Metaphors Matter
A professor of mine once said, “If you want to understand a philosopher, study his metaphors.” Of all the lessons I learned in college, this advice may have been the most formative and influential. Someone could rightly accuse me of spending more time and energy writing about the metaphors we use in expressing our philosophies than I do writing about the content of our philosophies. I suspect that I’ve blogged more about the language pro-lifers use than I have about the life issues themselves. I’ve taken a road less traveled, and that has made all la differance.
Metaphors matter. They shape the way we see and understand the world. They are at play, sometimes unsupervised, throughout our encounters with reality. They set and reset the stage on which we act and respond to other actors.
How we understand knowledge, for example, will depend greatly on the metaphors we use. The very word “understand” is a metaphor, signifying standing underneath something, getting to the roots or base of it, and looking up to what we know. We also use images of sight and touch to speak of knowledge. The sight-based metaphors suggest distance from the thing known, while the touch-based images imply intimacy with it or perhaps possessiveness toward it. Different systems of epistemology can be traced to different metaphors.
Do you see what I mean? Do you grasp my meaning?
Metaphors mediate our encounter with the world. I hesitate these days to call myself a realist: I do not think we know or even encounter the real world. Not as it is. Not in a pure, unmediated manner. We can of course speak of a thing as having characteristics regardless of whether or not someone knows the thing. We speak of human nature, for example, as that which is true of all human beings. Human nature wouldn’t seem to need our knowledge of it in order to be real. However, when we speak of human nature as the object or the content of our knowledge, then we speak of something touched by our metaphorical language. Human nature may be a universal truth, but my idea of it is quite particular. So is yours. Why? In part, because the metaphors by which and through which we each understand human nature differ from one another.
None of this means that there is no reality to know. It does mean, however, that there can be no universal and ultimate philosophy that captures reality as it is in itself. In our experience, there is no reality as it is in itself. In our experience, reality is metaphorical.
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Interesting stuff. I “call” myself an ontological realist in that there is a world out there, but, like you, I am epistemologically uncertain about the mediation of experience. However, I am quick to grant the point that language is fundamentally metphorical, but I’m not sure about experience—there are things that I experience that may not be reality in its totality, but the bit that it is is real (sublime love comes to mind). The metaphorical issue come to expression, but not experience, as I see it. But here is my question: What is a metaphor? In other words, what does ‘metaphor’ signify metaphorically?
Metaphors mediate our encounter with the world.
Strong statement. Can you better define metaphor?
I hesitate these days to call myself a realist: I do not think we know or even encounter the real world. Not as it is. Not in a pure, unmediated manner.
I think I agree, and yet we do encounter a “very real” physical world at every second – real and material enough to kill us physically! But if “realist” means, as you use it here, totality in the exclusion of the spiritual, then that is a different story. Peter Kreeft has a really good dialogue on this in his book on Marx and Socrates.
Human nature wouldn’t seem to need our knowledge of it in order to be real.
Well put!
In our experience, there is no reality as it is in itself. In our experience, reality is metaphorical.
I’m reluctant, ironically I suppose given the subject, to accept the metaphor ‘metaphorical’ as an accurate description of our experience of reality. It seems to me there are better ways of describing the disparity between human experience and reality in and of itself. But I liked the post very much; certainly language itself, and communication about ideas is metaphorical. In that sense, it’s almost tautological or banal to observe that the metaphors a philosopher uses are important to understanding their philosophy because the only access we have to their philosophy is through the symbolic metaphors of words. But in another sense, and not just in philosophy, the explicit metaphors people employ often tell us a great deal more about their presuppositions and outlook than a straightforward argument.
“The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an eye for resemblance.”
-Aristotle, De Poetica, 322 B.C.
Kyle,
Are you describing a kind of essentialism? To be is to be metaphorical.
For St. Thomas, to be is to exist. Existence is not arrived at through abstraction but the negative judgment of separation.
Is the principle of contradiction only a principle of thought? Or is it a principle of being? Can we judge universals to exist in things, not merely in the mind?
How does the act of existing factor into your schema when you say “reality is metaphorical?” Or does it not?
Great comments, all. I will respond to each in turn.
Sam,
I mean by “metaphor” the standard definition, but much of what I say about metaphors could probably be said of the historical/cultural categories of language in general.
There are pre-linguistic (and therefore pre-metaphorical) experiences. Infants, for example, experience the world without recourse to metaphors. However, when we experience the world as meaningful and intelligible, then our experience is framed and colored by metaphors and other linguistic categories.
Jonathan,
As I stated above, I use the term “metaphor” as it is commonly used: a metaphor is figure of speech in which we say one thing is another thing even though it not the other thing literally.
I don’t think metaphors come into play only after we’ve encountered reality and describe our encounter using words. Whenever we perceive an object, we perceive it as something, as it fits into a linguistic category. Many of these categories are metaphorical, and so our perception is shaped or colored by the metaphors (or other linguistic categories) through which we perceive the object. Notice, for example, that the everyday language we use to speak about time is rooted in the metaphor “Time is money”: we spend time, manage time, waste time, organize time, economize time. A person living in a society with no concept of money would conceive of time, and experience time as meaningful, very differently, using some other metaphor. Metaphors come into play at the start of and throughout our encounters with reality.
John Henry,
I agree that there are other ways to describe the disparity between human experience and reality in itself, but I think that metaphors play a very large role, one we don’t often even realize. The very meaning of a dead metaphor is a metaphor we’ve generally ceased to think of as metaphorical.
Ben,
Nice quote. I’m not sure why a mastery of metaphors cannot be learned, though.
Gerald,
I wouldn’t say that to be is to be metaphorical. There are ways of being that don’t rely on metaphors or even language.
I don’t think that universals (essences, natures, etc.) exist only in the mind. We can know universals and know things themselves. I don’t deny a correspondence between my idea of a thing and the thing itself; however, I don’t think it is a one-to-one correspondence. I come to my idea of human nature, for example, by seeking to discover what human nature really is; however, that idea is also something I create using language and, to an extent, metaphors. I would say that my idea of a universal is both something I’ve discovered in the world and created using metaphors and other types of language. At the end of the day, I cannot divorce one aspect from the other in my idea.
Kyle,
Thanks for letting me know you wrote this. It is very good. FWIW, not only do I agree with everything you say here, I dare to go further and say that, if what you said is understood rightly as I think you intend it to be understood, not only is it true, but such an understanding of it would render it uncontroversial.
Ricoeur seems well in play here–a linguistically-mediated ontology, highlighting the role of metaphor, myth, symbol et al.
Mark,
Strange you brought up Ricoeur.! Today I have been going through parts of the Symbolism of Evil. Not for any specific reason, mind you.
Gerald,
That book literally changed my life. A fantastic, wide-ranging and balanced study.
Kyle,
Excellent response.
I think it is important not to fall into the trap of essentialism. Essentialism is sterile, lifeless, and morally and creatively oppressive.
Care must be taken so language does not loose the force of mystery. It must range freely in the empirical, soak up wisdom in the realm of philosophy, and explore the transcendent mysteries of Faith. It must also seek to discover the transcendent in the world.
Platonic logic is a metaphorical logic — a logic of unity — whereas Aristotelian logic is a logic of division. Both forms of logic are essential. I use the rigors of the latter to guide the creative descriptions of the former.
Science, philosophy, and Faith — three ways of knowing one Truth. Beauty is the beacon of Truth, radiating its message to the world.
Thanx for your comment.
Shoot, Kevin, I was trying to be controversial.
Mark,
Very interesting.
Ricoeur is marvelous. I don’t consider myself a devout follower of any particular philosopher, but if I had to pick, I’d choose Ricoeur in a heartbeat.
Kyle
How much David Tracy have you read?
Mark,
What other works of Ricoeur have you read?
Nicely put, Gerald. We approach truth, even within philosophy, from a plurality of ways. The pursuit of truth requires community and dialogue.
Henry,
None, unfortunately, but from the look of his bio, I should read him.
Kyle
Get his Analogical Imagination. He has written many things, but I think it is a good one to start with.
Kyle,
I’ve read Fallible Man; Conflict of Interpretations; Hermeneutics and the Social Sciences; Rule of Metaphor and some of the Freud book. I took a grad course on Symbolism of Evil, and my best friend from my undergraduate days went on to do a Ph.D on Ricoeur.
Gerald,
The chapter (and buildup) on the convergence of the Suffering Servant and Son of Man figures in the person of Jesus Christ really got me.
Don’t worry, Kyle. You were controversial enough, because understanding the point you were making the way I think you intended it is not easy. It is also goes against the grain of Thomists such as myself. But it is true nonetheless. I was fortunate enough to find a text of St. Thomas where he seems to depart from realism and make the same point. IMHO, he does not actually depart from realism, since I think his realism is not incompatible with that additional qualifying insight. So I was able to see the point without any intellectual conflict.
I refrained from commenting that use of the term “metaphor” with reference to this insight might carry certain implications that would put those who achieve his insight in some danger of falling into idealism or some form of postmodern skepticism. I am glad I did, because John Henry made that point well without detracting from yours. I am in agreement with what he said, and your reply.
I was thinking that in most important ways, our experience of reality is mediated through analogy more than metaphor. But your point, that metaphor is always present, is true, and when understood rightly, uncontroversial.
Here is a metaphor I have found useful – the brain is a natural organic (biological) analog computer, and the soul is the operator. It uses stored sense-information, especially imagery, but it is not stored in a digitally encoded form, but in an analogous one, like analog recordings. The soul uses these analog recordings of sensations and manipulates them, performing acts of understanding on them. There is no direct contact between the intellect and external reality. It is mediated through that process. But what is understood is not the mental image or the sense ghost, but the objectively real thing in the world that we make present to our consciousness using that medium. What’s more, the principle of similitude is usually more analagous than metaphorical. The analogies employed do not hide the truth behind as many differences with reality as can be gotten away with, but disclose it with as much similitude as possible. The emphasis is on the disclosure, unveiling, aletheia. This metaphor need not imply a hard Cartesian dualism, since the soul and body are united naturally, not arbitrarily or artifically, and comprise the single (but composite) substantial reality that is the human person.
I am still not sure what a standard meaning of metaphor means metaphorically. But that might just be my problem.
Sam,
I’m not sure I understand your question. Are you asking what metaphors shape our definition of the word “metaphor”?
Sam,
Are you asking for the appropriate metaphor of metaphor, and then on ad infinitum?
Kevin,
I think the realists and idealists both have something to say, although I don’t (and wouldn’t) try to synthesize realism and idealism into a new philosophy.
I take your point about the broader mediating function of analogy (and language in general).
Gerald: Kind of. I mean I have a suppressed premise in my question that what we might really be getting at is silence.
Kyle: I guess the question would divide into two pieces: 1) What is the standard meaning of metaphor? and, then 2) What is the metaphorical meaning of that standard.
Or (and here is my suspicion) could it be a mystery that even metaphor—even sacrament (in the Latin sense)—can’t get at in the flesh? And in that case, what good does metaphor do us here?
Assuming, of course, that we believe there is a flesh to be had (even in not having it).
“Gerald: Kind of. I mean I have a suppressed premise in my question that what we might really be getting at is silence.”
Sam:
Or, to put it another way, we could be getting at an ontology of the bare “X”"!
It was for this reason I asked about the act of being and whether “to be” was “to be metaphor.” I am pleased thus far with his response.
Neither a differentiated essentialism nor a unitary metaphysics takes a person very far. In such a predicament, the choice is either oppression or extinction.
Sam,
A metaphor is figure of speech in which we say one thing is another thing even though it not the other thing literally. I suppose the metaphorical meaning of metaphor would depend on what metaphors someone uses on the road to arriving at that definition.
“A metaphor is figure of speech in which we say one thing is another thing even though it not the other thing literally.”
Kyle,
In one of my comments above, I distinguished between Platonic and Aristotelian logic. This distinction applies to your sentence above.
Platonic logic is a logic of metaphor. In the Phaedo, Plato speaks of reminiscence in reference to the immortality of the soul. He says we know things like we remembered them from a past life. Thus the soul exists “before” the body and is immortal.
But, according to his logic, this should not be judged in a literal sense as would be the case in Aristotle. He is not saying that the soul exists at a TIME when the body did not. Rather, he is saying the soul exists before the body,not in the order of time, but in the ORDER OF PERFECTION. In other words, the soul is more perfect than the body — it is of a higher perfection than the body.
Later commentators like John Burnet will interpret Plato more literally. What they seem to be doing is using the literal logic of Aristotle to interpret the metaphorical philosophy of Plato. From my understanding, this is wrong.
The verb “to be” in Plato is metaphorical. It is not literal. It plays the kind of role in Plato akin to the way analogy is used in Aristotle. Thus when Plato says the soul existed before the body, he should be interpreted to mean that the soul exists AS THOUGH it had a life before the body. It didn’t really have a life at a TIME when the body did not exist. Rather, It exists BEFORE the body in the order of perfection.
Just as analogy in Aristotle designates something partly alike/partly different so the use of the metaphor in this instance designates something partly alike/partly different. In the proposition “X is Y” in Aristotle, “Y” is predicated of the subject “X”. In Plato, “X is Y” means “X exists AS THOUGH it is Y”.
As you said: “A metaphor is figure of speech in which we say one thing is another thing even though it not the other thing literally.”
I hope you get the gist of what I’m saying. I’m dashing it off quickly. Hope it triggers some insight into how metaphor is used.
While all metaphors eventually collapse, we might judge a metaphor in terms of whether or not and how much practical value we can cash out of it. This pragmatic maxim, for the most part, seems to come into play within a pluralistic community of inquiry as it decides which of its concepts are non-negotiable (semiotic), which have been negotiated by that community (theoretic), which are still-in-negotiation (heuristic) and which have not been negotiated (dogmatic). Semiotic concepts are non-negotiable in the sense that, without them, meaning and communication would be impossible. I draw these distinctions, not normatively, but as sociologic observations. To the extent the ought somewhat inheres in the is, they would have some normative impetus. To the extent metaphysics relies on a root metaphor, we can affirm a metaphysical realism even while, at the same time, suggesting that it is too early on humankind’s journey to imagine that we’ve found a metaphor robust enough for the task-at-hand. In my view, then, I say let a thousand metaphysical hypotheses bloom, but may our deontologies be considered as tentative as our ontologies are speculative. Metaphysics are a great way to probe reality but not a reliable way to prove reality.
Gerald,
I get what you are saying, and I realize that I would get a lot out of revisiting Plato and Aristotle on the question of metaphor, among other questions.
Thanks!
JB,
Important distinctions! I agree that we’ve not found a metaphysically-foundational metaphor robust enough for the task. We never will. So, like you, I say let a thousand metaphysical hypotheses bloom. And let us see them as petite narratives, and not any one as the grand narrative that petty much brings metaphysical inquiry to an end.
The pragmatic response fits in well here, however, it is not simply a matter of “cash-value”—at least not for what I know of James and Dewey (I know much less about Pierce), it certainly is for Rorty.
James’ point is that pragmatism allows us to speak in an excessive fit of relation, experience. But it is not denying the raw facticity of the excess either.
How, then, would you (Kyle) account for that?
Good stuff, I hope I am not annoying you with my questions…
Sam,
I’m not adequately enough versed in James, Dewey, or Pierce (a defect in my education, to be sure) to apply their understandings of pragmatism to my point about metaphors. That said, I think we may have to be somewhat pragmatic about what metaphors (and philosophies) we use to explain the world: because no metaphor is perfect, the best we can hope for is to use metaphors that seem to work best, metaphors that seem to reveal the most, conceal the least, and make the most sense given our experience.
I appreciate the questions.
Indeed, it is not simply a matter of cash value. In Peirce’s pragmatism, the logic is triadic, where each type of inference presupposes the others, such that we inductively test our abductive hypotheses and deductive clarifications. A lot of metaphysical thinking, in my view, consists of a nonvirtuous spinning of abductive and deductive rubber that never hits the inductive road. What results, then, for example in moral theology, are sterile rationalizations that bear little resemblance to the lived experiences of the faithful. This can be further exacerbated by the use of too many non-negotiated concepts.
The pragmatic cash value serves as a test of truth, of course, and not as a theory of truth, which is to say that it is truth-indicative but not truth-conducive. It can serve as an epistemic tie-breaker only after we have otherwise exhausted our very best presuppositional, evidential and rational value-pursuits. When we are dealing with such matters as human ultimate concerns, the origins of the cosmos and such, even our best hypotheses are rendered a Scottish verdict, not proven. Still, we will want to have established a modicum of epistemic parity with competing worldviews before we invoke our epistemic rights to adjudicate our claims existentially, which is to say using other (weaker) normative criteria like pragmatic value, aesthetic value, parsimony, facility, elegance, symmetry or even relational values, like fidelity, trust, hope, assent and so on. So, a good metaphysical hypothesis can help demonstrate the reasonableness of one’s approach but cannot, in the end, logically coerce certain beliefs.
I care not who writes this nation’s laws; so long as I can write its songs [or, at the very least, its metaphors]…
Excellent post, Kyle. Congrats on the new blog-digs, too!