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During the last decades the function of metaphor as a heuristic, if not constitutive, means of cognition has become broadly acknowledged in philosophy. As Nelson Goodman has pointed out, a metaphorical predication creates novel symbolic distinctions and rearranges things within a symbolic sphere in a new way.1 Connecting Goodman's findings with linguistics, philosophy of science, and hermeneutics, one can argue that nearly every symbolic system is based on indissoluble root metaphors and on fundamental metaphorical distinctions.2 However, the rationality of these basic distinctions is controversial, particularly with respect to academic language and thought:3 one side of the dispute, represented for instance by Goodman, Hesse and Black, sees metaphor both as a non-substitutable basis of language and as a rational element with its own truth. The other side, represented by Davidson and Rorty, regards metaphors as contingent results of prevailing historical symbol systems, which implies they can neither be true nor have a meaning of their own. Moreover, it remains controversial whether fundamental and background metaphor is a priori pre-reflective and irreducible and therefore, as Derrida argues, the basis of all metaphysics or whether it is possible to transcend metaphor through critical-hermeneutic reflection, so that its validity claim can actually be examined, which is the position held by Ricoeur.
Keeping this debate in mind, it should come as no surprise that metaphor in academic language remains under the spell of iconoclastic thought. In this paper, I will first analyse the epistemological function of this iconoclasm, which stems from the rationalist ideal of a clear-cut and literal language. My thesis is that the rationalistic difference 'metaphorical versus literal' is constituted by the prohibition and dissociation of metaphor from rational discourse. In this process, a split emerges between surface metaphor, which has been attacked by philosophy and science, and deep-level metaphor, which has been repressed or at least wilfully ignored. In the second half of my paper, I will explore to what extent critical reflection upon metaphor is possible. In contrast to the aforementioned rationalistic view, I take the position that metaphor, due to its reflective structure, can function as rational anticipation. However, the rationality of this anticipation is not simply given, but instead has to prove i tself in light of critical reflection upon metaphor.4
The similar, which was for a long time a fundamental category of knowledge at once form and content of cognition found itself dissociated in an analysis based on terms of identity and difference. [ ] Similarity is no longer the form of knowledge, but instead the occasion of error, the danger to which one exposes oneself when one does not examine the poorly-illuminated place of confusions.5In order to restrain the discourse of similarity, rationalistic discourse employs the principle of identity as well as processes of elimination, control and discipline. Thus the endless proliferation of discourse based on countless analogical and metaphorical links can be tamed and cut back. For this reason, rationalistic discourse has been embedded in criticism of language from its very beginning: the discovery of the 'naked truth' calls for the un-covering of things, for stripping away their linguistic veil, so that the 'light of truth' can shine. Precisely during the baroque age, when metaphorical and allusive language reached its apogee, modern rationalism tried to eliminate the imprecision of natural language by developing an unambiguous terminology of its own, with literal, definite and proper meaning. For this reason, Thomas Hobbes declared metaphor, together with ambiguity, deception and insult, to be 'abuses of speech': In Leviathan he argued that metaphor necessarily misleads cognition since it uses absurd conclusions. Therefore Hobbes demanded that language be cleansed of persuasive and figurative elements. Only by using nothing but unambiguous, literal language could knowledge be gained and communicated properly:
To conclude, the light of human minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; reason is the pace; increase of science, the way; and the benefit of mankind, the end. And, on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless and ambiguous words, are like ignes fatui [will-o'-the-wisps, B.D.]; and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention and sedition, or contempt.6
Similarly, John Locke criticised in
his Essay concerning human understanding imprecise and ambiguous 'civil'
language and proposed a proper and definite philosophical language that
"may serve to convey the precise notions of things, and to express in general
propositions certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may rest upon
and be satisfied with in its search after true knowledge".7
For this reason, science must use words as precisely and clearly as possible and must avoid all kinds of linguistic abuse, such as expressions that are unclear or without content; unstable or ambiguous meanings; confusion of words and things; mispredications; and finally rhetorical and metaphorical speech. Only then can scientific language offer strict definitions that correspond to things and are based on constant meaning. Thus Locke not only denied the possibility that rhetoric and metaphor can convey truth, he also blamed them for being the actual causes of deception and untruthfulness: "It is evident how much men love to deceive and be deceived, since rhetoric, that powerful instrument of error and deceit, has its established professors, is publicly taught and has always been held in great reputation."8
In a similar way, rhetoric and metaphor have been criticised by such philosophers and scientists as Galileo, Montaigne, Descartes, Bayle, Harvey, and Leibniz.9 However, despite their struggle against figurative language, none of the aforementioned authors were able to avoid metaphorical expressions in their own writing. That is why they often advocated restricting metaphor to pedagogical and illustrative functions. Even in the middle of the last century, John Stuart Mill was still trying to make plausible this division between illustrative metaphor and ostensibly non-figurative argumentation. In his System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Mill ascribed a pedagogical and persuasive usefulness to metaphor in argumentation and at the same time denied that metaphor could have any inherent cognitive and argumentative power: "A metaphor, then, is not to be considered as an argument, but as an assertion that an argument exists; that a parity subsists between the case from which the metaphor is drawn and to which it is applied."10
The devaluation of metaphor thus became a point of philosophical consensus, even though metaphor was at no time completely eliminated from academic language. Indeed, the rationalistic critique of language first raised only a programmatic objection against a general deep respect for metaphor and rhetoric. This respect led Locke, for instance, to contradict his own denunciation of rhetoric: "Eloquence, like the fair sex, has too prevailing beauties in it to suffer itself ever to be spoken against."11 But what are concessions to the charms of metaphor worth, if it (like women) is simultaneously banned from the more highly esteemed realm of the rational?
Emphatic iconoclasm and the call for a literal, metaphor-free language remain central claims of modern philosophy of language and linguistics: fixation on an ideal of literal definiteness and clarity, and criticism of the ambiguity of figurative language have not only become basic tenets of philosophy; they have also been persistent motifs in the attempt to replace natural language by ideal language and a semantics of literal meaning. In this way, the difference between scientific and natural language is equated with the difference between proper and improper language and with the difference between literal and metaphorical speech.
From the perspective of metaphor theory, it has often been remarked that the opponents of metaphor are completely unable to implement any kind of metaphor-free language and that their arguments are therefore inconsistent.12 In fact, the language of the opponents of metaphor is no less rich in metaphor than is the language of its supporters. For instance, the philosophy of truth, knowledge and cognition is based on an irreducible and metaphysical root metaphor: the metaphor of light. As Derrida and Blumenberg have shown, this metaphor cannot be transcended because it constitutes its object in the first place:13 truth and cognition are unthinkable without the light metaphor. There can be no metaphor-free realm within which the discourse of truth and cognition could develop independently of this root metaphor. Such irreducible, 'absolute metaphors', as Blumenberg calls them, cannot be translated into non-figurative language; they are 'basic elements' [Grundbestände] of philosophical language and therefore an 'inexhaustible catalytic sphere' for the formation of concepts. This means that underneath the surface level of obvious pedagogical-illustrative imagery there is always a deeper layer of fundamental metaphors, which control even the logic of seemingly non-metaphorical discourse and therefore lie in the blind spot of theoretical reflection.
Now, my thesis is that the above-mentioned inconsistency actually strengthens the position of the opponents of metaphor: it is precisely their continual pointing to the pedagogical-illustrative surface metaphors and their conspicuous display of fighting for a metaphor-free language that constitute and stabilise the difference between the literal and the figurative in academic language. As attention is directed only to the surface imagery from which purportedly literal academic language dissociates itself, the deep metaphysical layer of metaphors in academic language becomes eclipsed, and the always already metaphorical realm of cognition becomes re-interpreted as a purely literal sphere. To stabilise the distinction between literal, proper academic language and figurative, improper everyday language, the difference 'literal versus metaphorical' must be constructed again and again within academic discourse.
To this end, the obvious surface imagery
is separated from language that is based on hidden, fundament al metaphors
and projected into the margins of academic discourse. Precisely this strategy
of dissociating and excluding surface metaphors constitutes the basic distinction
by which rationalistic discourse gains its ostensible literal essentiality
in the first place. The visible level of surface metaphors thus functions
as a protective layer that obscures the underlying deeper level of fundamental
metaphors. That is why the struggle against metaphor is actually less about
banishing all metaphor from academic discourse, than about controlling
and disciplining surface metaphor, taming its suggestive power, and cutting
back its proliferation. Only with this disciplinary procedure can metaphor
be used as a criterion of difference between natural and academic language.
As Derrida points out, all theoretical discourse on metaphor can be interpreted
as a disciplinary process which, ever since Aristotle, has continuously
classified and limited metaphor.14
Metaphorological discourse has ritually repeated, confirmed, and inscribed
the difference between literal and figurative language onto the discursive
praxis of human, natural, and social sciences. Through this process, a
dichotomous scheme of parallel polarities emerged and has remained effective
until today:
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The common association of literal language, scientific rationality and masculinity thus is complemented by a dichotomous association of figurative language, life-worldly irrationality and femininity. This distinction enables opponents of metaphor to use metaphorical language even in their attacks on metaphor, as long as they use it to illustrate the dangers of metaphor. In John Locke's attack on figurative language, which I described previously, de Man observes the following:
Nothing could be more eloquent than this denunciation of eloquence. It is clear that rhetoric is something one can decorously indulge in as long as one knows where it belongs to. Like a woman, which it resembles [...], it is a fine thing, as long as it is kept in its proper place.15
A resolution of the paradox first emerges with the ascertainment of the reflective function of metaphor, namely with its redefinition from a disruptive factor that threatens the order of literal discourse as a semantic anomaly or as a categorical mistake, to a reflective factor that permits the order of language to be reflected and recategorised. Only in this reflective function can metaphor become what Christian Strub calls the "linguistic kernel of a post-analogical ontology of modernity", in which the contingency of ontological distinctions and categories becomes known and can be reflected by means of metaphor.18 The difference between literal and metaphorical speech then remains a pragmatic one, which can be determined only from concrete contexts. Metaphor introduces a meta-linguistic level in opposition to the ostensibly literal level of linguistic reference to objects, which reflects this literal level in a specific way. By transgressing the boundaries of the literal and thus reflectively thematising them, metaphor can be said to have a reflective structure.19
In addition, metaphor also has a self-reflective structure, since it proposes a new insight in the mode of the 'as-if'. What Hesse calls 'metaphorical redescription' can be understood as a rational anticipation of new phenomena, an anticipation that contains in itself the reflected negation of the old order and at the same time proposes a new order.20 If, however, metaphorical redescription is actually to be a rational anticipation and not just an arbitrary myth, then its rationality may not be evaluated only in respect of its internal aptness to the symbolic system in which it is used, for this might be mere myth or ideology. Instead, metaphor must be evaluated in terms of the epistemological paradox of the metaphorical 'as-if' predication, which simultaneously expresses both an identity between two entities and their difference. Metaphorical predication always entails the 'insuperable paradox' (Ricoeur) that is built into the notion of metaphorical truth: "The paradox consists in the fact that there is no other way to do justice to the notion of metaphorical truth than to include the critical incision of the (literal) 'is not' within the ontological vehemence of the (metaphorical) 'is'."21
The usage of a metaphor with validity claims thus implies both the possibility and the necessity of metaphor reflection. Here, the difference 'literal versus metaphorical' is less decisive than the difference 'mythical versus metaphorical' insofar as myth results from taking a metaphor too literally and thus reifying language. Metaphor becomes myth when it is considered to be the one and only invariable truth, instead of a possible, fallible truth. That is, metaphor becomes myth when it is anchored so deeply in conviction that it can no longer be called into question.22
Thus reflection upon metaphor does not entail converting metaphorical speech into literal speech. Instead it requires a determination of the difference between myth and metaphor; this means distinguishing the 'as-if' status of metaphor from the unquestionable certainty of myth even where metaphor is unavoidable and irreducible, as in the case of absolute metaphor. Only metaphor reflection that is both self-referential and context-referential and that reflects the broader sense of a metaphorical expression can prove the truth of metaphor and thus rationally legitimise its use.23 In the same way that every actual consensus about truth remains open to revision without losing its unconditional validity claim, the metaphorical redescription has the status of an 'as-if' predication and nevertheless can assert a truth claim: As Berggren points out, metaphor is a "counterfactual statement" that possesses a "possible or counterfactual truth".24
The rationality of the metaphorical redescription has to be measured by its adequacy. Adequacy can be determined by comparing the new metaphorical description with previous descriptions of the object and by interrogating it for new perspectives and insights. However, this reflective process of catching up with the metaphor's implications is possible only retrospectively and within argumentative discourse concerning the reflection of both metaphorical anticipation and metaphorical myth. Thus metaphor must prove itself in the language-game of truth.25
The idea of assessing the rationality and truth of metaphor through critical reflection upon metaphor, however, is itself based on the fundamental optical metaphors of light, mirror and observation. The metaphorical roots of reflection thus deserve closer consideration. One could say that the light of truth cannot be recognised directly but needs to be refracted and mirrored from different angles.26 This indirect recognition is necessary not because the light of truth is too bright (as Plato believed) but because the mirror allows selection and comparison. Reflecting a metaphor from different angles means creating new views on this metaphor, and thus introducing both new distinctions into interpretation and more distance from the metaphor. Although the blind spot of observation, as such, remains insuperable, it is possible to overcome the blind spot of a particular observation by changing the position and the basic distinction of the observer.
Changing position and distance does not imply a reduction of the evocative and imaginative power of metaphor. In other words: metaphor reflection is not meant to be a procedure of metaphor control and surveillance but instead an operation that broadens understanding by opening up new perspectives and points of comparison. This requires that reason act not as a Foucaultian observer in the centre of a cognitive panopticon27 but rather as a Socratic traveller who constantly changes position and perspective by wandering through the network of metaphorical associations and connections and by creating new relationships or abolishing old ones.28 Metaphor reflection is in itself a metaphorical process of transference and interference.
In conclusion, I would like to propose a systematic method of metaphor reflection, based on an extension of Shibles' 'metaphorical method',29 which I call reflective metaphorisation. I understand reflective metaphorisation to comprise all metaphor-critical processes, such as the creation of metaphors, their expansion, variation, exhaustion, confrontation, and historicisation. All these processes serve reflection upon a metaphorical or (ostensibly) literal expression. By setting in motion processes of reflective metaphorisation, we decontextualise the problematic expression, call it into question, and challenge its self-evident truth, thus consciously shifting it into an 'as-if' perspective. Through the systematic exhaustion of metaphorical potential and through the decontextualisation of metaphors, we can open up new ways of seeing and new connections, make visible new distinctions and differentiations, and investigate the internal and external limits of validity for each metaphor. Even paradigmatic background metaphors and absolute metaphors can be rendered accessible to reflection through this operation of reflective metaphorisation.
Only with a reflected consciousness of the constructive 'as-if' character of each metaphor can we avoid the mythification of metaphor and the development of essentialistic conceptions. If we bear in mind this 'as-if' reservation, we can avoid what Immanuel Kant would call 'dogmatic anthropomorphism'. We then limit ourselves to a 'symbolic anthropomorphism', which, indeed, concerns only language and not the object itself.30 Metaphor is necessarily anthropomorphic and as such anticipates and impinges on the world; but as reflected anthropomorphism, limited to the symbolic realm, metaphor does not resort to the myth of reifying, essentialistic ontology. Metaphor can be a rational anticipation (and thus capable of truth) only in the synthesis of anticipatory evidence and rational reflection of meaning and validity. However, metaphor possesses not only its specific reflective power but also (particularly in the sciences) an immanent tendency to become mythified, due to its suggestive power. As a result, metaphor reflection that dissolves epistemological obstacles is not only a theoretical task for metaphorology and the philosophy of science. It is also an ethical duty of academic praxis.31
2 See e.g.Pepper, Stephen C. (1935): The root metaphor of metaphysics, Journal of Philosophy 32, 365374.; Blumenberg, Hans (1960): Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 6.; Lakoff, George/Mark Johnson (1980): Metaphors we live by, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. <back>
3 For the general discussion, see Ortony, Andrew (1979)(ed.): Metaphor and thought, Cambridge: Cambridge UP. <back>
4 For a broader and more detailed discussion of the rationality of metaphor, see also Debatin, Bernhard (1995): Die Rationalität der Metapher. Eine sprachphilosophische und kommunikationstheoretische Untersuchung, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. <back>
5 Foucault, Michel (1966): Les mots et les choses, Paris: Gallimard, p. 68 and 65, my translation. <back>
6 Hobbes, Thomas ([1651]1960): Leviathan, or the matter, form and power of a commonwealth ecclesiastical and civil, ed. M. Oakeshott, Oxford: Blackwell, Part I, Chapter 4 and 5, here: 2930. <back>
7 Locke, John ([1686]1959): An essay concerning human understanding, ed. A. C. Fraser, New York: Dover, Book III, 9/3. <back>
8 Ibidem, Book III, 10/34. <back>
9 See e.g. Nieraad, Jürgen (1977): "Bildgesegnet und Bildverflucht" Forschungen zur sprachlichen Metaphorik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Chapter 4.2.1 and Kurz, Gerhard/Theodor Pelster (1976): Metapher. Theorie und Unterrichtsmodell, Düsseldorf: Schwann, pp. 31ff. <back>
10 Mill, John Stuart ([1843]1974): A system of logic, ratiocinative and inductive, ed. J. M. Robson, Toronto: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Book V, Chapter 5, § 7: 801. <back>
11 Locke, John ([1686]1959): An essay concerning human understanding, ed. A. C. Fraser, New York: Dover, Book III, 10/34. <back>
12 See e.g. Moore, F.C.T (1982): On taking metaphor literally, in: David Miall (ed.), Metaphor: problems and perspectives, Brighton: The Harvester Press, pp. 113, de Man, Paul (1978): The epistemology of metaphor, Critical Inquiry 5, 1530, Nieraad, Jürgen (1977): "Bildgesegnet und Bildverflucht" Forschungen zur sprachlichen Metaphorik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 88ff., and Ledanff, Susanne (1979): Die 'nackte Wahrheit' in metaphorischer Beleuchtung, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 68, 282289. <back>
13 See Derrida, Jaques (1972): La mythologie blanche, in: J. D.: Marges de la philosophie, Paris: Gallimard, pp. 247342, Blumenberg, Hans (1957): Licht als Metapher der Wahrheit. Im Vorfeld der Begriffsbildung, Studium Generale 10, pp. 432447, Blumenberg, Hans (1960): Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte Nr. 6, Blumenberg, Hans (1971): Beobachtungen an Metaphern, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 15, pp. 160214. <back>
14 Derrida, Jaques (1972): La mythologie blanche, in: J. D.: Marges de la philosophie, Paris: Gallimard, particularly pp. 265ff. <back>
15 De Man, Paul (1978): The epistemology of metaphor, Critical Inquiry 5, p. 15. <back>
16 Nietzsche, Friedrich ([1873]1985): Über Lüge und Wahrheit im außermoralischen Sinn, in: Werke in vier Bänden, ed. by Gerhard Stenzel, Salzburg: Bergland, vol. 4, 541554. <back>
17 De Man (1979): Allegories of Reading, New Haven/ London: Yale UP, pp. 110 and 115. <back>
18 Strub, Christian (1991): Kalkulierte Absurditäten. Versuch einer historisch reflektierten sprachanalytischen Metaphorologie, Freiburg: Alber, pp. 471ff. my translation. <back>
19 Köller, Wilhelm (1975): Semiotik und Metapher. Untersuchungen zur grammatischen Struktur und kommunikativen Funktion von Metaphern, Stuttgart: Metzler, pp. 46ff. and 72ff. <back>
20 See Hesse, Mary (1966): Models and analogies in science, Notre Dame: Notre Dame UP, pp. 156184, Ricoeur, Paul (1975): La métaphor vive, Paris: Editions du Seuil, pp. 250ff. and Kittay, Eva Feder (1987): Metaphor. Its cognitive force and its linguistic structure, Oxford: Clarendon Press. <back>
21 Ricoeur, Paul (1975): La métaphor vive, Paris: Editions du Seuil, p. 321, quoted from the English edition: Ricoeur, Paul (1978):The rule of metaphor, transl. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p. 255. <back>
22 See Berggren (1963), Ricoeur (1975: 310ff.), Shibles (1974), Bühl (1984: 151ff.) Köller (1975: 224ff.) and Nieraad (1977: 26ff.). <back>
23 See Villwock (1983, esp. 297). <back>
24 Berggren, Douglas (1963): The use and abuse of metaphor, Review of Metaphysics 16, pp. 240 and 253. <back>
25 Bühl, Walter L. (1984): Die Ordnung des Wissens, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, p. 158. As in the operational pragmatic notion of truth, the determination of a metaphor's truth is retrospectively oriented, a process of explaining it hermeneutically. We can say only in retrospect to what extent a truth claim be it literal or metaphorical can be sustained in the long run. <back>
26 Here one could ask, too, what mirror is used and then, as philosophy has traditionally done, un-cover the epistemological paradoxes: that language is both the mirror and mirrored, that reason is both the mirror and the observer, and that reason and language then enter into a paradoxical constellation. Moreover, does not reflection lead to the paradox of doubling its object, thus not only multiplying things but also creating an infinite regress of reflecting each reflection yet again? I hold the 'view' that this paradoxical structure, as epistemological constructivism has shown, is actually the condition of possibility of reflection. <back>
27 See Foucault, Michel (1979): Discipline and Punish, New York: Vintage Books. <back>
28 See Trabert, Lukas (1997): Metaphor, rational discourse, and the beginning of philosophy in Plato's 'Theaetetus', in: Debatin, Bernhard/ Timothy R. Jackson/Daniel Steuer: Metaphor and Rational Discourse. Tübingen, pp. 25-37. <back>
29 See Shibles, Warren (1974): Die metaphorische Methode, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 48, pp. 8f. <back>
30 Kant, Immanuel ([1783]1965): Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, ed. Karl Vorländer, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, § 57 / 15. <back>
31 Work and time constraints hinder a thorough reflection of metaphor in practice; therefore, I would like to propose two normative practical principles for dealing reflectively with metaphor. Firstly, alternative metaphors should be systematically sought out and permitted to describe phenomena, which implies that the current, conventional metaphors take on a hypothetical, 'as-if' character. Secondly, in academic contexts metaphor should be methodically monitored; this entails constantly asking whether a metaphorical description aids cognition or impedes it. <back>