Metaphor
| Abstract | Metaphor enters contemporary philosophical discussion from a variety of directions. Aside from its obvious importance in poetics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, it also figures in such fields as philosophy of mind (e.g., the question of the metaphorical status of ordinary mental concepts), philosophy of science (e.g, the comparison of metaphors and explanatory models), in epistemology (e.g., analogical reasoning), and in cognitive studies (in, e.g., the theory of concept-formation). This article will concentrate on issues metaphor raises for the philosophy of language, with the understanding that the issues in these various fields cannot be wholly isolated from each other. Metaphor is an issue for the philosophy of language not only for its own sake, as a linguistic phenomenon deserving of analysis and interpretation, but also for the light it sheds on non-figurative language, the domain of the literal which is the normal preoccupation of the philosopher of language. A poor reason for this preoccupation would be the assumption that purely literal language is what most language-use consists in, with metaphor and the like sharing the relative infrequency and marginal status of songs or riddles. This would not be a good reason not only because mere frequency is not a good guide to theoretical importance, but also because it is doubtful that the assumption is even true. In recent years, writers with very different concerns have pointed out that figurative language of one sort or another is a staple of the most.. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesMark Phelan (2010). The Inadequacy of Paraphrase is the Dogma of Metaphor. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (4):481-506.
Jakub Mácha (2011). Metaphor in the Twilight Area Between Philosophy and Linguistics. In P. Stalmaszczyk & K. Kosecki (eds.), Turning Points in the Philosophy of Language and Linguistics. Peter Lang.
George Lakoff (1980/2003). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.
Catherine Wearing (2011). Metaphor, Idiom, and Pretense. Noûs 46 (3):499-524.
Sam Glucksberg & Catrinel Haught (2006). On the Relation Between Metaphor and Simile: When Comparison Fails. Mind and Language 21 (3):360–378.
Ben Vedder (2002). On the Meaning of Metaphor in Gadamer's Hermeneutics. Research in Phenomenology 32 (1):196-209.
Samuel D. Guttenplan (2005). Objects of Metaphor. Oxford University Press.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads96 ( #6,749 of 549,122 )Recent downloads (6 months)8 ( #8,906 of 549,122 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
