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ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the question of whether metaphors are
sufficient for the fulfillment of philosophical tasks, and, if they are, which cognitive
or methodological place metaphors can have within philosophical discourse. We
can distinguish three attitudes toward metaphors. First is the general rejection of
metaphors in philosophy. Second is the unrestricted affirmation of metaphors as
absolute and as compensating for metaphysics. This conception will be analyzed
critically and shown to be self-contradictory. The third position can be described as
the restricted affirmation of using metaphors. According to this view, metaphors
can be characterized as-strictly speaking-non-philosophical but extrinsic to
constitutive forms in constructing theories. In this view, their function is not to
explain, and they cannot be used as arguments. But, often they contain numerous
implications with value for innovation, as they can anticipate holistic projections
which are not yet fulfilled by theoretical analysis.
This paper deals with the question, of whether the cognitive content of metaphors
can be put to use in philosophy, and, if so, what cognitive or methodological place
metaphors have within philosophical discourse. Three philosophical attitudes
toward metaphors can be distinguished: First, the various arguments for rejection
of metaphors in philosophy. Second, the unrestricted affirmation of metaphors,
taking "absolute metaphor" as the replacement of metaphysics. The third position
can be described as the restricted affirmation of metaphors.
1. The rejection of metaphors in philosophy
The rejection of metaphorical language in philosophy can take any one of five
forms: first of all against confounding metaphors and concepts or arguments,
secondly, against a purposeful blurring of metaphors and concepts, thirdly, against
metaphors in general, fourthly, against using metaphors too often, and fifthly
against using metaphors in special functions.
In my opinion, the first reproach, the reproach of exchanging or confounding
metaphorical and conceptual discourse, is the most common. But I am also of the
opinion, that in a great number of cases the interpreter can be blamed: it can be
the readers fault, if he is not able to identify a metaphor as metaphor, for example,
out of its context. The author on his side can signal the right interpretation. The
decision, if an expression is to act as metaphor or as concept depends on the
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with the "truth of the metaphors themselves". (13) According to Blumenberg the
concept of truth or true - "as result of a methodically established procedure of
making something true", in the sense of assigning truth values for instance - can,
of course, not be applied to metaphors. Nevertheless, absolute metaphors, or
what is expressed by them, correspond (in a way) to the theoretical inaccessible,
meet it, grasp it adequately. Therefore Blumenbergs considerations are based
allbeit, implicitly and vaguely, on a relation of adequation or correspondence theory
of truth. When he speaks of the "value of evidence" of metaphors and then later
speaks of "their historical truth" it becomes even explicit that the absolute
metaphor is to work as a historically relative bearer of truth. And this is even
necessary with regard to the status of a metaphoric: As a compensation of
metaphysics within philosophy the metaphoric in Blumenbergs theory must be
susceptible to claims of truth. But how can the truth of metaphors, the
correspondence to the theoretically inaccessible in the case of the absolute
metaphor, be understood more accurately and, at the same time, as different from
theoretically comprehensible constellations of truth? Obviously as a historic truth
of correspondence, insofar as metaphors aim at the fundamental questions of their
respective period and mediate them for the "seeker of a historic understanding";
and furthermore as verit faire or pragmatic truth in a broad sense as well,
insofar as metaphors or their content" give an orientation of behaviour in their
historic period. "Metaphor as topic of metaphorology [] is mainly a historical
object, so that their value as evidence presupposes that the person who makes an
assertion didnt herself have a metaphorology". (14) If the correspondence of an
absolute metaphor expresses itself only in action and behaviour of the respective
user of metaphors of a certain historical period, and if the correspondence, as a
matter of principle, approaches its singular object in a historical review, then it is
deprived of the ability to show a truth thus understood. The assignment of a claim
of truth to an absolute metaphor remains a hypothesis. (15) Failing to give an
exact elucidation, Blumenbergs approach is in one sense consistent with his
metaphysic-and-theory-compensatory reading of metaphors. But at the same time
it is inconsistent, insofar as it tries to explain this by means of discourse.
In spite of the critique, the strong version of affirmation of metaphors brings to light,
as Blumenbergs example demonstrates, some characteristics of metaphors, which
suggest an restricted affirmation of metaphors in philosophy.
3. Functions of metaphor in philosophical contexts
First of all we have to revise the absolute knowledge claim of metaphors in
philosophy, which has more or less as its basis the hypothesis of something
theoretically absolutely unfulfillable and unobtainable. One cannot exclude the
possibility that something can be made theoretically accessible in principle or in
some far future.
their individual use, that is, when it is not possible to translate them completely.
Otherwise either they would be obsolete or dispensable, because they are
conceptual at least in principle, that is to say, they can be replaced by the common
and most precise medium of philosophy. Or, from a semantical point of view, they
would function as mere redundant decoration: In this function they would, taken
strictly, not be allowed to occur in non-aesthetic texts. (18)However, decorative
metaphors that are relatively clear and consequently to a great extend explicable,
as far as their communality and their familiarity is concerned, can have a high
value of mediation in a pedagogic-didactic respect.
The vagueness of metaphors is also a reason for their extrinsic character. Because
they represent, so to speak, comprehensive but inexplicit connections from
outside, they are well suited for a regulative reference to an orienting frame of
special theoretical analyses. Metaphor then might be taken as legitimizing proof of
reference to something that is not yet explicit. For this reason metaphors are at the
same time precluded from articulating the intrinsic and precise structure of what
they ambiguously substitute. They have, therefore,no value for explanation and
reasoning. But because of the plenitude also implicit in the ambiguity they have a
high value for implication and innovation: Metaphors can therefore be used as
means of anticipatory indication of something not yet accomplished by means of
theory, and this in different respects. It is thus possible and sensible to take
metaphorical formulations as scientific beginning and as intuition for constituting
a hypotheticalframework for a theoretical process. In another case, complex
perspectives resulting from theoretical investigations can be shown by metaphors
to be not yet fulfilled. They serve, therefore, not only as justifications of an author,
who has not been able to comprehend the aforementioned perspective, but are at
the same time a sign of the desideratum of research which has already been
recognized. The thus implied impulse of the author to attain the not yet fulfilled or
the not yet fulfillable has as its counterpart a need for interpretati on, which is
entailed in the structure of metaphors.In addition to their function of semantical
indication metaphors indicate within philosophical texts a demand for conceptual
explication and theoretical study.
Hence, in their philosophical use metaphors can be characterized in a more narrow
sense as non-philosophical, but nevertheless theory-constitutive forms of
articulation, and in three respects: they are paraphilosophical, in so far as they
express what they aim at in the shape of figures of speech or even pictures. They
are periphilosophical in their extrinsic circumscription of what they aim at
philosophically. They are, and this is their crucial aspect, protoor prephilosophical, in so far as they anticipate in a characteristic articulation what
is philosophically not yet fulfilled or fulfillable. (19)
Notes
(1) Cf. Aristoteles, Topik (Organon V), bers. u. mit Anm. hg. v. E. Rolfes, Hamburg 1922
, ND 1968, 158b, 139b, - 140 a, 133b: "Jede Metapher ist undeutlich"/ "Every metaphor is
indistinct".
(2) Cf. for instance Nieraads description and critique of this position; B. J. Nieraad,
Bildgesegnet und Bildverflucht. Forschungen zur sprachlichen Metaphorik, Darmstadt
1977, bes. 90 f.
(3) See. Giambattista Vico, Die neue Wissenschaft ber die gemeinschaftliche Natur der
Vlker (1744), dt. v. E. Auerbach, mit e. Essay v. E. Hora, hg. v. E. Grassi, Hamburg 1966
bes. Kap. II, Abschn. 2, 2 u. 4.
(4) Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, in: Archiv fr Begriffsgeschichte 6, 1960, 7-142,
9; cf. ibid., Ausblick auf eine Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit (1979), in: A. Haverkamp 1996,
a.a.O., 438-454. The expression "absolute Metapher" was already used by Hugo
Friedrich, Die Struktur der modernen Lyrik (1956), Hamburg, 8. erw. Aufl. 1977. He
understands the "absolute" literally. "Absolute metaphors" are, how one could say,
language-pictures, constituting their own "world", totally resolved of the realm, they (may)
refer to. I think, the problem is the same as in the conception of Blumenberg: in which way
are metaphors then still metaphors ?
(5) Blumenberg 1960, 142
(6) Nicholas Rescher, Die Grenzen der Wissenschaft (1984), trans. by K. Puntel, with an
introduction by L. B. Puntel, Stuttgart 1985, 81; for the entire subject of a theoretically
inaccessible see especially chap. VIII and IX.
(7) Blumenberg, 1960, 19; the claim of metaphors to be a compensate for metaphysics as
well as the reference to a negative theology give the hint, that whats at issue are for
instance problems of the philosophical doctrine of god. Cf. Blumenberg, 1979, 445.
(8) Blumenberg, 1960, 19
(9) See Rescher, 1985, especially chap. IV, VII and VIII.
(10) Blumenberg, 1960, 19.
(11) In what Blumenberg says about the "paradigms of a metaphorology" he leaves open
the exact meaning of "metaphorology", as for example the question of its status (as a
science?) and whether its place is within or outside philosophy.
(12) The strategy of a closer determination of the absolute metaphor by way of a
syntactic elucidation of metaphors as answers is of little help if one takes into account, that
in one and the same context Blumenberg holds that absolute metaphors "are answers to
unanswerable questions, that someone who has knowledge by metaphors, however,
cannot find these answers to unanswerable questions in them, and, finally, that
metaphors express questions. See Blumenberg, 1960, 19.
(13) ibid. 19/20 ff. One problem of Blumenbergs writings, that cannot be dealt with in this
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argumentation, is that he confounds two levels: Chapter II, the origin of the above
passages, has as its heading "metaphoric of truth and pragmatics of knowledge", that
means it will talk about metaphors or their truth, i.e. about "metaphors of power or
powerlessness of truth" (p. 19). In what follows he then says that those kind of metaphors
cannot be verified theoretically, and he asks therefore "for the truth of the metaphor
itself". (My italics, C. P.)
(14) ibid., (my italics, C. P.)
(15) It becomes obvious, that it is in principle questionable to claim the correspondence
relation of truth or truth values at all for metaphors, for how can a truth value be found out?
For that reason Nelson Goodman suggests making their "correctness" dependent on the
fact how "useful, instructive and informative" they are; see Nelson Goodman/ Catherine Z.
Elgin, Revisionen. Philosophie und andere Knste und Wissenschaften, dt. Frankfurt a.M.
1993, 32; see Weisen der Welterzeugung, dt. Frankfurt a.M. 1990, 32 128 ff.
(16) Cf. the capable substitution-theory of metaphor of Karl-Heinz Stierle, which is based
on the reciprocal influence of metaphor and its context; Karl-Heinz Stierle, Aspekte der
Metapher,
in:
Text
als
Handlung.
Perspektiven
einer
systematischen
Literaturwissenschaft, Mnchen 1975, 181 f., 183 f., 185 f.; see e.g. Nieraad, 1977, 13 f.
and Max Black, Die Metapher (1954), in: Theorie der Metapher, hg. v. Anselm Haverkamp,
Darmstadt, 2. um ein Nachw. u. einen bibliograph. Nachtrag erg. Ausg. ergnzte Neuaufl.
1996, 55-79 [Black 1996 a]; ibid., Mehr ber die Metapher (1977), ibid., 379-413 [Black
1996 b], bes. 392/393.
(17) Cf. to the "theory of interaction" Black, 1996 a und b; against Blacks interaction
theory, Robert Fogelin endorses the comparative approach, when he defines metaphors
as "figurative comparisons". But he do so in the context of supporting an approach, which,
like Davidsons theory, takes metaphors literally (which I do not agree with); c.f. Fogelin,
Figuratively speaking, New Haven 1988, 28, and c.f. Fogelin, Metaphors, Similes and
Similarity, in: J. Hintikka (ed.), Aspects of Metaphor, Dordrecht 1994, 23-39; c.f. to the
literal view Donald Davidson, What metaphors mean, in: Inquiries into truth and
interpretation, Oxford 1984, 245-264; see also Stierle, 1975, 152; to avoid the obviously
misleading terminus "substitution" I therefore propose a substitution-theory, which might
be called "Theory of interactive indication" of metaphor.
(18) "aesthetic" in the sense of "sensuous-(artistic)"; when we mean the adjective to
aesthetics-as-theory, we use the construction "aesthetic-theoretical".
19) See Constanze Peres, Antizipation. Spektrum und Struktur, in: F.Gaede/ C.
Peres (Ed.), Antizipation in Kunst und Wissenschaft. Ein interdisziplinres
Erkenntnisproblem und seine Begrndung bei Leibniz, Tbingen 1997, 19-33;
Pegasus und Einhorn. Antizipation in Kunst und Wissenschaft und ihre Begrndung
bei Leibniz und Goodman, ibid. 47-72.