Objects of Metaphor phần 8 pdf

be a young child, and the sentence then would be understood as making a claim sort of converse to that made about Tolstoy in (T): the idea would perhaps be that Ralph is mature beyond his years. Understood in this way, (14s) is a simile, and the claim it makes is figurative. I will return to (14s) below, but consider now the sentence:(14c) Ralph is like: a man.Punctuation is necessary here (and could be achieved in lots of different ways) because the sentence as written is intended to capture a highly colloquial form of speech. Imagine that (14c) is said to a close friend by a woman who is exasperated with her boyfriend's obsession with Grand Prix racing—one among many such obsessions—to the exclusion of any activities they might properly share. The colon (it could be a comma or an em-rule) indicates a slight pause after ‘like’ and, as the italics show, it is then followed by an emphatic ‘aman’. Assuming, as I have been, that Ralph is indeed a man, what is going on in this and in the myriad similar uses of ‘like’ in common speech? 155 The answer, given my previous discussion, is that speakers use ‘like’, with its attendant pauses and emphases, as a way of forcing what by my lights is semantic descent and qualification. As I have suggested, even (14) allows for this, but we do not naturally take up this option in such an ordinary case of predication. After all, in saying that Ralph is a man, we need look no further than the simple attribution to Ralph of the properties that constitute the sense or meaning of ‘man’. However, by adding ‘like’ and its apparatus as in (14c) to (14), speakers can overcome this reading. In forcing us to understand there to be descent to an exemplar of ‘man’ that is used as a qualifier, attention is focused on the properties of ‘man’ in a way not apparent in the simpler (14). However, since these properties do apply to Ralph directly, we do not really have a metaphor here, just the form of one that, in this case, serves a rhetorical purpose. What then do we say about (14s)? Obviously enough, this could be a poorly transcribed version of (14c). But there are other possibilities. Taking it without the apparatus that would mark it as (14c), and being contextually discouraged from seeing it as a straightforward comparison, we could interpret it in terms of semantic descent. This, as we have seen, is most natural when we know, for example, that Ralph is a young boy, and the utterance is metaphorical. However, there is still another possibility. If Ralph was known to be an adult human male, then it is likely that the hedging function of ‘like’ would press itself on us. The sentence (14s) would then be taken to indicate that Ralph, though a man, is only like a man. One can imagine the negative light which a speaker of (14s) might thereby want to cast on Ralph, but, without entering into these suspect waters, it does offer further evidence that ‘like’ has functions other than that of straightforward comparison. Embellishment 215 155 I have heard older speakers of received English say that the widespread use of ‘like’ is little more than a temporizing tic of speech—something like ‘uh’—which has become fashionable amongst the young. I don't think this could be right. Even without a systematic study, it is obvious enough that ‘like’ is used in a fixed kind of grammatical slot, and not just anywhere in a sentence. Anyway, reserve judgement until I finish the story. 4.5.5. Summary and symmetry I return now to the main line of argument. Any plausible version of the simile view will have to make room for figurative, in additional to literal, comparisons. This is partly because similes do not come out well if treated as straightforward comparisons of the screw/nail, rugby/ football variety. But mostly it is because this is the only hope for maintaining that metaphors are elliptical similes, and of course this is at the heart of the simile view of metaphors. Without discussion, it tends to be assumed that these two kinds of comparison are linked: that the function of ‘like’ is given by its role in literal comparison judgements, where it is said to mean ‘is similar to’ or ‘shares salient properties with’, and that figurative comparisons are extensions or elaborations of this role. In this way, the figurative depends on the literal. However, as we have seen, there are serious problems with this: literal ‘like’ judgements do not have elliptical counterparts, and the sense in which figurative comparisons involve similarity or property-sharing, as these are ordinarily understood, is stretched beyond reasonable limits. Additionally, only someone in the grip of a theory could overlook the fact that literal comparison judgements are symmetrical, whereas figurative comparisons and their elliptical counterparts (metaphors) are most certainly not. The semantic descent account shares a commitment to a linkage between literal and figurative ‘like’-claims, but, if anything, it sees the dependency the other way around. In addition to having an important hedging function, ‘like’ is understood as an explicit marker of semantic descent and qualification, and these are of course the very processes that figure in metaphor. So, the core understanding of ‘like’ involves the figurative. An immediate consequence of this is the equivalence of simile and metaphor, and with it a sort of vindication of the simile view and an explanation of its perennial appeal. A metaphor—at least one in subject-predicate form—is an implicit simile because it makes the same call on semantic descent and qualification as its counterpart simile. And, the other way around, a simile counts as saying the same thing as its counterpart metaphor precisely because the simile explicitly calls on the same processes as its counterpart metaphor. A further consequence is that we have a natural way of understanding the hedging function of ‘like’: the very explicitness alerts the hearer to the processes of metaphor, and thus short-circuits problems of interpretation that might otherwise arise. Given my claim that the core understanding of ‘like’ begins in the figurative, the burden for me is saying something adequate about the literal employment of that expression. I won't repeat here the details of how I think that burden should be discharged, but in outline it goes as follows. Literal ‘like’-claims employ predicate expressions for which semantic descent is an option, but not one needed for intelligibility. Though these expressions have the metaphor process of qualification in their backgrounds, what counts in our current transactions with these expressions is, for example, the principle or property which determine their extensions. 216 Embellishment The effect of this is to make the literal employment of ‘like’ only a version of the figurative; it is, in a sense, a complication. Instead of there being one object qualifying another—and thereby providing information about it—we have a property providing information about some object, and, this being something properties ordinarily do, it is easy to see why we might too hastily think of the literal use of ‘like’ as basic. When we say that:(12) Rugby is like football,the property of being football gives us information about the game of rugby. Of course, a game of rugby does not strictly fall into the extension of ‘football’, so (12) will not be understood as an explicit version of the straightforward predication:Rugby is football.But (12) still mirrors the figurative use of ‘like’: there is an explicit instruction to treat the predicate expression as providing information about the subject. The difference is that, in the figurative, it is the object got by descent which provides the information, whereas in the case of (12) it is the property associated with ‘football’. A final consequence of this way of seeing the linkage between the two contexts in which ‘like’ is used is that it explains the symmetry we find in literal cases and the sharp lack of symmetry in the metaphorical. In the latter, lack of symmetry is just what one would expect, given that ‘like’ instructs us to use semantic descent on the predicate to single out an object and then use that object informatively in relation to the subject. There is no reason to think that because one object can be drafted in as a qualifier of another that the reverse should do the same, or even that it is intelligible. Thus, going along with Romeo, we can count the sun as fulfilling a predicative role in respect of Juliet, but we would scarcely expect Juliet to provide information about the sun. In contrast, in the literal case it is a property of one thing which provides information about another, so it is unsurprising that the reverse is likely to be true. In so far as the property of being a game of football informs us about rugby, we should rather expect that the property of being rugby should be no less apposite in informing us about the game of football. To be sure, we do not strictly have asymmetry in the one case, and symmetry in the other. The falsity of the converse doesn't follow logically from a figurative ‘like’- claim, nor does its truth follow in the literal case. But the semantic descent account explains why we have the expectations that we do about symmetry. 156 Embellishment 217 156 If ‘like’ meant simply ‘is similar to’ then symmetry would indeed be a logical truth, and that is why Fogelin's insistence on the lack of symmetry in literal comparisons seems so desperate. But on my account, we can allow that there could indeed be cases in which the converse of a literal ‘like’-claim was false, though this would certainly not be the norm. 4.6. Metaphor and its Family Relations 4.6.1. ‘Is a metaphor for’ The coinage is surprisingly old, but there can be no doubting the currency of the phrase ‘is a metaphor for’. 157 The following are examples of the phenomenon: (i) The sunken tanker [which sank off Spain in 2002] and its unpredictable cargo which might devastate the coast at any time is a metaphor for the terrorist menace facing Western nations. (From a BBC radio broadcast) (ii) In retrospect, [the film] Casablanca can also be seen as a metaphor for Hollywood's own heroic contribution to the war effort. (From a Guardian newspaper article on Hollywood and its reaction to 9/11) (iii) All these designations capture in some imperfect way what the universe is about. It is not a clockwork mechanism, or an information processor, but it does have mechanistic and informational properties. Living organisms have goals and purposes, and I see no reason why we may not use the organism as a metaphor for the universe, as did Aristotle two and a half millenia ago. (Paul Davies writing in the Guardian) (iv) The movie [The Hours] is about being pinned down by social conventions and familial obligations, creating structures to make them bearable and thinking of breaking free from these fetters and liberating others … To emphasise this, the movie begins and ends with Woolf's suicide. Before going into the water, she puts large stones in her pockets to keep her under. This is a powerful metaphor. By adding to the forces that pull her down, she ensures her liberation through death from her mental afflictions and frees her husband Leonard from the pain of caring for her. (From an Observer film review by Philip French) (v) These are fine juxtapositions, prompting all sorts of thoughts about commemoration, idolatry and the power of images over people. But the sightlines can also be wonderfully random. With the cunning use of mirrors and plate glass, you can be looking at an African coffin shaped like a Chevrolet while also catching sight of a Japanese watercolour or one of those ferocious nail figures from the Congo. Which is, presumably, a metaphor for the unpredictable movements of memory, splintering in so many different directions all at once. (From a review by Laura Cummings of an exhibition, ‘The Museum of the Mind’, at the British Museum in 2003) (vi) Her dancing [said of Isadora Duncan] was a metaphor for the way she led her life. (From a newspaper article) These examples of the use of ‘is a metaphor for’ offer satisfyingly direct evidence for the semantic descent account, as well as for my treatment of ‘like’. In each example, an object—where this includes, as always, events, states of affairs, etc.—is singled out by some description, and this object is then said to be ‘a metaphor’ for some other object. It is difficult to think of what could be going on here except in terms 218 Embellishment 157 The Oxford English Dictionary cites 1881 as the earliest use, but I found it in Emerson's Nature (1846). of the notion of qualification, though of course not under that label. Still, while some of the examples straightforwardly fit my account, there are interesting complications in others. Beginning with the straightforward (i): the oil tanker that sank off the Atlantic coast of Spain is a wholly determinate, unfortunately actual, object. This object is described in one way in (i) rather than in any of the many other ways that would have been possible, and I shall return to this shortly. But note that it is the object itself, not its description, that is said to be ‘a metaphor for’. With only a little damage to English, one could render (i) as:The sunken tanker and its unpredictable cargo which might devastate the coast at any time metaphors the terrorist menace facing Western nations,where the transposition from ‘is a metaphor for’ to the more direct verb form highlights the fact that the sunken tanker itself plays the central role. What is the role that ‘metaphors’ demands of the sunken tanker? It is precisely the role that I have carved out for ‘qualifies’: the tanker gives us information of a predicative kind about the terrorist menace. Indeed, at one time I thought that ‘metaphors’ would have served instead of ‘qualifies’, but I thought better of this. The fact is that qualification is at most an ingredient in metaphor, and we only have metaphor proper when, in addition, there is the characteristic move from words to objects that I have called semantic descent. For all that it is an object which is said to be a metaphor for another, in each example, these objects are brought to our attention by words. The sunken tanker comes into the discussion via a description, one which not only leads us to an object, but prepares us for thinking about it in a way appropriate to the metaphor. The description of the tanker in (i) is designed to attune us to the predicative use that is made of the tanker and its cargo. The original sentence could have been put this way:The sunken tanker is a metaphor for the terrorist menace facing Western nations,and this would have brought the same object into the discussion, and given it the same role. But this abbreviated form of words would have made attunement less certain than the fuller description actually given. (The description actually given, it must be said, is so directing as to rob the metaphor of any real force. While this doesn't affect the point at issue here, I will return to it in the final section of this chapter, where I face up directly to non-syntactic richness in metaphor.) Finally, note that ‘is a metaphor for’ consorts with ‘like’ in a way predicted by my account. As argued in the previous section, I think of ‘like’ as an explicit marker of both the move from words to an object and the use of that object as a qualifier. (As always, it is not my contention that speakers and hearers actually think of these processes under these labels and descriptions.) Thus my account has it that in this case: Embellishment 219 Richard is like a long-playing record stuck in a groove,‘Richard’ just picks out Richard, while ‘the long-playing record stuck in a groove’ picks out an object that plays the role of a non-linguistic predicate. Now, in the examples which opened this section, the metaphor-subject occurs after the object-predicate, and this means that we cannot regard ‘is a metaphor’ for as directly replaceable by ‘like’. However, given the possibility of treating ‘is a metaphor for’ as ‘metaphors’—a verb which aims forward to the metaphor-subject—there is nothing to stop us thinking of the passive form of this verb as equivalent to the ‘like’ of simile. Thus, we first have:The terrorist menace facing Western nations is metaphored by the sunken tanker and its unpredictable cargo which might devastate the coast at any time.And then we get a perfectly apt simile by substituting ‘like’ for ‘metaphored by’:The terrorist menace facing Western nations is like the sunken tanker and its unpredictable cargo which might devastate the coast at any time.Moreover, while I can understand the traditional simile theorist being tempted to claim that what is being said is that the sunken tanker and the terrorist menace are similar, we should resist this temptation. A sunken tanker and a terrorist menace are radically different kinds of thing, and the appeal to similarity here is particularly lame. But if we think of ‘like’ as requiring us to treat the tanker as a proto-predicate of the menace, we are not forced to explain what is going on by similarity. Since we do not regard any ordinary subject-predicate sentence as claiming that the subject is similar to the predicate, why should we think it would work in the tanker case? The tanker is not a linguistic predicate, but it serves a predicative function, and this function cannot be equated with what would anyway be a wildly implausible claim of similarity. 158 (Another nice feature of the equivalence of ‘like’ and ‘metaphored by’ is that the latter is, as we would expect, non- symmetric.) So, taking example (i) as the model, my account offers a simple and direct treatment of the widely used phrase ‘is a metaphor’, a treatment which dovetails nicely with the story I have told about ‘like’ and simile. Moreover, it is a useful pointer to two further important issues. The first revolves around the question, first raised in my introduction, of whether ‘metaphor’ labels a well-behaved theoretical kind, a phenomenon with an orderly underlying nature? My suggestion has been that it is such a phenomenon. The second concerns the possibility of there being a kind of semantic descent that is non-linguistic, a possibility which would open up the scope of metaphor without undermining its claim to be a kind. Each of these merits a subsection of their own, 220 Embellishment 158 Of course, once we understand the claim in the way I suggest, we can see why there is a temptation to think of the tanker and the menace as similar in some special figurative way; this is at the heart of my explanation of the perennial appeal of the traditional simile account. But the mere fact that, by my lights, we have two objects present in a subject-predicate metaphor, should not fool us into thinking that similarity does any real work. The simple fact is that one of the objects serves as a predicate, and it is through that role that we understand the metaphor and not through any supposed kind of figurative similarity that the predicate object might bear to the one that is the subject of the metaphor. in the course of which I will both explain their connection to ‘is a metaphor for’ and make use of examples (ii)–(vi). 4.6.2. Metaphor as a kind In traditional accounts of rhetoric or style, there are lots of different families of items which are seen as making a contribution to the vividness, grace, brilliance, and energy of some piece of writing or speech. 159 One of these families is generally known as ‘tropes’, from the Greek for turning or conversion, and the traditional understanding here is that a trope is a device in which some word or phrase is used in a sense other than its usual one—it has been, so to speak, ‘turned’—so as to achieve one or more of the above-mentioned effects. Understood in this way, the trope family has an extremely elastic membership. Thus, while it certainly includes metaphor, it can also include such things as simile, metonymy, synecdoche, litotes, meiosis, catachresis, proverbs, hyperbole, allegory, irony, and any number of further items, depending on your taste for making ever finer distinctions. Given this variety, the idea that a trope is a word or phrase used in a sense other than the one it ‘usually’ has is not adequate as a way of delimiting a well-defined, theoretically interesting phenomenon. And certainly nothing changes here when one follows the more contemporary practice of using ‘metaphorical’ in a more liberal sense to stand in for the tropes, or for the figurative, generally. 160 If the metaphorical is simply counted as the use of a word or phrase in a sense other than the one it normally has, then the scepticism about my philosophical interest in metaphor mentioned in the Introduction would be justified: metaphor would be a rag-bag, studiable on a case-by-case basis, interesting in literary investigations, but not worthy of serious semantic theorizing. Now I am never quite sure exactly what serious semantic theorizing is, whether, that is, ‘serious’ must mean ‘scientific’ in some stringent sense of this term, or something else. But it does seem to me that I have found a certain overlooked but genuine phenomenon—the use of objects, not merely as referential devices but also as predicates—and that this phenomenon can provide the basis for an account of metaphor that shows it to be a fully fledged theoretical kind. ‘Metaphor’ characterizes those linguistic acts which are rendered intelligible first, by semantic descent—a move from words to objects—and then by the employment of the resulting objects in a role that I have called, at various places, qualification, object-predication, or proto-predication. Descent and qualification are at least as robust as the processes of linguistic reference and predication they resemble, and they therefore justify metaphor's claim to be a phenomenon revealed in carving nature at its joints. Appeal to these explanatory processes has already helped us distinguish dead metaphors—expressions which, as the pun has it, are still metaphors—from Embellishment 221 159 This description is taken from something Suhamy 1981 notes in his survey of the figures. 160 Cooper (1986: 15) suggests that the liberal use of this term actually has its origins in Aristotle, and in his interesting first chapter he offers various reasons for its revival. But nothing he says about the ‘demarcation’ problem raised by this use suggests that he believes metaphor to be in fact a theoretically unified kind. various others that are properly ex-metaphor, expressions such as idioms and other words or phrases whose claim to metaphoricality is merely etymological. Further, many of the items on the traditional list of tropes, though they are still tropes, are easily distinguished from metaphor, when it is understood as requiring descent-plus-qualification. For example, irony clearly involves the ‘turning’ of words, but, even though the turning is not perhaps as simple as some would have it, irony is certainly intelligible without descent and qualification. So is litotes and its twin, hyperbole, as well as catachresis. Basically, metaphor is a special kind of turning of words, and the semantic descent account explains both why it is special, and how this distinguishes it from many of the other members of the trope family. That this should be possible rather confirms my hunch that the phrase ‘is a metaphor for’ is actually rather important. Trendy though it may be, it is a rare first-order use of ‘metaphor’ in the vocabulary of the ordinary folk; a use which calls on the phenomenon itself, rather than merely mentioning it using a label derived from one of the more or less traditional schemes of classification. My guess is that the phrase's being so congenial to the semantic descent account is direct, even if not certain, evidence both for the account and for the existence of metaphor as a kind. Does all this mean that I regard a liberal use of ‘metaphor’—a use which treats it as co-extensive with ‘figurative’—as simply wrong? Perhaps unhelpfully, I think that the answer is ‘yes and no’; it depends on what you mean by figurative. If by ‘figurative’ you mean ‘non-literal’, then this would push my liberal instincts way beyond their limits. I have often claimed that metaphor involves the non-literal, but the non-literal extends far beyond the metaphorical. To take two instances just noted, irony and hyperbole are non-literal, but in my view are certainly not metaphorical. Still this leaves room for a certain liberality: there are items in the trope family, other than the traditionally and narrowly characterized trope of metaphor, that can be handled by the semantic descent account. (I am about to describe them.) So, there can be a use of ‘metaphor’ which, in including these items, is liberal. However, one must be careful about this liberality when it comes to the figurative, even when this latter is clearly distinguished from non-literality generally. This is because I believe that the figurative forms a wider class than the metaphorical, even when the latter is taken liberally. As will be discussed in the section 4.7, there are items which are certainly figurative, but are only mistakenly thought of as metaphors. Still, in view of the fact that ‘metaphor’ covers most of what is also called ‘figurative’, there is little harm in using the terms more or less interchangeably. 4.6.3. Synecdoche and metonymy Traditionalists regarded the tropes of synecdoche and metonymy as different from metaphor, whereas the more contemporary liberal tends to include them, along with lots of other members of the trope family, in the realm of metaphor. I regard them as an interesting test case. Unlike many other members of the trope family, I do think that they belong with metaphor. There was a hint of this in my discussion of dead metaphor in section 4.4.5. Also, I think that the semantic descent account can justify this, while at the same time showing how 222 Embellishment full-out metaphor and these tropes differ, and that, in this way, it justifies both classificatory instincts. 161 There have always been problems in telling synecdoche and metonymy apart, and perhaps it is not worth trying too hard to do so. Traditionally, synecdoche was taken to call on the part/whole relationship as in:(15) All hands on deck (hands are parts of crew members),whereas metonymy was thought to call on other broader relationships, for example:(16) The White House conceded that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (The White House is where the President lives).But if we are willing to let ‘relationship’ include part/whole, as well as other less restricted linkages, then we can unify these two tropes without much loss. I shall do so, referring to the union as ‘S&M’. Unlike irony and hyperbole, S&M can stake a genuine claim to metaphoricality, and this is fully supported by the semantic descent account. However, while supporting the metaphoricality claims of S&M, the semantic descent account can also show why any instance of this trope is not exactly a metaphor. I know this sounds like having one's cake and eating it, but all will become clear shortly. The place to begin is with an example that has nothing at all metaphorical about it:(17) The tree on the left is an oak. Leaving any controversies about descriptions on one side, there seems no harm in the naïve thought that, in (17), a description (‘The tree on the left’) is used to pick out an object, and a predicate (‘is an oak’) then characterizes that object. Bearing this simple thought in mind, consider again:(16) The White House conceded that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.Following the model of (17), it ought to be true that ‘The White House’ picks out an object, which is then characterized by the predicate ‘conceded that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq’. (Nothing in our discussion will hinge on the fact that (16) uses a descriptive name rather than a definite description.) But obviously when we treat the descriptive name this way we end up with a peculiar sentence: the object picked out by the descriptive name simply doesn't go with the predicate, since houses, even big white ones, don't make concessions. Of course, the ‘peculiarity’ of this sentence is of such a familiar sort that we think nothing of it: ‘The White House’ refers to the President of the US, and the latter has only political difficulty in making concessions. That said, there is a Embellishment 223 161 Cooper 1986 makes an interesting observation about the liberal use of ‘metaphor’. He notes that using the term liberally one might say ‘metaphor etc.’ but never ‘metonymy etc.’ This is puzzling in so far as metonymy and metaphor are both in the same family, and therefore each is a reasonable candidate to represent that family. But, when you have heard my story about metonymy and semantic descent, I think the puzzle will disappear. point in spelling out what underlies this familiar thought. And it is here that sentence (17) can help. Keeping things at a fairly naïve level, reference is achieved in (17) by description: an object is picked out, in a relevant context, by virtue of its falling uniquely under the predicate ‘tree on the left’, and the sentence then claims that this object satisfies the ‘main’ predicate in (17). In (16) a unique object is also picked out, in this case by a descriptive name, though, as it happens, this object is not appropriate to its main predicate. Of course, I don't doubt but that we find it easy to shift from The White House to the President, an object that does fit the main predicate. However, it is not the ease of the shift that is in question, so much as the best way to describe it. My suggestion is that we should think of this shift in the same way that we do in the simplest of cases, that is, we should think of ourselves as looking for an object that falls under the relevant predicate and which is at the same time appropriate to the main predicate. To be sure, once we get to The White House, there is no further linguistic predicate around, but that is no problem. As I have so often insisted, there is nothing to stop us seeing The White House itself as a proto-predicate. Only in the case of (16), and S&M generally, this proto-predicate happens not to be the main predicate in a sentence. Instead, it serves to help us locate the ‘real’ subject of (16) by mimicking the role of predicates like ‘tree on the left’ in (17). The White House—that very object—qualifies a certain human being, albeit in a wholly conventional and unsurprising way: it is the building in which the human being is known to live. In the context of (16), the ordinary referent of ‘The White House’ doesn't work, but the referent we are led to by employing the information provided by The White House does. Thus, in this most typical case of S&M, we have semantic descent (from ‘The White House’ to The White House), and we have a predicational use of the latter (information provided by The White House leads us to a referent for the subject of the original sentence). In short, everything needed for metaphor is present: S&M is indeed metaphorical, though the sentence in which this instance of S&M figures is not itself a metaphor. It might be tempting to make the point this way: with S&M we don't have metaphor, but only metaphorical reference. However, this could mislead. S&M does employ the processes of metaphor—there is metaphor in any instance of this trope—it is simply that the use to which the metaphor is put is internal to a sentence not itself a metaphor. It would be more accurate then to speak of metaphor being put to referential use. In straightforward cases of S&M, metaphor processes are used to effect reference, but there is a more intricate interplay between metaphor and reference in some of those examples of ‘is a metaphor for’ which I passed over in earlier discussion. The sunken tanker example (i) seems a pure case of metaphor—a case in which an object metaphors another—but consider the Isadora Duncan example:(vi) Her dancing was a metaphor for the way she led her life. Readers of the article were assumed to know about Duncan's dancing and style of life, and were in any case reminded of these early on. Hence, when we get to (vi), it 224 Embellishment [...]... a way of describing the distinctive contributions of suitably rich metaphors, and a necessary precondition of describing such contributions is an answer to the question: is metaphor itself in some way special? Not wanting to disappoint, I turn now to this issue 4 .8. 2 The richness of metaphor How special or important is metaphor? This question is prominent in most philosophical discussions of metaphor, ... central cases of metaphor, cases in which descent and qualification explain the thrust of the whole of an utterance and not just its referential part The scope of ‘is a metaphor for’ supports this grouping, and suggests that the folk themselves think of metaphor as a genuine kind with just the extension that I have so far identified As already noted, this phrase manages to cover both cases of metaphor proper,... ‘somehow’ should be appealing Finally, I offer a cautionary note about visual metaphor I have throughout insisted that the phenomenon of qualification on its own is not metaphor There can be exercises of our semantic attitude towards objects cases in which we find predicative information in those objects without these counting as metaphor This was part of the lesson of my examples in Chapter 2 The disjointed... that metaphor richer than another; and we can speak about why (or whether) metaphor is an enrichment of language (and thought) What I propose is first to consider what counts as richness in metaphors, and then to turn attention more fully onto the question of the richness of metaphor Along the way, I shall call on the various points made in sections 4.3–4.7 240 Embellishment 4 .8. 1 The richness of metaphors... as no surprise With them, we have circled back to my discussion of Goodman in Chapter 2, a discussion which started off from the question of whether objects could take over the roles of words Goodman's notion of exemplification, seen by him as a type of referential relation, was found there to offer at most a hint of the ways in which objects might take on the roles normally attributed to words Indeed,... embossings, and are now considered as metaphor and no longer as coins (From ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinn’, as cited in Cooper 1 986 : 2 58 and Blackburn 1 984 : 181 )171 There are serious problems evident in both of these citations Hobbes accuses metaphor of professing deceit, and he presumably has in mind here that thought, shared by all too many philosophers, that metaphors typically say the... it—involve dead metaphors However, if this is all that Nietzsche is saying, it is not a very profound defence of metaphor As noted earlier, those who find the claims made on behalf of metaphor overblown can perfectly well concede that metaphorical processes have left some mark on expressions we currently use But this is a far cry from saying that metaphor itself is in any sense primary Cooper 1 986 : 2 58 does... descent account While no label I can think of is completely appropriate, I tend to think of the phenomenon as the essential ‘lumpiness’ of metaphor For the purposes of explaining what I have in mind, nothing will be lost by sticking to the simpler subject-predicate form of metaphor: A is F.Almost without exception, the filling for ‘F’ is the name, often a count noun, of some determinate object (including,... therefore think of ‘yellow’ as metaphorical,he is noting the fact that metaphor requires something more than a purely associative link And, though he does not here say what would be required, I find his sentiment (and the tenor of the thoughts around the above passages) wholly congenial to my line of argument about synaesthesia and the figurative 4 .8 The Riches of Metaphor In section 4.2 of this chapter,... account of metaphor guarantees that, when we speak of ‘visual metaphor , this involves no stretching of metaphor Non-linguistic representations take us to objects and, in the right context, these objects qualify others The end result is visual metaphors which share all the properties so far attributed to their linguistically based cousins And, among these properties, is the possibility of assertoric . other representations to objects, the rest of the semantic descent account of metaphor guarantees that, when we speak of ‘visual metaphor , this involves no stretching of metaphor . Non-linguistic. subject of the metaphor. in the course of which I will both explain their connection to ‘is a metaphor for’ and make use of examples (ii)–(vi). 4.6.2. Metaphor as a kind In traditional accounts of. immediate consequence of this is the equivalence of simile and metaphor, and with it a sort of vindication of the simile view and an explanation of its perennial appeal. A metaphor at least one