate. They have presented this inadequacy as a datum predicted by, and thus a reason to accept, particular accounts of ‘metaphorical meanings.’ But to what, specifically, does this inadequacy claim amount? I argue that, if this assumption is to have any bearing on the metaphor debate, it must be construed as the comparative claim that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate compared to paraphrases of literal utterances. But the evidence philosophers (...) have offered does not support the comparative inadequacy of paraphrases of metaphors. I offer my own empirical evidence against the inadequacy assumption. (shrink)

Oncofertility is one of the 9 NIH Roadmap Initiatives, federal grants intended to explore previously intractable questions, and it describes a new field that exists in the liminal space between cancer treatment and its sequelae, IVF clinics and their yearning, and basic research in cell growth, biomaterials, and reproductive science and its tempting promises. Cancer diagnoses, which were once thought universally fatal, now often entail management of a chronic disease. Yet the therapies are rigorous, must start immediately, and in many (...) cases result in premature failure of the body's reproductive ability. In women, this loss is especially poignant; unlike the routine storage of sperm, which is done in men and boys facing similar treatment decisions, freezing oocytes in anticipation of fertility loss is not possible in most cases, and creating an embryo within days of diagnosis raises significant moral, social and medical challenges. Oncofertility is the study of how to harvest ovarian tissue in women facing cancer to preserve their gametes for future use with IVF, thus allowing the decisions about childbearing to be deferred and reproductive choices to be preserved. The research endeavor uses the capacity of the ovarian follicle to produce eggs in vitro. Developing the human follicle to ovulate successfully outside the body is scientifically difficult and ethically challenging. Infertility is linked to long-standing religious and moral traditions, and is intertwined with deeply contentious social narratives about women, families, illness and birth. Is the research morally permissible? Perhaps imperative if understood as a repair from iatrogenic harms? How are considerations of justice central to the work? How will vulnerable subjects be protected? What are the moral implications of the work for women, children and families? What are the implications for society if women could store ovarian tissue as a way of stopping the biological clock? What are the moral possibilities and challenges if eggs can be produced in large quantities from a stored ovarian tissue? (shrink)