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Metaphor amongst tropes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
Despite years of philosophical preoccupation with language, figurative discourse remains a sadly neglected topic. Biblical scholars and theologians still make use of a rag–bag of terms such as myth, metaphor, image, allegory, and analogy according to their own lights, with little or no help from philosophers in distinguishing or relating the categories involved. Too often these terms are used as equivalents.
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References
page 55 note 1 Cf. ambiguities in the use of terms like ‘myth’, ‘image’, and ‘metaphor’ in recent books like The Myth of God Incarnate, Hick, John, ed. (SCM Press, 1977).Google Scholar
page 55 note 2 See, for example, Boyd, Richard, ‘Metaphor and Theory Change: What is ‘metaphor’ a Metaphor for?’, in Ortony, A., ed., Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Harré, R., The Principles of Scientific Thinking (Macmillan, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hesse, Mary, Models and Analogies in Science (University of Notre Dame Press, 1966).Google Scholar
page 55 note 3 See, for example, Levin, Samuel, The Semantics of Metaphor (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Ricoeur, Paul, The Rule of Metaphor (University of Toronto Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Ortony, A., op. cit.Google Scholar; Sacks, Sheldon, ed., On Metaphor (The University of Chicago Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Scheffler, Israel, Beyond the Letter (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979).Google Scholar
page 56 note 1 That this is so can be seen in cases where whole books are allegories or satire, like The Divine Comedy of Dante, and Orwell's Animal Farm, but incorporate within this textual form metaphor and other figures of speech.
page 57 note 1 For errors of this sort see Crossan, John Dominic, The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story (Argus Communications, 1975)Google Scholar, especially the epilogue.
page 57 note 2 Levin, S., op. cit, p. 80.Google Scholar
page 57 note 3 Ricoeur's reason for wishing to avoid ‘tropology’ is that it can lead to a misguided focus on the word as the unit of meaning (in his phrase ‘the hegemony of the word’) and thus to analysis of metaphor simply in terms of deviant word meaning; Ricoeur, , op. cit. p. 44.Google Scholar We can however make distinctions between tropes without assuming this theory of meaning.
page 58 note 1 Ricoeur, , op. cit.Google Scholar, passim; Black, Max, ‘Metaphor’ in Models and Metaphor (Cornell University Press, 1962).Google Scholar
page 59 note 1 Black, , ‘More About Metaphor’, Dialectica, xxxi, Fasc. 3–4Google Scholar (1977); especially part 7, ‘Metaphors and Similes’, pp. 445–6.
page 60 note 1 Platts, Mark, on the frontispiece of his Ways of Meaning (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979).Google Scholar
page 61 note 1 A good expansion on this in the realm of scientific theory construction is made by Boyd, , op. cit.Google Scholar
page 61 note 2 Black, , ‘Metaphor’, op. cit.Google Scholar, see also Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, , The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), p. 408.Google Scholar
page 62 note 1 The popular etymology which suggests that ‘nylon’ arose from the conflation of ‘New York’ and ‘London’, alas, is spurious.
page 63 note 1 Boyd gives the computer metaphors of cognitive psychology special attention, op. cit. pp. 360 ff.
page 63 note 2 The power of this particular example, ‘body politic’ and ‘ship of state’, in Puritan thought, is suggested by Walzer, Michael in The Revolution of the Saints, A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar
page 64 note 1 Goodman makes this claim of metaphor in his Languages of Art (Hackett, 1976), p. 69.Google Scholar
page 64 note 2 What we are calling ‘linguistic analogy’ should not be confused with what historical linguistics has traditionally called ‘extension by analogy’ which is an analogy (proportionality) of grammatical form, as in boy/boys, tree/trees; see Lyons, John, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (Cambrdge University Press, 1968), p. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar As we wished to use the term analogy in a sense similar to that of St Thomas we referred to the phenomenon mentioned above as ‘extension by parallel syntax’.
page 65 note 1 ‘Signifying’ may he linked with an ideational theory of meaning in which each word is connected to the concept or idea which it signifies (see Summa Theologica, Ia. 13, 4; also Ia. 13, 6). The point that analogous language is not figurative stands without reference to such a theory. One could, for example, suggest that Thomas's doctrine be linked with a Wittgensteinian ‘family resemblance’ theory on meaning.