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Personal Details

Principal Investigator Prof. A. Raghuramaraju Department of Philosophy,

University of Hyderabad

Paper Coordinator Prof. Bijoy H. Boruah Department of Humanities and Social


Studies, Indian Institute of Technology,
New Delhi

Content Writer Dr. Arundhati Mukherji Department of Philosophy,

Jadavpur University, West Bengal

Content Reviewer Prof. T.K Nizar Ahmed SSUS, Kalady

Language Editor Miss. Aruna Ramachandran Freelancer, Manipal

Description Module

Subject name Philosophy

Paper Name Art and Aesthetics

Module Name/Title Metaphor

Module Id 14.4

Prerequisites None

Objectives None

Key words Cognitive, Aesthetics, metaphorical language, poetic truth


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METAPHOR

Introduction

The description and explanation of physical reality is often regarded as a respectable and fruitful
endeavour which we call science. Normally, science is described as precise and unambiguous, and
the language of science is thought to be correspondingly precise, distinct and without ambiguityin
brief, literal. Faith in and dependence on literal language as the only adequate tool for the objective
characterization of the world or reality has been manifested in various ways, for instance, in the
picture theories of meaning of Bertrand Russell 1 and Ludwig Wittgenstein.2 The doctrine of
positivism was based on the idea that reality could be described precisely via language, without
ambiguity and in a testable form, i.e., reality should be literally describable. Apart from the literal,
other deviant uses of language have no meaning at all, because they violate the empiricist criterion of
meaning. Thus, one can say that during the ascendancy of logical positivism, literal language held a
privileged position, and no other approach to language was considered veridical.

However, ever since Aristotles Poetics, there has been much discussion and acknowledgement of the
active part played by metaphor in literary language, e.g., in literature and poetry. Many thinkers like
Percy Bysshe Shelley and I. A. Richards regard metaphor as the chief source of pleasure and interest.
Aristotle admitted the general relationship of metaphor to language and its fertile use in communication.
His Poetics and Rhetoric include discussions on metaphor. Metaphor today has become important
to any adequate account of language, and features extensively in philosophical discussions as well.
Poetic metaphors which are non-trivial and used in the creations of poems yield meanings which are
characterized by their complete newness and uniqueness. To understand such metaphors we must have
a rapport with or be sympathetic to the creator/poet.

What Is Metaphor?

Simply speaking, metaphor is the comparison of two unlike thingsor a comparison in which one thing
is said to be another. Thus, a metaphor is based on the similarity of two corresponding notions or ideas
or objects, e.g., Marys voice is a sweet song. In this metaphorical sentence, we are actually comparing
the sound of Marys voice to a song which is sweet or melodious. So, a metaphor states that P is Q.
Comparison can be made by using such words as is, are, was, and were. Again, in metaphor, a
comparison may be drawn between two nouns without using like or as. Another example of metaphor
is, Mary is a jewel in her school. Etymologically, the term metaphor means a kind of transference of
some quality from one object to another. Therefore, we expand our vision in order to understand
metaphor. It is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used to stand for something elseas in
I must get food for thought. Food here stands for material or data which we
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need for organizing our thinking, and thus the word food is to be taken not literally but metaphorically.
Thus, the most crucial property of metaphor may be said to be its non-literalness.

We all know that poems have lots of grammatical irregularitiesbut it is a fact that these
irregularities are also regular in the context of a poem. That is, often we break rules in a poem in order
to make deviant arrangements through figurative use. But this deviance has meaning, like literal use.
For example, when we utter the sentence Love is a journey, we definitely understand something by
it perhaps, here we understand something in such a way which a literal cannot make us understand
better. In fact love cannot be a journey-like thing, for, love is an emotional state; it cannot walk or
drive a car or be literally involved in any journey. But still the above metaphorical sentence does convey
a meaning. As a journey involves adventure, variety, and so on, so also love involves such things in its
way and thus these two words love and journey can be substituted for one another.

It may be said that in metaphor we extend our vision through a primary relationship, which is literal,
to refer to some other things directlywhile in metaphor, we have to consider a secondary
relationship which is an indirect signifying power. A metaphor arises not by mistake but out of the
creators intention and imagination which breaks the boundaries of the literal. It is, therefore, non-
literalness which is the relevant property of metaphor. One can try to understand the meaning of
metaphorical expressions with the help of the context in which they are embedded.

Non-literal Figures of Speech

Metaphor is one among various non-literal figures of speech, such as hyperbole, irony, metonymy,
synecdoche, and so on. These figures of speech rely for their success upon a clash between what is
said and what is intended. One may call them speech acts.

Yet non-literal figures of speech differ from each other. In irony, what is said is often the opposite of
what is intended. For example, when the weather is extremely hot in the summer, we might say ironically
to a friend, What a cold weather! In metonymy, the name of one object is substituted for another on
the basis of a close connection between them, or their common existence in reality, e.g., when we say
The White House declared something important, instead of saying The President declared something
important. Metonymy is mostly used in everyday speech and literature. Synecdoche is a type of
metonymyit is the use of a part to refer to the whole, or vice versa. For example, John has two mouths
to feed at home. Here, mouths (parts of people) stand in for people (the whole). A metaphor is a direct,
non-literal comparison made between two different objects, actions, etc. If the comparison is not direct
or the comparison is literal, then it is not a metaphor.

All of these different types of figures of speech are the same in one respect: they communicate in an
indirect manner what might have been communicated directly using the conventions of a language.
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Although figurative speech are normally dominated by the literal, and literal is more preferred, yet the
importance of the non-literalness or figurative speech, and thus of the metaphor are shown in the way
of language-functioning which is an integrated system of communication. The production of
figurative speech, especially of metaphor, is often reflexively based on the speakers awareness of the
hearers expectation of cooperative action on the speakers part. Thus, the abilities that control the
non-literal use of ordinary language expressions do not really fall in the realm of linguistic faculties,
and therefore figuration is considered to be outside the domain of linguistics. But that does not mean
that figurative speech, and thus metaphor, is of no interest to linguists and even philosophers.

Grammar and Figurative Speech

According to Noam Chomsky, linguistic competence is the rules (knowledge of rules) embedded in a
speakers brain, which enable the native speaker to produce an indefinite number of grammatical
sentences, including novel ones, using finite means. In constructing a generative grammar of a
language, the linguist tries to construct a model of the native speakers linguistic competence, i.e., of
what a native speaker knows about the structure of his or her language. Now, this grammar is set up in
such a way that only well-formed grammatical sentences could be generated and interpreted. 3 A
sentence like The garden is asleep is not ungrammatical in the sense in which Asleep is garden the
is ungrammatical. But the sentence The garden is asleep is problematic for the linguist. Its
ungrammaticality is not the result of not having syntactic structure or not maintaining any
grammatical rule, but of having a syntactic structure completely different from that of any grammatically
well-formed sentence. This kind of problematic ungrammatical sentence may be called a semi-
sentence.

However, according to J. J. Katz, a linguists job is not only to build a grammar that would generate
and interpret all and only the grammatically well-formed sentences in a language, but also to build a
counter-grammar, which would generate and interpret all the semi-sentences of that language.
Another aspect of linguistic competence is the idea of acceptability. The point, however, is that
grammaticality and acceptability are not the only structural phenomena that a perfect grammar should
reflect. Often a stylistic effect can be produced by a little shift in syntactic structureand one can say
that with metaphor, we perhaps do that. But again, although metaphorical sentences do have meaning,
yet they are without syntax and indeed break some rules of syntax. Thus, although semi-sentences or
metaphorical sentences are deviant, they are not altogether meaninglessthey can be understood. These
constructions provide a way of stating the interpretation.
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Simile and Metaphor

A simile is the imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to different classes. A simile
states that X is like Y or X is as Y. Semantically similes can be, like metaphors, based on a fresh analogy
between two things. The following extract from a poem provides an example of a simile:

Let us go then, you and I


When the evening is spread out
against the sky,
Like a patient etherized
upon a table

Other examples of simile are: as big as a palace, Mary smells like a flower, etc. Metaphor, on the
other hand, is used to get a better understanding of the unknown that emerges after comparing two
different known things. Metaphors make sentences, speech, and phrases more vivid and illuminating.

There is a difference between a simile and a metaphor. Both are used to create a clear image in the
readers mind. A simile compares two things by using the words as or like; e.g., My mom sometimes
grumbles like a bear, or It is as shiny as gold. A metaphor also compares two things, but not by using
words such as like or as; e.g., Sometimes my mom becomes a bear. A simile keeps two ideas side
by side, but in metaphor they become superimposed.4

But a simile is also a metaphor in spite of this difference. When we say that Daniels heart is like a
lion, we are using a simile, but the formulation Daniel is lion-hearted, where lion refers to
Daniels heart, is a metaphor. Simile and metaphor differ in the form of expression.5 According to
Herbert Read, simile and metaphor differ only in degree of stylistic refinement. The simile is the
deliberate elaboration of a correspondence, often pursued for its own sake. But a metaphor is the swift
illumination of an equivalence. Two images stand equal and opposite; clash together and respond
significantly, surprising the reader with a sudden light.6

The relationship between simile and metaphor is often so close that sometimes it is difficult to tell the
difference between them.

Metaphors of Different Kinds

Metaphors can be of an unexpected or unpredictable kind. Unexpected kinds of metaphor are called
genuine metaphors. Another kind of metaphor is that which becomes fixed through common and
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continual use in speech. They are also fixed in dictionaries as expressive means of language. These
are called dead or trite or worn-out metaphors.

Personification is yet another kind of metaphor. Personification is the attribution of human properties
to abstract notions like intentions, thoughts, or actions. For example, The trees were dancing in the
wind, News travelled quickly in the city.

There are also conceptual metaphors, like Life is a journey, or Time is money. These metaphors
draw on bodily experiences to explicate complex and abstract ideas. Conceptual metaphors structure
how we observe the world. According to George Lakoff, conceptual metaphors are built on more
basic metaphors that lie in the speakers cognitive process. Linguistic metaphorical expressions
depend on and evoke conceptual metaphors, for instance, Their marriage is on the rocks.

Lakoff would say that a computer system must understand the relationships among conceptual and
linguistic metaphors first, and only then can it comprehend the idea that a marriage on the rocks is a
problematic one. In metaphorical sentences, we use words in a way that has a very deep connection to
our human experience at any level.

Any kind of metaphor is a mapping from a source term to a target term. The target, which is abstract,
is understood by the help of the source. Metaphors pervade language and affect the manner in which
we speak about the world and also how we think about it. The creation of metaphors depends on culture
and how we think. The significant questions concerning metaphors are: Why does a specific mapping
come to recognize metaphors and not others? Can we get different mappings across cultures? Is
it possible to change different mappings in order to change the way people think about certain things?

We may also mention the conduit metaphor, based on the idea that language functions like a conduit.
The main framework of this metaphor can be said to depend on some steps: thoughts may be
transferred bodily from one person to another; people insert their thoughts and feelings into words when
writing and speaking; words contain these thoughts and feelings and transfer them to others; and people
abstract the thoughts and feelings from the words while reading and listening. Thus, thoughts and
feelings are understood as being contained in something. But in its minor framework, the conduit
metaphor ignores the idea of words as containers, and puts emphasis on the disembodied flow of ideas
and feelings into a kind of ambient space between human heads, as for example in the expression
Mary found ideas in the forest, or That concept was floating around for a long time. 7
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Some Views about Metaphor

There are different views on what really a metaphor is, how metaphor works, whether it is an essential
characteristic of language, or whether it is deviant, vague and therefore not dependable at all.

The constructivist view gives metaphor an important role in both language and thought. It also breaks
down the difference between the literal and metaphorical. By contrast, the non-constructivist view
takes metaphor as deviant, unimportant and parasitic on normal usage. This position claims that the
creation of metaphors and their explanation entails violation of linguistic rules, or a breaking with
convention. Moreover, metaphors are used in rhetoric and not in scientific discourses. They are vague
and fuzzy, and they do not give an objective description of physical reality.

The substitution view of metaphor holds that the metaphorical expression that is used to communicate
a meaning could have been expressed literally, or could be used within a literal frame. For example,
Ruth is sweet is nothing but an indirect manner of uttering some intended literal meaning such as
Ruth is pleasant, or Ruth is well-behaved.

Next, the comparison view states that the metaphorical statement can be substituted by an equivalent
literal comparison. The substitution view is a special case of the comparison view.

According to Max Black, the comparison view suffers from a defect. Metaphorical sentences cannot
be equivalent in meaning to literal statements of similarity, because the meanings of the two kinds of
statements are different. Moreover, for many metaphors, there are just no literal similarities between
objects. Although the comparison view holds that similarity plays a significant role in metaphorical
understanding, one should not think that a metaphorical assertion is an assertion of similarity.

Another well-known view of metaphor is the interaction view,8 upheld by Max Black. He explains
metaphor in terms of the categories of frame and focus and the interaction between the two. In the
metaphorical sentence The garden is sleeping, the word sleeping is the focus, and the word garden,
about which something is said, provides the literal frame of the metaphor. The interaction between frame
and focus evokes certain thoughts that result in a new dimension of meaning. Frame and focus (primary
and secondary subject) in a metaphorical statement actually standing for a system of associated
commonplaces. That is, the metaphorical sentence works by projecting upon the primary subject
some of the associated implications, included in the implicative complex, which are predicable of the
secondary subject. The creator of a metaphorical statement selects, stresses, suppresses, and arranges
features of the primary subject by applying to it statements exactly corresponding in form or relations
with parts of the secondary subjects implicative complex. Now, in the metaphorical context, the two
subjects interact in this way: the primary subject urges the hearer/reader to select certain properties of
the secondary subject, and invites the reader to create an
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analogous implicative complex that can fit the primary subject; this reciprocally influences analogous
changes in the secondary subject. Interactions are brought about in the minds of the creator and viewer
they are the subjects engaged in selecting, arranging and projecting. In a metaphorical situation,
a competent reader/viewer is actually presupposed. Thus, the interaction involves the screening of one
system of commonplaces by another to produce a new point of view on same object. 9
Black holds that this projection of one system onto another is an intellectual action which cannot be just
a comparison of objects to determine their similarities. Hence, one can claim that metaphor can give us
cognitive insight.

I. A. Richards, in his exposition of the interaction theory of metaphor, proposed some significant and
useful terms to talk about metaphors, such as topic or tenor, vehicle, and the ground. He
emphasized the conceptual incompatibility or tension between the topic and vehicle in a
metaphor.10

Any serious study of metaphor cannot ignore Aristotles discussion of metaphor. To quote Aristotle:
the greatest thing, by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from
others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the
similarity of dissimilars. Through resemblance, metaphor makes things clearer. 11

Aristotle believed metaphors to be implicit comparisons, based on similarities or analogy. He places


greater emphasis on analogy, as it is important for reasoning. Aristotle points out that metaphors provide
us with a way of learning and understanding something new about the world. He also believed
in transference in a metaphoric situation; the basis of transference is the similarity. According to
Aristotle, the perception of similarity plays a powerful cognitive role.

The view of metaphor that has been developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson centres round the
notion of gestalts. According to them, objects, actions and events should be understood in terms of
experiential gestalts, from where meaning really emerges, giving a coherent structure to our
experience. Take the metaphorical sentence Argument is war. This metaphor structures the way we
conceive of and proceed with arguments in our culture. So, metaphorical meaning works through the
projection of one gestalt structure, e.g., war, onto another, e.g., argument. What emerges from this
situation is a new gestalt which structures our experience, thought and language.

According to John Searle, the problem of metaphor concerns the relations between word or sentence
meaning on the one hand, and speakers utterance meaning on the other. What a person means by uttering
words and sentences is called the speakers utterance meaning, whereas what the words or sentences
mean is called the sentence meaning. Metaphorical meaning, for Searle, is the speakers utterance
meaning.12 To Searle, literal meaning, with background assumptions determines the conditions under
which the sentence is true or false. But a speakers meaning expresses intentions. So,
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to talk about the possible meanings of a metaphor is to talk about the speakers possible intentions. Take
the example John is a tiger (metaphor). Its form is S is P; a speaker may mean by this sentence
that John is fierce, violent, brave (paraphrase); its form is S is R. How does the hearer know from
the utterance S is P that the speaker means S is R in a metaphorical sentence? For Searle, to
understand the metaphorical meaning, a hearer should first understand that the utterance is not intended
literally; then, while interpreting the metaphorical expression, s/he must have some principles to reach
at the possible values of R, which could be either R1 (nasty), R2 (violent), R3 (brave), and so on, for
the speaker might mean various things by the metaphor. Finally, the hearer must restrict by some
principles the possible values of R to decide which R is meant by the speaker in asserting S. To find the
possible values of R, the hearer tries to identify the well-known features of P with his/her common
beliefs. While P-things are not R-things, yet against a cultural background humans may observe a
connection by which P is associated in their minds with the R-properties.13
Hence, the main point is that we need two sentences in the case of metaphor: (1) a sentence uttered
metaphorically, where what the speaker means is different from what s/he says; and (2) a sentence
that presents literally what the speaker means when s/he utters the first sentence metaphorically.

Is Metaphorical Use Spurious?

Our standard language is based on the primary meaning or the dictionary meaning of words and
sentences, whereas metaphorical expressions are associated with secondary meaning. Those who say
that literal language is the only tool by which we can express meaning precisely, without ambiguity or
contradiction, and that one can make truth-claims only on the basis of the literal, ignore the
importance of metaphoricity and of metaphorical expressions. They claim that metaphorical expressions
merely follow from literal expressions. The truth of a metaphorical sentence, according to them, is
merely grasped and can be rephrased in literal terms. Further, the figurative or metaphorical domain is
seen as useful mainly for rhetorical purposes. So literalists like J. L. Austin, John Searle and many others
would give primacy to the literal over metaphors. Literalists believe that the human conceptual system
is deeply involved with literal language; metaphor is regarded as a deviant use of words, different from
their literal sense. If a metaphor has any truth-claim, then this derives from its literal paraphrases.

It is a fact that we use and well understand metaphors in our everyday language. So why would anybody
say that metaphors are spurious? Romantic artists and poets, and also many philosophers like Nietzsche
and Gadamer, see the use of metaphor as a significant creative activity and our fundamental way of
responding to the world. Metaphor transcends our daily literal understanding. Those thinkers who argue
in favour of the metaphorical hold that metaphor cannot be a substitute for the literal. It cannot be derived
from the literal; rather, it is more fundamental than the literal.
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For Nietzsche, epistemological discourse, which we think to be literal, is actually derived from
metaphors. The literal is nothing but an instance of a worn-out or dead metaphor, i.e., one whose
metaphorical character has vanished from memory. That is, metaphors that have been used
continually for a long time lose their metaphorical character and turn into literal expressions.14 Thus,
one can argue that the fixed, literal, conventional truths of our culture are basically metaphorical in
character.

For Gadamer, the fundamental nature of language is metaphorical. He believes that a speaker transfers
an expression from one thing to another because of his/her widened experience, which sees
similarities.15 Moreover, it follows from the dead metaphors that Nietzsche describes that the literal is
derived from the metaphorical, and that metaphors are actually basic. Thus, we cannot ignore metaphors
simply by saying that they are spurious.

Metaphor in Analytic Philosophy

According to analytic philosophy or the philosophy of language, metaphor does not conform to
established truth-conditional semantics, a condition that measures when a statement is true or false. If
we take the statement Juliet is the sun (from Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet) literally, then it would
turn out to be false, or would be without sensebut if taken metaphorically, the statement would be
meaningful or it may be true.

Truth-condition theorists would prefer to settle about truth by putting emphasis on truth-values, and this
fact would justify that metaphors cannot be governed by truth-conditions. According to them, metaphors
cannot be governed by truth-conditions, because metaphors are open-ended and cannot function as
referring expressions. But the comparison theory of metaphor would accept that a metaphor may
be true or has a truth-value if we mark all the respects in which the two terms form a simile. Juliet is
the sun can be taken as Juliet is like the sun, for Juliet has qualities like brilliance, radiance, etc.

For Max Black and Donald Davidson, metaphor does not have any truth-conditions. For Black,
metaphors role is totally heuristicmetaphors are ways of facilitating understanding, rather than
terms which can be tested for truth and falsity.16 For Davidson, truth-conditions cannot be specified
for metaphors, because what we see in metaphor is not propositional in character.17 However, Blacks
interaction theory of metaphor claims that at the heart of a metaphor lies new meaning that, in fact,
creates insights.
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Metaphor in Continental Philosophy

Continental philosophy accords much importance to metaphor. Famous philosophers like Nietzsche,
Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Derrida have discussed metaphorical expression in depth.

Paul Ricoeur holds that metaphor is livingliving in the sense that it is the principle through which
our perceptions of the world get revived. This principle uplifts our creative power in such a manner
that we start to see the world in a novel way. This process, Ricoeur thinks, involves a tension between
the subjective, creative, and the objective discovery parts of metaphor.18

Another strand of continental philosophy is represented by postmodernism, which is a reaction against


any idea of boundary or totality or absoluteness. Postmodernists attack universal truths like the
cogito of Descartes, Kants table of categories, and so on. The opposition to universalism invokes
metaphor by showing that major epistemological concepts are based on metaphors. Since metaphor,
as a form of dislocating predication, acts by testing the proper with the improper, it should be taken as
a means of challenging the boundaries or unity or absoluteness whereby one subject defines itself in
relation to another.

Can Metaphors Make Any Truth-Claim?

It is believed that the human conceptual system is deeply involved with literal language, which is
taken as the only perfect instrument for explicating precise meaning. In fact, it is claimed by many
that if metaphors have any meaning or truth-claims at all, then they are just paraphrases of literal
language. In other words, metaphor is derived straightforwardly from the literal and nothing more.
Hence, it follows that human concepts are based on the correspondence theory of truth, according to
which the truth or falsity of a sentence is measured only by how it relates to the world. Here, true beliefs
and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs.

But what about metaphors? Do they really correspond to the facts, or to the actual state of affairs? If one
takes metaphors literally, then they would definitely result in falsity, because metaphors enact a shift
from the so-called literal domain. They do not have direct correspondence with our common world, nor
even do metaphors have a consistent syntactic structure.

Now, the question that legitimately and repeatedly arises is: can metaphors or metaphorical sentences
be determined by truth-conditions? The answer is: metaphors are much too open-ended to be able to
work as referring expressions, and so cannot have truth-conditions. Also, they are not in conformity
with the accepted truth-conditional semantics that determine a sentences truth or falsity.

Donald Davidson regards the quest for the truth-conditions of metaphor as a mistake. He holds that
what a metaphor expresses should not be given the status of meaning. In his words, much of what we
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are caused to notice in a metaphor is not propositional in character.19 That is, metaphor cannot be
reduced to truth-conditions. Davidson argues that what metaphor makes us see is nothing but a
picture, and what a picture makes us see is not any content whatsoever. So picture-like seeing-as, in
fact, is not propositional seeing-that.

Davidsons denial that metaphors have propositional content is well known. He holds that all meaningful
literal linguistic expression clearly displays a cognitive content or a message, but a metaphorical
expression never does. Metaphor does indeed have some effects on us, but that does not mean that
metaphors have real content. He contends that metaphor just evokes, brings to our attention certain
similarities.20 This effect cannot even be paraphrased, for there is no end to what we want to convey
through metaphor, and much that we see in a metaphor is not propositional in character.

Davidson tries to give an account of what metaphors do and what it is to understand them. He says
that metaphor tries to hint at, evoke, and make us see one thing as another. There is no manual
for determining or devising metaphors, since metaphors are indefinite, open-ended, and vague, and so
they also cannot be paraphrased,21 cannot have meaning in the strict sense.

Some hold that we may assess metaphors as true, not because what they mean is true, but because
other beliefs are inspired by what they mean. But Davidson would argue that if what is inspired is not
propositional in character, the question of truth in metaphor must be rejected, or may be differently
construed. Even if we see something as metaphorically true, or if we accept truth in metaphor, the
problem is how to assess its truth value properly.

Should we then say that the experience of metaphoricality does not contain any claim to truth? Indeed
notbecause the metaphorical path does lead to knowledge and truth, and it is claimed, further, that the
knowledge and truth derived from metaphor are far richer than that based on literality. If we never saw
metaphors in the light of the specific beliefs they lead to, then there would be nothing like metaphorical
truth. But the fact is that we are often concerned to do this, and consequently the notion of metaphorical
truth takes birth. Metaphorical truth does not show us a typical paradox or contradiction, or something
vague and nonsensical; rather, it shows a path for obtaining rich meaning.

It is a fact that the sentences or judgements that we form with metaphors can never correspond to our
known reality, because they are formed through transformations which do not belong to our usual
categories or domains. Thus, they cannot be called correct or true in the ordinary sense. But it is to be
noted that from this unusual character of metaphor grows a new kind of reality via our imagination
and extended perception. Talking metaphorically about P in terms of Q can, by itself, transform our
concept of P, so that novel thoughts and truths about P become possible. In creating new concepts,
metaphor creates new beliefs and new truths and affects our minds.
13

Ricoeur claims that the essential character of metaphors, both in their semantics and reference, is to
produce a mixed feeling, interpretative impulses that alternate between sense and non-sense and
between reference and nullity.22 For Ricoeur, meaning and reference in metaphorical expressions
entail that a referential conception of a metaphorical sentence should be settled within the
metaphorical or poetic domain itself. Metaphoric conception eliminates the reference of ordinary
language and instead involves the split reference. Ricoeurs metaphorical theory centres around this
concept of split reference. According to Ricoeur, in the metaphorical domain, a new, relevant meaning
can emerge out of the ruins of the literal meaning; thus, a metaphorical sentence and its interpretations
could sustain a new referential design, where the metaphorical reference would correspond to the
metaphorical meaning.

Monroe Beardsley asks how a shift of intention is effected by metaphoricity. How to explicate its
meaning properly, or to express the metaphorical truth? Beardsley requires a necessary condition for a
sentence to be metaphorical. He suggests that the recognizable mark of a metaphorical sentence, and
hence its truth, is that taken literally it would turn into a logical contradiction or an absurdity which is
false.23The deviant character of metaphor gives it a semantic incompatibility which creates a tension.
From this semantic tension a twist of meaning is forcede.g., in the expression the spiteful sun,
the word spiteful acquires a new tension.24

Conclusion

A genuine perspective on metaphor would view it as a unique and alternative theory of truth and
meaning. I think, we require a general knowledge to recognize a metaphorical statement. Perhaps it is
the language of metaphor that provokes or ignites the creative and the imaginative. If a poet says that
the sun looks red at dawn, yellow at noon, and then sets in the evening, we would gather merely
information and knowledge, but a sense of wonder (in the form of knowledge and truth) would not be
evoked. Metaphor ignites a flash, which allows immediate connections to be made, generates instant
comparisons, and makes infinite interpretations possible.

However, human beings should respect differences of background, worldview, and values, and be
flexible with regard to them. Only then would we be able to find the right metaphors to communicate
the important parts of unshared experience and highlight the shared ones.

There is no doubt that the metaphorical imagination and understanding is crucial in establishing
rapport and communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill expands our worldview and
enables us to adapt to the world and organize our experiences.

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