Abstract
The article presents the predominant philosophical accounts of metaphor and metaphoricity in the history of philosophy as well as in the diverse traditions of 20th century philosophy. The aim is to show that metaphor always has been and still is a primary focal point of philosophical self-reflection, questioning philosophy’s relation to its own language and terminology. Metaphor problematizes philosophy’s self-identity, autonomy and discursive-linguistic seclusiveness. The article investigates how contemporary philosophical theories of metaphor handle and account for this ‘provocation’ in the course of determining the essence of metaphor. After a short historical overview, each section reconstructs the main hypotheses of key thinkers within the traditions of analytic philosophy (Max Black, Monroe C. Beardsley), hermeneutics and phenomenology (Hans Blumenberg, Paul Ricoeur), deconstruction (Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida), and theory of alterity (Emmanuel Levinas). The last section is devoted to the trope of catachresis.
