There Is Not Just a War: Recalling the Therapeutic Metaphor in Western Metaphilosophy

Sophia 55 (1):31-54 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper offers a critical response to the claims of Sivin and Lloyd and Mattice to the effect that Greek and Roman philosophy was characterised by a predominance of combat metaphors. Drawing on Plato and Plutarch, as well as contemporary studies led by Nussbaum, I argue that a host of different metaphors was demonstrably used in the Greek tradition to describe philosophy and its subjects, led by the therapeutic or medicinal metaphor of philosophy as ‘therapy of desire’ or of desiderative opinion. I propose that it was the sophists like Protagoras, at least as they are depicted by Plato, who sought to conceive of philosophising as a strategic, warlike activity. In conclusion, I reflect on the invisibility of the medicinal metaphor, outside of certain dedicated studies in the history of ideas, in contemporary thinking about Western philosophy and its past.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,010

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Conceptual Metaphors and the Goals of Philosophy.Victoria S. Harrison - 2016 - In Hans-Georg Moeller & Andrew Whitehead (eds.), Wisdom and Philosophy: Contemporary and Comparative Approaches. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 205-222.
A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor. [REVIEW]Ignas K. Skrupskelis - 1986 - Review of Metaphysics 40 (2):385-387.
А. л. баркова. Введение в мифологию.Галина Кириленко - 2019 - Researcher. European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 2 (1):89-91.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-03-17

Downloads
31 (#728,944)

6 months
9 (#488,506)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Metaphors we live by.George Lakoff & Mark Johnson - 1980 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Mark Johnson.
Metaphors We Live By.George Lakoff & Mark Johnson - 1980 - Ethics 93 (3):619-621.
Metaphors We Live by.Max Black - 1980 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (2):208-210.
The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification.Michael Power - 1999 - British Journal of Educational Studies 47 (1):92-94.
The Therapy of Desire.Martha C. Nussbaum - 1999 - Philosophical and Phenomenological Research 59 (3):785-786.

View all 18 references / Add more references