Chapter 27 of the ancient Chinese text the Zhuangzi describes three kinds of language: yuyan, zhiyan, and chongyan. Wang Fuzhi first coined the term ‘sanyan ’ or ‘tripartite-language’ to emphasize their overlapping characteristics and incorporate them into a cohesive approach to the text. Sanyan has been used consistently in interpreting the Zhuangzi since the earliest compilation of its extant version and continues to inform academic publications today. Based on descriptions found in the Zhuangzi's ‘miscellaneous chapters’ and on contemporary (...) scholarship, I will explain how this model of sanyan functions and then how it facilitates philosophical reading of the Zhuangzi. Understanding the Zhuangzi's metaphorical language through sanyan lends access into the interrelated semantic field of the pre-Qin philosophical canon and helps unravel Zhuangzi's often-cryptic philosophical expressions. (shrink)

Because the term ‘epigenetics’ has been used in a wide array of inquires within the life-sciences, it has come to bear a significant number of meanings. And just as biologists cannot come to an univocal understanding on what epigenetics connotes, the effect that its study has had in challenging contemporary neo-Darwinian, genecentred paradigms is also unclear. Some scientists and philosophers go as far as to say epigenetics has eroded dichotomies central to modern western thought, such as nature and nurture, or (...) genotype and phenotype – but the matter ignites a great deal of controversy. What seems unquestionable, however, is that the notion that genetic material is a ‘programme’ that simply manifests itself in an external correlative, thus accounting for the development of a living organism, seems to have – at the very least – shifted. Rather than attempting to pinpoint the implications of epigenetics in contemporary biology, this article focuses on the ‘literary’ dimension of scientific debate: instability of meaning, metaphorical shifts, a redrawing of margins and limits. Furthermore, it will be argued that metaphor does not merely have a pedagogical value in the field but rather works proactively throughout the genesis, development and morphology of science and theory. By outlining a ‘literary’ dimension in discussions around genetics one can identify what Squier refers to as ‘the epistemological value of the imprecise’, which in the case of epigenetics seems to have jeopardized not only the boundaries between genes and their external correlatives, but even challenged the frontiers of traditional disciplinary discourse. (shrink)

Languages play an essential role in communicating aesthetic, scientific and religious convictions, as well as laws, worldviews and truths. Additionally, metaphors are an essential part of many languages and artistic expressions. In this paper I will first examine the role metaphors play in religion and art. Is there a specific focus on symbolic and metaphoric language in religion and art? Where are the analogies to be found in artistic metaphors and religious ones? How are differences to be described? How (...) do various concepts of aesthetics and theological concepts explain those different kinds of language and how, if at all, do they make use of them? Lastly: what could be added to aesthetics, philosophy and theology by examining carefully the role and importance of language, including nonverbal, sign language and especially metaphorical language? Without the human capacity for language, religions are scarcely imaginable. A widening of traditional exegesis and hermeneutics by taking into account nonverbal semantics is needed. Religion is a cognitive and linguistic phenomenon. By taking this seriously, we set and enable an agenda to discuss religion scientifically, leaving aside for the purpose of a scientific understanding and discourse about the inter-religious and the inner-religious claims of truth and absolutist claims. To sum it up: metaphor is introduced as an important means of language when it comes to religious conceptualization. Next, I will show that art, more than religion, deals with visual metaphor – the latter being an image that suggests a particular association, similarity or analogy between two generally unconnected visual elements. This often, but not always, functions in a roughly comparable fashion to the better-known concept of verbal metaphor. In addition, visual metaphor has developed many original and unique characteristics. These two sections are followed by another one dealing with cultural philosophy of religion and aesthetics, as well as the meaning of metaphors for these disciplines. The next section is on metaphor and metaphorical language in mathematics, natural sciences and art and how they are related, i.e. influence and help each other. I will discuss the critical approach to metaphors in natural science and provide a short introduction to the cultural history of mathematics and art. Mathematicians and artists have long been on the quest to understand the physical world they see before them and the abstract objects they know by thought alone. How have art and mathematics helped each other in representing each other’s concepts? A final section provides a summary and an outlook: theology is contextual as is science – and so is art. All these disciplines partly rely upon metaphor and by the help of metaphor get closer to an intercultural and interdisciplinary understanding. I shall argue that, by dealing more carefully with their metaphorical language and their own metaphors, together they become better equipped to map the world. (shrink)

Both classical and contemporary social theorists have created a range of frameworks to formulate and develop concepts of social structure. Focusing on the work of the key theorists, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Talcott Parsons and Louis Althusser, Society and its Metaphors maps the linguistic basis of different theories of social structure.

In this paper, an attempt has been made to uncover the problem of metaphorical language in its relation to fleshliness and embodiedness as found in the critical reading of the texts of Derrida. The fleshliness of metaphorical language is embodied in our bodily activity in such a manner that sensible writing in the Derridean sense and corporeal body become intertwined notions. Metaphor and metaphorical language is a point of intersection between the body and sensible (...) writing. This materiality/corporeality/fleshiness of metaphorical language can be understood as text. According to Derrida, writing and body have been viewed by the western philosophical tradition as exterior to speech and mind respectively, and he wants to deconstruct such hierarchical binaries. With this, writing (as archi-écriture) is no more a literary notion, but the generic form of symbolic practice, always already metaphorical and embodied. This paper is centered on the oeuvre of Derrida to uncover the thinking for the fleshliness of metaphorical language from within the texts of western philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Working in the framework of object-oriented ontology, Graham Harman claims that science strictly adheres to literal language as opposed to metaphorical language. In this article, I argue that such a distinction between literal and metaphorical language cannot be made cleanly in the context of contemporary physics. First, I identify aspects of scientific practice that point to non-literalism, which include non-linguistic elements of scientific discourse, the problem of interpretation of mathematical formulations of some theories, and the (...) acceptance of incompatible theories that describe the same object. Second, I outline an argument that at least some theories in physics constitute complex metaphors based on Harman’s own definition. (shrink)

Metaphor is much more than just a linguistic phenomena, argues Gemma Corradi Fiumara, it is in fact the key process by which we construct and develop our ability to understand the world and the people we share it with. Rationality as understood by philosophers has led to a disembodied view of ourselves in which interaction between life and language has been downplayed. By looking at the metaphoric process - in an interpersonal rather than a formal way - its importance (...) in allowing us access to new worlds of experience is revealed. The metaphoric potential in us all exposes us to the world and initiates our involvement in it. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

In the current study of metaphor it is commonly assumed that during a meta­phorical reading both an impression of dissimilarity and an impression of similarity are created in the reader’s mind. These separate impressions exist simultaneously and each of them is considered to have linear relations with the metaphor’s aptness without either coming at the expense of the other. Thus far this assumption has never received any satisfactory theoretical justification. In this paper I discuss the problem of the simultaneous existence (...) of similarity and dissimilarity in the reader’s awareness when engaged in metaphor comprehension. I examine the methods for resolving this pro­blem, point out the shortcomings of the suggested solution and present an alternative solution. My solution uses a well-known distinction in the field of visual perception, that of global similarity versus dimensional similarity, and applies it to metaphor comprehension. While doing so I also try to supply a novel perspective on the process of metaphor comprehension. (shrink)

Past research suggests that death pushes some individuals to strongly promote religious worldviews. The current work explores the role of conceptual metaphor in this process. Past research shows that metaphors can provide meaning and certainty, suggesting that death may therefore cause people to be more attracted to epistemically beneficial metaphoric descriptions of God. In three studies, we test this possibility against competing alternatives suggesting that death concerns may cause more selective metaphor preferences. Using both correlational and experimental methods, we find (...) that death concern is generally associated with embracing metaphors about God. (shrink)

Metaphor abounds in both sign and spoken languages. However, in sign languages, languages in the visual-manual modality, metaphors work a bit differently than they do in spoken languages. In this paper we explore some of the ways in which metaphors in sign languages differ from metaphors in spoken languages. We address three differences: (a) Some metaphors are very common in spoken languages yet are infelicitous in sign languages; (b) Body-part terms are possible in very specific types of metaphors in sign (...) languages, but are not so restricted in spoken languages; (c) Similes in some sign languages are dispreferred in predicative positions in which metaphors are fine, in contrast to spoken languages where both can appear in these environments. We argue that these differences can be explained by two seemingly unrelated principles: the Double Mapping Constraint (Meir 2010), which accounts for the interaction between metaphor and iconicity in languages, and Croft's (2003) constraint regarding the autonomy and dependency of elements in metaphorical constructions. We further argue that the study of metaphor in the signed modality offers novel insights concerning the nature of metaphor in general, and the role of figurative speech in language. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 2 Seiten: 371-375.

Is it possible to talk about God without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? The article begins by reviewing how, in attempting to answer this question, traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. After arguing that recently developed theories of metaphor seem better able to shed light on the nature of religious language, it considers the claim that huge areas of our language and, consequently, of our experience are (...) shaped by metaphors. Finally, it considers some of the more significant implications of this claim for our understanding of both religious language and religious experience. (shrink)

The development of form in living organisms continues to challenge biological research. The concept of biological information encoded in the genetic program that controls development forms a major part of the semiotic metaphor in biology. Development is here seen in analogy to an execution of a program, written in a formal language in the computer. Other versions of the semiotic or "nature-as-language" metaphor use other formal or informal aspects of language to comprehend the specific structural relations in (...) nature as explored by molecular and evolutionary biology. This intuitively appealing complex of related ideas, which has a long history in the philosophy of nature and biology, is critically reviewed. The general nature of metaphor in science is considered, and different levels of metaphorical transfer of signification is distinguished. It is argued, that the metaphors may be of considerable value, not only heuristically, but in order to comprehend the irreducible nature of living organisms. In arguing for a semiotic perspective on living nature, it makes a marked difference whether the departure is made from the tradition of F. de Saussure´s structural linguistics or from the tradition of general semiotics of C. S. Peirce. An agenda is made for a Peircean perspective on the semiotics of nature. (shrink)

We discuss the difference between formal and natural languages, and argue that should the language metaphor have any foundation, it’s analogy with natural languages that should be taken into account. We discuss how such operation like reading, writing, sign, interpretation, etc., can be applied in the realm of the living and what can be gained, by such an approach, in order to understand the phenomenon of life.

In many papers dealing with the stylistic features of legal texts, metaphor is highlighted as a stylistic figure often used in the language of law. On a daily basis we can witness the frequent use of metaphoric collocations like soft laws, hard laws, silent partner, hedge funds, etc. In this paper, the author analyses the use of denotations for colours as constituent parts of metaphoric collocations in the language of law. The analysis is conducted by using a comparative (...) approach to examples extracted by means of computer technology from international bills and conventions available online. In the main part of the paper, examples are classified by using a colour denotation as the main criterion for the classification. After that, the examples are compared with corresponding expressions used in German and Croatian. Taking into account the main principle of the Skopos translation theory that differences between cultures strongly influence the translation process, the hypothesis of this research is that in many cases there will be no lexical equivalence between collocations with colour denotation in three languages. Due to the fact that international bills and conventions build the corpus of the research, and that the English language has become the lingua franca of international communication, it can be expected that some metaphoric terms and collocations would be literally translated from English. Conclusions drawn from the comparative analysis of legal collocations containing denotations for colours can be interesting to lawyers and LSP teachers in the field of law. In this sense, results of the research can contribute to motivational aspects of teaching Legal English and Legal German. (shrink)

In his Feature Article ‘Represent me: please: Towards an ethics of digital twins in medicine’1, Mattias Braun considers several important bioethical issues in relation to the use of digital twin simulations in health and medical contexts. He focuses on the ways these simulations are used or are proposed to be deployed in these domains, including to what extent they are a ‘true’ or ‘real’ representation of human bodies. In this response, I want to take a step back and delve into (...) the metaphor of the ‘digital twin’. I consider the implications of using this metaphor in the context of medical care and how this choice of language participates in what science and technology scholars term the ‘sociomaterial imaginaries’ that are used to support and promote novel technologies.2 Language is important. It matters. The choice of language is both symbolic and persuasive. It intervenes in political and policy debates and research and healthcare funding decisions.2 It has material effects and affects: to some of which Braun has gestured in his piece. The …. (shrink)

This paper examines different functions of metaphors in religious language. In order to do that it will be analyzed in which ways metaphorical language can be understood as irreducible. First, it will be argued that metaphors communicate more than just propositional contents. They also frame their targets with an imagistic perspective that cannot be reduced to a literal paraphrase. Furthermore, there are also cases where metaphors are used to fill gaps of what can be expressed with literal (...) language. In order to clarify this function of catachresis the notion of de re metaphors will be introduced. With those metaphors we can convey contents that we cannot conceptualize independently from a certain context of utterance. Hence, with such metaphors we can reach beyond the limits of our conceptual repertoire which is a crucial function for religious language. Finally, the consistency and plausibility of the radical position that all assertions about God are irreducibly and necessarily metaphorical if they are supposed to be true will be discussed on the basis of the results of the former considerations about the irreducibility of metaphors. (shrink)

This paper focuses on two legal languages such as the legal English developed by the European Union institutions and the legal Chinese of Mainland China, to study whether the mental representations and the embodied simulation created by the conceptual metaphors for the same Western concept, right, differ in any significant ways. By analysing the data contained in two large corpora, this study has found that, despite the common origin of the concept right in the two legal languages, they conceptualise it (...) in a significantly different fashion. Finally, the findings of this study are read through the theoretical framework proposed for this special issue—hybridity and the Third Space. While it is somewhat straightforward to conceive of Euro English as a hybrid language, owing to the multilingual and supranational setting where it is used, this study has found that the Chinese legal language, too, is a hybrid language exhibiting linguistic features that intersect different belief systems. (shrink)

The essay deals with the mechanism of interpretation for legal metaphorical expressions. Firstly, it points out the perspective the cognitive approach induced about legal metaphors; then it suggests that this perspective gains in plausibility when a new bilateral model of language understanding is endorsed. A possible sketch of the meaning-making procedure for legal metaphors, compatible with this new model, is then proposed, and illustrated with some examples built on concepts belonging to the Italian Civil Code. The insights the (...) bilateral model of understanding provides are compared with the practice followed by legal communities for dealing with the metaphorical expressions they coin and use. (shrink)

Despite the exceptional performance of large language models (LLMs) on a wide range of tasks involving natural language processing and reasoning, there has been sharp disagreement as to whether their abilities extend to more creative human abilities. A core example is the interpretation of novel metaphors. Here we assessed the ability of GPT-4, a state-of-the-art large language model, to provide natural-language interpretations of a recent AI benchmark (Fig-QA dataset), novel literary metaphors drawn from Serbian poetry and (...) translated into English, and entire novel English poems. GPT-4 outperformed previous AI models on the Fig-QA dataset. For metaphors drawn from Serbian poetry, human judges – blind to the fact that an AI model was involved – rated metaphor interpretations generated by GPT-4 as superior to those provided by a group of college students. In interpreting reversed metaphors, GPT-4, as well as humans, exhibited signs of sensitivity to the Gricean cooperative principle. In addition, for several novel English poems GPT-4 produced interpretations that were rated as excellent or good by a human literary critic. These results indicate that LLMs such as GPT-4 have acquired an emergent ability to interpret literary metaphors, including those embedded in novel poems. (shrink)

In this paper I explore two distinct but related emphases in Deleuze's later philosophy, both on his own and in collaboration with Félix Guattari, having to do with literature. The first is the emphasis on the work of literature as an assemblage whereby the author constructs lines of flight in the pursuit of self-experimentation and self-transformation. The second is the rejection of metaphor across Deleuze's work. I use Difference and Repetition to chart the origins of these emphases, by unpacking the (...) metaphysics of language contained in Difference and Repetition. I first recount the basic structure of Deleuze's intensive ontology, before going on to discuss the way in which the ‘fundamental encounter’ forces thought to formulate Ideas, which, as they are transmitted through the subject, alter her nature. This self-transformation is tantamount to a kind of ‘death’, whereby one is continually explicated, but this explication implies the transcendental Other-structure at the end of Difference and Repetition, wherein the Other, through language, gives birth to ‘possible worlds’. I end with the development of an unexplored concept in Difference and Repetition, the loquendum, which is what must be spoken precisely because it is inexpressible, the purely intensive. Language comes closest to this intensive use in its aesthetic, poetic, literary modes whereby authors distort their own languages. (shrink)

From the Church Fathers to the nineteenth century, countless libraries bear witness to the quarrels in which scholars, using the exegetical and philological techniques of their times (notably those of etymology), had striven to make out the Adamic vestiges which have remained intact in post-Babelian languages. For them, languages were to remain outside historical time. However, at the same time there existed other currents of knowledge. Authors use diverse metaphors – bodily, botanical, etc. – to formulate a dynamic history of (...) languages. Through the evocation of a few problematic metaphors, which create relationships between diverse forms of temporality employed to indicate the historicity of languages, this study underlines the tensions which presided over the genesis and the early development of linguistic knowledge. The Adamic language, endlessly appealed to, was also regularly called into question, and even outright rejected. No matter: recovering the purity of these origins managed to work as a powerful impetus for historic scholarship, and not only in the seventeenth century. This article was first published in French as “Quelques images problématiques du temps des langues” in Le Genre humain, 35 (autumn 1999–spring 2000): 273–290 (EHESS colloquium on “Actualités du contemporain”). (shrink)

Cross-referencing neurobiological knowledge with the invariance hypothesis, relevance theory, and frame semantics, Metaphor from the Ground Up: Understanding Figurative Language in Context unifies metaphor theory, fundamentally rethinks “context,” and moves linguistics into the twenty-first century.

ABSTRACTThis is a linguistic study of two primary metaphors with the same target concept, “DIFFICULTY IS WEIGHT” and “DIFFICULTY IS SOLIDITY,” in English and Chinese. The study employs both lexical...

The idea that language is metaphoric in nature has often been suggested or stated since Vico and Rousseau. Derrida, too, often writes about metaphor and the impression he gives is that he is arguing for the metaphoric nature of both thought, whether philosophic or not, and language. Interpreters like de Man or Culler have helped to spread this impression. If it is correct, Derrida shares a pan-metaphoric view of language and whatever can be made with it. It (...) is useful to refer to Derrida's view because in my opinion he has been very good at saying what language is, even if he has been very much in the wrong in seeing no distinction between language and language use. Let us consider first what he has been good at. (shrink)

Meaning in sensory language is often built through figurative mechanisms, such as synesthetic metaphors, where a sensorial domain is used to talk about perceptions from a different sense, as in sweet[taste] texture[touch]. The motivation of synesthetic transfers of meaning has been studied in general and literary language, resulting in attempts to reveal universal patterns regarding the directionality of meaning transfer and sensorial conceptual preference. However, those universals have not been proven in any sensory Language for Specific Purposes (...) (LSP). We a sensory LSP corpus of olive oil tasing notes in English to explore the nature of these metaphors, test existent models and explanatory accounts and identify tendencies present in synesthetic meaning transfers. The computer-assisted semi-automatic scalable methodology followed consists of the innovative quasi-simultaneous identification of semantic incongruences and the classification of synesthetic expressions in the discourse according to the source and target sensorial domains. Results show the inadequacy of existent models to explain synesthetic behavior in olive oil tasting language. The patterns found are discussed in the light of cognitive constraints and LSP genre analysis to conclude that a multi-causal approach is needed to explain the motivation of synesthetic transfers of meaning. (shrink)

The experience of the body, which all speaking subjects share, is at the origin of many corporeal metaphors and figurative expressions which are laced throughout all of our productions of language, and which reveal the diverse representations of the body as elaborated within linguistic communities. For instance, when the French say that someone “does nothing with his ten fingers,” to signify his inactivity or laziness, this expression reveals a representation of the hand, which is viewed as “THE SEAT OF (...) ACTIVITY.”. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. In The Rule of Metaphor he seeks 'to show how language can extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within itself'. Recognizing the fundamental power of language in constructing the world we perceive, it is a fruitful and insightful study of how language affects how we understand the world, and is also an indispensable work for all those seeking to (...) retrieve some kind of meaning in uncertain times. (shrink)

For more than thirty years, the question of how sentences about God manage to refer has been in the background and often in the foreground of discussions of religious language and metaphysics. In some cases philosophers of religion and theologians have spoken vaguely about or given up all together claims to depict reality in religious discourse. Janet Martin Soskice challenges these views on the grounds that they are rooted in a bankrupt form of empiricism and that they fail to (...) be consistent with the aim of traditional Christian faith to refer to God as a reality. She argues for the necessity of metaphorical language in speaking of God and for a theory of metaphor consistent with critical realism in theology. (shrink)

Despite the exceptional performance of large language models (LLMs) on a wide range of tasks involving natural language processing and reasoning, there has been sharp disagreement as to whether their abilities extend to more creative human abilities. A core example is the interpretation of novel metaphors. Here we assessed the ability of GPT-4, a state-of-the-art large language model, to provide natural-language interpretations of a recent AI benchmark (Fig-QA dataset), novel literary metaphors drawn from Serbian poetry and (...) translated into English, and entire novel English poems. GPT-4 outperformed previous AI models on the Fig-QA dataset. For metaphors drawn from Serbian poetry, human judges – blind to the fact that an AI model was involved – rated metaphor interpretations generated by GPT-4 as superior to those provided by a group of college students. In interpreting reversed metaphors, GPT-4, as well as humans, exhibited signs of sensitivity to the Gricean cooperative principle. In addition, for several novel English poems GPT-4 produced interpretations that were rated as excellent or good by a human literary critic. These results indicate that LLMs such as GPT-4 have acquired an emergent ability to interpret literary metaphors, including those embedded in novel poems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 719 Metaphor and Religious Language. By JANET MARTIN SosKICE. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1985. Pp. 191. Cloth, $25.00. This book combines two excellent studies: the first is a critical analysis of theories of metaphor and topics in contemporary philosophy of language which are especially relevant to theories of metaphor; the second is an examination of the way in which models and the metaphorical (...) class='Hi'>language based on them are understood in a critical realism concerning scientific explanation, and so can support the possibility of a critical realism in theology. The second study is premised on the first, but the first (Chapters I-V) can be read independently and is valuable in its own right whether or not the reader has theological concerns. Though the author's ultimate aim is to provide a defense of the "theist's right to make metaphysical claims" (a defense of "theological realism") by arguing for the "conceptual possibility" of a referential religious language (148), she is well aware that any adequate account of religious language has to be informed by a proper understanding of the variety of forms (literal and non-literal) our non-religious language takes. In particular, "no philosophical account of religious language will be either complete or sufficient if it fails to take account of the way forms of figurative discourse, like metaphor, function in the task of saying that which cannot be said in other ways " (63). The first five chapters of the book then are devoted to a detailed and comprehensive analysis of metaphor in ordinary language, beginning with classical accounts (Ch. 1), distinguishing metaphor both from non-linguistic entities and from other figures of speech (Chs. II and IV), and critically examining standard theories of metaphor (Ch. III) and issues concerning' metaphorical meaning,' 'metaphorical truth,' and the irreducibility of metaphor (Ch. V). Soskice begins (and ends) by defining metaphor as a "figure of speech whereby we speak about one thing in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another" (15, 49) and argues for an "interanimative" account of metaphor (which is presented as a refinement of the insights of I. A. Richards). In relatively small compass she presents a formally comprehensive survey and critical analysis of competing theories of metaphor. The criticisms are simple, straightforward, and radical. For example, she concludes that, at bottom, emotive accounts are inadequate because " there must be some guiding cognitive features which the emotive response is the response to" (27). (This sort of consideration later figures in her criticism of accounts which see a merely affective role for models.) She argues that theories which see the heart of metaphor in a self-contradictory at- 7~0 BOOK REVIEWS tribution ignore those acknowledged metaphors which do not imply logical conflict, those metaphors which are such only because of context or intention; however, they fail adequately to distinguish such logical conflict from nonsense (32ff). Substitution theories and comparison theories fail to see that " the very thinking is undertaken in terms of the metaphor " (25)-there are not two things antecedently known. Here begins her criticism of a thesis-the 'two subjects' thesis-which underlies much theorizing about metaphor. The criticism is an important and sustained one; it is addressed to sophisticated versions of the potentially promising "interactive " accounts of metaphor, like Black's (46ff), and comes into play '..:1 her analysis of Ricoeur's work on metaphor (Ch. V). Though I have only pointed in a sketchy way to the kind of criticism the author offers of the major theories of metaphor, I should emphasize that her criticism is detailed, careful, and cogent, and engages in illuminating give-and-take with contemporary philosophical discussions of metaphor and related linguistic issues (a la Davidson, Searle, et al.). It is, moreover, presented with such clarity and helpful examples as to make it both an excellent introduction to the topic and a useful study for those with some familiarity with the contemporary debate. The " interanimative " theory of metaphor which Soskice proposes holds that metaphor is in an important sense 'two ideas for one,' though it does not involve a duality of reference. Metaphor is not generated simply by " conflict of meaning" or by " interaction of two... (shrink)

This article investigates the clothing metaphor in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus at remark 4.002. I consider the antecedents and origins of 4.002, in particular, of the fourth paragraph that contains the metaphor, and also suggest and argue for potential source texts for the third and fourth paragraphs. In particular, early sources for the Tractatus, such as the Notes on Logic and the Notebooks 1914–1916, letters, and other manuscripts and early drafts are considered, especially MS104 and the Prototractatus where the metaphor appears (...) at remarks 4.0014 & 4.00141. The place of the metaphor among the context of the elucidations of these early manuscripts is discussed. I also consider similar uses of the metaphor that are present in the work of Hertz, Boltzmann, Frege, Kraus, and others. Some of these texts and potential influences are more compelling than those previously adduced or recognised in the literature. The appearances of the metaphor in the work of these authors and their potential influence upon Wittgenstein’s work is discussed. (shrink)

Music is elusive. describing it is problematic. In particular its aesthetic properties cannot be captured in literal description. Beyond very simple terms, they cannot be literally described. In this sense, the aesthetic description of music is essentially nonliteral. An adequate aesthetic description of music must have resort to metaphor or other nonliteral devices. I maintain that this is because of the nature of the aesthetic properties being described. I defend this view against an apparently simple objection put by Malcolm Budd. (...) dealing with this objection will take us into some surprising terrain. We are led to consider issues concerning privacy and the language for describing sensations. In the light of these considerations, I develop the essentially nonliteralist thesis and explore some of its consequences. (shrink)

A theory that treats language not as an abstract symbol system but as a function of our brains and experience, integrating recent findings from biology, ...

`I have little but praise for this study. The crisp insights of the conclusion are symptomatic of its lucidity and sophistication.' British Journal of Aesthetics.

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 27 Heft: 1 Seiten: 35-65.

The nature of emotion concepts and whether there are any that are universally “basic” remains controversial, as acknowledged in the article “Language and Emotion.” The suggestion that some emotions are embodied through a process of association between neural networks for bodily sensations (e.g., raised temperature) and neural circuitry dedicated to linguistic metaphor is interesting, but speculative. However, it is a hypothesis that risks relegating speakers of languages that lack sophisticated metaphors to a lower level on some scale of linguistic (...) evolution. (shrink)