From a Metaphorical Point of View: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Cognitive Content of Metaphor 9783110867831, 9783110145540

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From a Metaphorical Point of View

Philosophie und Wissenschaft Transdisziplinäre Studien Herausgegeben von Carl Friedrich Gethmann Jürgen Mittelstraß in Verbindung mit Dietrich Dörner, Wolfgang Frühwald, Hermann Haken, Jürgen Kocka, Wolf Lepenies, Hubert Markl, Dieter Simon

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W DE G Walter de Gruyter • Berlin • New York 1995

From a Metaphorical Point of View A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Cognitive Content of Metaphor Edited by Zdravko Radman

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G_ Walter de Gruyter • Berlin - New York 1995

® Printed on acid-free paper which foils within the giudelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Puplicatioti Data

From a metaphorical point of view : a multidisciplinary approach to the cognitive content of metaphor / edited by Zdravko Radman. — (Philosophic und Wissenschaft; Bd. 7) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-014554-5 1. Metaphor. I. Radman, Zdravko, 1951. II. Series PN228.M4F76 1995 808-dc20 95-11399 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Puplication Data

From a metaphorical point of view : a multidisciplinary approach to the cognitive content of metaphor I ed. by Zdravko Radman. - Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1995 (Philosophie und Wissenschaft ; Bd. 7) ISBN 3-11-014554-5 NE: Radman, Zdravko [Hrsg.], GT

© Copyright 1995 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Typesetting: Converted by Knipp Satz und Bild digital, Dortmund Printing: Ratzlow Druck, Berlin Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin Cover design: Rudolf Hübler, Berlin

Contents Preface

IX

Introduction

1

Part One: A History of Philosophy Perspective Tanehisa Otabe

1. From "Clothing" to "Organ of Reason": An Essay on the Theories of Metaphor in German Philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment 7 Christiane Schildknecht

2. Experiments with Metaphors: On the Connection between Scientific Method and Literary Form in Francis Bacon 27 Part Two: A Semantic Perspective Catherine Z. Elgin

3. Metaphor and Reference

53

Eva Feder Kittay

4. Metaphor as Rearranging the Furniture of the Mind: A Reply to Donald Davidson's "What Metaphors Mean" Zoltin Kövecses

73

5. The "Container" Metaphor of Anger in English, Chinese, Japanese and Hungarian 117

VI

Contents

Part Three: A Cognitive Science Perspective Earl R. MacCormac

6. Neuronal Processes of Creative Metaphors

149

Eileen Cornell Way

7. An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Models and Metaphor 165 Arthur I. Miller

8. Imagery and Metaphor: The Cognitive Science Connection 199

Zdravko Radman

9. How to Make Our Ideas Clear with Metaphors

Part Four: A Philosophy of Science

225

Perspective

Gerald Holton

10. Metaphors in Science and Education

259

Janet Martin Soskice and Rom Harre

11. Metaphor in Science

289

Eleonora Montuschi

12. What is Wrong with Talking of Metaphors in Science?

309

Karin Knorr Cetina

13. Metaphors in the Scientific Laboratory: Why are they there and what do they do? 329 Mary Hesse

14. Models, Metaphors and Truth

351

Part Five: A Theological, Sociological and Political Perspective Ernan McMullin

15. The Motive for Metaphor

375

Contents José M. Gonzalez Garcia

16. "Search for the Daimon", "Pact with the Devil" and "Fight of Gods": On Some Metaphors of Goethe in Max Weber's Sociology 391 Francesca Rigotti

17. The House as Metaphor 419 Notes on Contributors 447 Acknowledgements Author Index 453 Subject Index 457

452

Preface It has become commonplace that a specific feature of an age or era be explained in terms of "revolution". Presently, we seem to be experiencing different sorts of revolutions, "social" and "sexual", "scientific" and "cybernetic", "probabilistic" and "genetic", "telecommunicational" and "computational", and so on. Taking into account the proliferation of metaphor in theoretical fields of all kinds, its profound impact and importance, perhaps we can find sufficient justification for the inauguration of the "metaphoric revolution". Yet, it was less this external influence than a personal motivation that drew me to the investigation of the philosophically relevant aspects of metaphorical language. The happy matching of intimate interest and philosophical trend encouraged me to think of a form, or a forum, that could cope with the subject in an adequate way. In the worldwide academic community, that well known home for the exchange of ideas - the Interuniversity Centre Dubrovnik - proved to be a proper venue for the kind of workshop I had in mind. Much had been done beyond the initial steps in organizing an international course on Metaphor and Cognition. The meeting was to have taken place there at the beginning of October 1991. This did not happen because of a brutal attack on this unique monument of Croatian culture, which did not spare or respect that which all previous wars and enemies had. O n the 6th of December 1991 a series of mortar shells reduced the beautiful building of the Interuniversity Centre, together with its library, to ashes. Rescheduling the meeting would have taken a long time, yet to abandon the initiative seemed to me

X

Preface

to be giving in to the plans of "those who burn books". The decision that an alternative form for the planned seminar should be found, was born spontaneously. That is how the idea for this book of collected essays germinated. It was supposed to appear as the proceedings of the meeting; instead, it appears in spite of the fact that the meeting could not take place. However, the substitute project turned out to exceed the original one in thematic scope, number of participants, and theoretical profile. My strategy as an editor was to initiate a point of view, that is, to define a starting position by providing a theme: the idea that metaphor is a figure of thought rather than a figure of language, that it is cognitive and creative more than merely expressive and affective, that it is necessary and not just nice. In this way, I have provided a flexible frame rather than a fixed focus. This, I believe, has given the contributors the possibility of portraying the problem from their own perspective. The theme has become an intellectual leitmotiv differently perceived and worked out in the individual presentations. The reception of my "call for papers" and reaction to it have exceeded my expectations. A number of prominent authors of different philosophical generations and theoretical orientations have responded and contributed to the project, providing this volume with multiple viewpoints on the cognitive aspects of metaphor. The Interuniversity Centre Dubrovnik, with its much praised staff, was a favorite meeting-place for scholars from the worldwide intellectual community during the last two decades. For this reason, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, I dedicate this volume to all those who made the Interuniversity Centre what it was: from its founder and spiritus movens Professor Ivan Supek, to the people who cared daily for its efficient functioning. I am convinced that this is no farewell to the institution we all loved and appreciated, and I appeal for its. revitalization hoping that it will bring a successful merging of fruitful tradition and new perspectives.

Preface

XI

Acknowledgements I feel myself privileged to be able to work and conduct research at the Centre for Philosophy of Science at the University of Konstanz. The opportunity to enjoy the facilities of these stimulating surroundings was created through the kind support of Professor Jiirgen Mittelstrass, whose Leibniz-Preis der Deutscben Forschungsgemeinschaft funded my project on the epistemology of metaphor. I offer my sincere thanks for his encouragement, tolerance and constructive collaboration. Zdravko Radman

Introduction Metaphor is not merely a piece of language, it should be rather viewed as a process of mutation of meaning which can be followed on the level of interpretation of a single metaphor (as a kind of metaphorical phylogeny) and as an evolution of this process in the course of its use over time (a sort of ontogeny). Recognizing these dynamics may lessen our discomfort with once embarassing semantic change, when a revolutionary meaning turns into a conventional one or when a once live metaphor "dies" as an entry in a dictionary of standard meanings. This itself is evidence of the merit that metaphors have in the process of cognition. If metaphor evolves, so also does our conception of it. After a long period in which metaphor was exclusively treated as a matter of figuration, we nowadays admit the fictionality of metaphor even in the domain which claims to deal with facts. Metaphorology matures. The difficulties in accepting metaphor as a legitimate means of cognition (that is, in admitting it as an element of epistemology) are certainly due both to an inadequate understanding of metaphor, on the one hand, and to an inappropriate idealized notion of rationality and objectivity ruling our knowledge processes, on the other. A standard context for discussion of metaphor has been figurativeness, that is the rhetorical or expressive component of language, which has kept metaphor in isolation from the scientific sources of knowledge. Scientific knowledge, in its turn, suffers from a false idealization based on the cult of the scientist as neutral observer, which can be best metaphorically represented as a "brain-in-a-vat". How-

2

Introduction

ever, the cognitive capacity of metaphor was recognized long ago. Aristotle claimed, for instance, that "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor" and also that it is a "sign of a genius". Since then, metaphor has frequently been re-discovered as an instrument of thought. Thus it seems that denying metaphor as epistemologically relevant came first of all from that part of the theory of science which has been dominated by the stereotype of the "disinterested" or "neutral" observer, whose only reliable type of language is supposedly a literallogical one. According to such a view, the "affectivity" of metaphor could not possibly go together with the "cool reason" required for knowledge which claims to be rational and objective. The central point here is obviously not so much the misconception of the "figurativeness" of metaphor, as it is the conflict between it and the habitual standards of rationality, objectivity, exactness and truth. Yet, this conflict is not given but created; using the growing evidence of how both metaphorical language and cognitive mechanisms function, we are nowadays in a good position to overcome it. The conflict may turn into interaction; mutual interdependence may make every thematic consideration of the epistemological aspect of metaphor simultaneously also a re-consideration of the basic postulates of knowledge in general, and scientific knowledge in particular. By eliminating this dichotomy, metaphor may be established as a key for solving of a variety of cognitive problems. The interest for metaphor has invaded theoretic fields in a wide spectrum, combining subjects not normally affiliated: men and machines, intelligence and telecommunications, thought and agriculture, mind and computer, quantum phenomena and music, the existence of God and family-relations, social events and theatrical performances, epistemology and Darwinism, and so on. Metaphors that have appeared in these contexts enable us to conceive of the human organism as mechanical apparatus, of intelligence as a "switchboard", of ideas as "fruitful" and "ripe", of the micro-world as a "virtual orchestra", of God as "holy father", of events on a social "stage"

Introduction

3

as "dramatic", of the "evolution" of knowledge as biological "struggle for survival" or blind and trial-error "selection", and so on. One may not share an enthusiasm for the metaphorical revolution, and one can still be cautious, or even sceptical, about the cognitive power of metaphor, but one definitely cannot ignore it any longer. The pervasiveness of metaphor has induced a multiplicity of theoretical approaches, which in turn have increased the scope and complexity of the subject. Knowing that, it seems legitimate to conclude that no single discipline, theoretical school or philosophical perspective will give us a complete insight into the structure, possible uses and effects of metaphorical language and thought; only a multiplicity of approaches will provide a more complex picture of this problem. Accordingly, interdisciplinarity have appeared as a natural response to or result of such a view. The conviction that a polyperspectival view is the most adequate means of theoretical presentation of this particular issue, has been a hidden strategy that also conducted the structure of this book of collected essays in which I have prefered diversity to disciplined uniformity. In order to provide a reader with some global coordinates, the volume is structured in five parts, with the essays grouped so as to make the orientation easier (even though it was not always possible to acquire a proper sorting). The thematically central sections of the book are Part Three (A Cognitive Science Perspective) and Part Four (A Philosophy of Science Perspective). A historical context, a sort of ouverture to the investigation of the epistemological dimension of metaphor, is provided in the first part (A History of Philosophy Perspective). The second part (A Semantic Perspective), is devoted to the semantics of metaphor in a broad sense; it is not only indispensable in the contemporary discussions of our kind, but provides necessary knowledge for understanding other aspects of metaphor. In the last chapter (A Theological, Social, and Political Perspective) the discourse is extended to include the analysis of the formative power of metaphorical language in

4

Introduction

the articulation of religious thought, sociological theories, and political ideas. The plurality of perspectives instructs us about the omnipresence of metaphor in producing artifacts of all creative kinds which furnish the world we live in. If the nature is an "Abecedarium Naturae", a "book of symbols", and the world a "gigantic cryptogram", the language in which they are written must be to a great extent metaphorical. An attempt to decipher, interpret and understand it may thus bring our knowledge a step further.

Part One: A History of Philosophy Perspective

Tanehisa Otabe

1. From "Clothing" to "Organ of Reason": An Essay on the Theories of Metaphor in German Philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment'1"

German philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment, as is well known, held an ideal of "clarity and distinctness" and attacked the "obscure" metaphor of the Baroque. But it was not satisfied merely with attacking metaphor. Indeed D. G . Morhof, for example, who, criticizing the poetics of the Baroque, paved the way for classical aesthetics, said: "Cardinal Perron judged wisely that the origin of languages lies in necessity and that languages are spoiled by affectations which are seen mostly in the use of metaphor." However, Morhof also admitted: "purity and distinctness should not be increased so much that the use of metaphors would be avoided, as some Frenchmen stupidly insisted" 1 . Even J . C. Gottsched, who was considered one of the main critics of metaphor by his contemporaries, stressed the importance of the use of metaphor for poetry (Gottsched, VCD 263f.) 2 . * A version of this paper appeared in Synthesis philosophica, 6/1 (1991): 9-21. 1 See Daniel Morhof, Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache und Poesie, 1700, 2nd ed., ed. H. Boetius, 1969, pp. 321, 318. 2 All references to the following works of the eighteenth century are given parenthetically in the text. Baumgarten, A. G., Meditationes philosophicae de nonnulis ad poema pertinentibus, Halle 1735, trans. K. Aschenbenner and W. B. Holther, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1954 (abbreviated as Med). — Metaphysica, Halle, 1739 (abbreviated as Met). — Aesthetica, 2 vols., Frankfurt an der Oder, 1750/58 (rpt. 1970) (abbreviated as Aes). Bodmer, J. J., Critische Betrachtungen über die Poetischen Gemähide der Dichter, Zürich, 1740 (rpt. 1978). Breitinger, J. J., Critische Abhandlung von der Natur, den Absichten und dem Gebrauche der Gleichnisse, Zürich, 1740 (rpt. 1967) (abbreviated as Gleichnisse). — Critische Dichtkunst, 2 vols., Zürich, 1740 (rpt. 1966) (abbreviated as CD). Curtius, M. C., Ab-

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Tanehisa Otabe

In this essay I will investigate those theories of metaphor that were held by German philosophers in the Age of Enlightenment. Over the past few decades a number of studies have been made on the theories of metaphor in the literary criticism at the beginning of the eighteenth century3. But little attention has been given to the philosophical and epistemological implications of these theories of metaphor. I would like to show that, during the eighteenth century, metaphor, which was at first recognized only as a dispensable means of expression, was at last justified as a specific form of cognition or as an indispensable organ of reason. Before taking up the main issue, I should explain what I understand by the word "metaphor". During the eighteenth century this word was used in two different ways. In his Poetics Aristotle defined metaphor as "transfer of a strange word" and divided it into four types in accordance with the manners of transfer, namely 1. from the genus to the species, 2. from the species to the genus, 3. from the species to the species, 4. ac-

handlung von den Gleichnissen und Metaphern, Wismar, 1750. Du Bos, J. B., Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting and Music, trans. T. Nugent, 2 vols., London, 1748 (rpt. 1978). Geliert, Ch. F., Schriften zur Theorie und Geschichte der Fabel, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, Tübingen, 1966. Gottsched, J. Ch., Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1751 (rpt. 1982) (abbreviated as VCD). — Ausfürliche Redekunst, Leipzig, 1735 (rpt. 1973) (abbreviated as AR). Lessing, G. E., Laokoon, ed. H. Blummer, Berlin, 1880. Meier, G. F., Anfangsgründe aller schönen Wissenschaften, 3 vols., 2nd ed., Halle, 1754-59 (rpt. 1975). Sulzer, J. G., Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste, 4 vols, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1792-99 (rpt. 1967-70) (abbreviated as AT). Wolff, Ch., Vernünftige Gedancken von Gott, der "Welt und der Seele der Menschen (Deutsche Metaphysik), 1 Ith ed., Halle and Frankfurt an der Oder 1751 (rpt. 1977). (Abbreviated as Met) — Philosophie Prima, sive Ontologia, 2nd ed., Frankfurt an der Oder, 1736 (rpt. 1981). (Abbreviated as Ont) — Gesammelte kleine philosophische Schriften, vol. 2, Halle, 1737 (rpt. 1981). (Abbreviated as Sehr). 3 See, in particular, B. A. Sorensen, Symbol und Symbolismus in den ästhetischen Theorien des 18. Jahrhunderts und der deutschen Romantik, Kopenhagen 1963, and M. Windfuhr, Die barocke Bildlichkeit und ihre Kritiker, Stuttgart, 1966.

1. F r o m " C l o t h i n g " to " O r g a n of R e a s o n "

9

cording to the analogy 4 . "Metaphor" in the broad sense of the word meant all these four tropes, but in a narrow sense only the fourth trope was called metaphor. Following traditional rhetoric 5 ,1 will define the word "metaphor" in this essay in its narrow sense; but I will also treat allegory together with metaphor, because traditional rhetoric regarded allegory as a continued metaphor 6 .

"Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo": Metaphor as Sensuous Clothing The theorists of aesthetics in the Age of Enlightenment argue that metaphor or allegory 7 has two meanings: an external meaning and a hidden meaning, in other words, a literal meaning and a figurative meaning. It is the second meaning which constitutes the "content" of the metaphor; and this second, figurative meaning is what is in reality meant by the poets (Breitinger, CD II, 320ff.). In the case of the metaphor "the head of state", for example, the "king" is the figurative meaning the metaphor aims at. Therefore, metaphor is an indirect expression. (In the following I will call the external meaning the "first dimension" and the figurative meaning the "second dimension".) What happens to the content of the metaphor, when it is expressed indirectly by the first external meaning? Bodmer says: "If metaphors and all allegory are rightly devised, they 4 See Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b 5-9. 5 As to this passage Curtius says: "Here Aristotle takes metaphor not in a strict sense, as is the case with us, because in his time the four tropes are not divided into their orders, but metaphor meant these four tropes." See Aristoteles Dichtkunst, ins Deutsche übersetzt von M. C. Curtius, Hannover 1753 (rpt. 1973), pp. 288f. Cf. Gottsched, AR 241f. 6 See Quintilian, De institutione oratoria, VII,vi,44. Cf. Gottsched, VCD 266, Bodmer, 601, Baumgarten, Med §85, Meier, §411. 7 For the theory of alleogry in the eighteenth century see, in particular, M. Titzmann, "Allegorie und Symbol im Denksystem der Goethezeit," Formen und Funktion der Allegorie, W. Haug (ed.), Stuttgart 1979, 642-665.

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Tanehisa Otabe

represent the intention as it was" (Bodmer, 605). He argues that the content does not change even if it is expressed by metaphor. In other words, the first dimension has no essential influence upon the second dimension. But, if so, why is metaphor necessary? I would like to examine the theory of fable of Gellert, who answered this question in a typical manner8. At the beginning of his " O n the Nature and Essence of Fable" 9 Gellert says: "A short allegorical fiction which is so invented as to be pleasing and useful at the same time is called a fable" (Gellert, 11). Fable is "allegorical" because it has two meanings: the first is named "image" by Gellert, and the second is called the "lesson extracted from the fable" (17). What do these two meanings of fable have to do with its being both "pleasing" and "useful"? H e argues: "I am afraid that those who seek the aim of fable only in the instruction cannot explain the essence of fable sufficiently. [...] Philosophers also instruct morality, but in an entirely different way. Therefore I insist that the aim of fable is pleasant instruction" (17). Both fabulists and philosophers give instruction. Fabulists are distinguished from philosophers because they not only instruct us, as philosophers do, but also do so in a pleasant way. Why do they instruct so? Gellert argues that, because the "populace" is not intellectual enough to follow the abstract demonstration of the instruction, fabulists "hide truth in image" and narrate "rare events", in order to attract the attention of the populace and make the instruction easier. Therefore pleasant fable is a means for fabulists to achieve their "purpose" of instructing the populace (37). What

8 For the theory of fable in the eighteenth century see, in particular, M. Windfuhr, Deutsche Fabeln des 18. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 1960, D. Harth, "Christian Wolffs Begründung des Exempel- und Fabelgebrauchs im Rahmen der praktischen Philosophie," DVjs, 52 (1978): 43-62, and H. W. Arndt, "Quelques remarques sur le rapport de Lessing à WolfF dans la théorie de la fable," Archives de Philosophie, 46 (1983): 255-269. 9 This article was written in 1744 in Latin. It was translated into German in 1772 after the death of the author.

1. From "Clothing" to "Organ of Reason"

11

is immediately apparent is that Gellert hints at the Horatian formula "lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo" 10 . The first consequence of Gellert's theory of fable, based upon such dualisms as "image - truth", "sense - reason", "pleasing - useful" and "populace - philosopher", is that fable is necessary only for the populace, but not for the philosopher, who can grasp truth without sensuous media. This kind of theory is supported by many philosophers in the Age of Enlightenment. Bodmer claims, for example: "The allegorical style was invented not for brilliant men, but for those who are accustomed to working with images" (Bodmer, 605). And Meier says: "If you want to communicate correctly to those with a weaker frame of mind, there is probably no better way than by means of allegory" (Meier, §413). The second, and more important consequence is that the "image" depicted in fable, i.e., the first dimension of fable, is not able to demonstrate the "truth" of its content. Put in another way, the first dimension has nothing to do with the "truth" of the second dimension. Bodmer adds: "Writers who use the allegorical style always presume that the propositions they represent by images are established truths; we must consider these propositions to be their sincere opinions and we have to believe them to be true" (Bodmer, 605). To use Leibniz's term, the first dimension of fable, or generally speaking, that of allegory, represents "truth of reason" without demonstrating it: in allegory "truth of reason" is represented as "truth of fact". Therefore, it is not from the allegory itself, but by our reasoning, that we can see if the content of the allegory is true or not. I would like to call this type of theory of allegory "rationalistic". Such a rationalistic view of metaphor demands that the second dimension of metaphor should be "clearly" recognizable from the perspective of the first dimension. "In the metaphorical style you must, above all, avoid obscurity" (Gottsched, V C D 278). It is for this reason that rationalistic theory attacks 10 Horace, Ars Poetica, line 344.

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Tanehisa Otabe

the " b o l d metaphor" of the Baroque, whose real "content" is " t o o f a r " from its external meaning to be clearly recognized (see Gottsched VCD 268,278, Breitinger CD 11,322, Gleichnisse 9, Baumgarten, Aes §787, Meier, §411). Rationalistic theory also claims that the first dimension of metaphor should be, in its content, determined by the second dimension and reduced to it. "In order to connect fable with its aim to instruct, the fable should contain neither more nor less than its aim demands. [...] If it contains more than is necessary for its moral sense, what is more exists for nothing. If it contains less than necessary, it does not explain sufficiently what is to be explained" (Gellert, 37). In summary, according to rationalistic theory, metaphor is an indirect way of expression which is only directed to those who cannot grasp truth directly by reason.

" U t pictura poesis erit": Metaphor as Sensuous Expression Rationalistic theory claims, indeed, that the first dimension of metaphor can and should be reduced to the second dimension in its contents. But it by no means excludes metaphor from discourse; rather, rationalistic theory justifies metaphor if its first dimension represents the second dimension clearly. Why? Indeed Gellert denies to allegory the power to demonstrate truth, but he claims that allegory is able to "illustrate truth" (Gellert, 37). What does allegory, or generally speaking, metaphor, derive its illustrative power from? In order to answer this question it is necessary to take account of the most generally accepted definition of metaphor during the eighteenth century. Gottsched defines it as follows: "Metaphor is a decorative style in which we use, instead of a word that represents an object in its literal sense, another word that has a certain similarity with the object" (Gottsched, VCD 264). This definition clarifies the mechanism of metaphor, for instance, of "the head of state". This metaphor means figuratively "king" because

1. From "Clothing" to "Organ of Reason"

13

both "head" and "king" have a common attribute "being above" which functions as a "tertium comparationis". In other words, this metaphor is based upon a similar relationship or analogy between "head - body" and "king - state". Therefore metaphor is a product of "wit", which is defined by the Wolffian school as a cognitive power to become aware of similarity between different objects (see Wolff, Met §366, Baumgarten, Met §572, Meier, §400). It follows that metaphor gets its illustrative power from the comparison discovered by wit. The metaphor "the head of state" represents its meaning "king" not by itself, but with the help of an illustrative image of "head", and this image makes the attribute of king "being above" explicit while it had only been implicitly expressed by the word "king". Consequently, metaphor is, first, a "meaningful style" and "richer in meaning than common words" (Gottsched, AR 241), as Gottsched says. And second, metaphor is "more sensuous" than direct expression (268), because it depicts its meaning by means of sensuous imagery. The following question, however, will arise: how can metaphor be both "meaningful" and "sensuous"? It seems that meaningful metaphor does not make representation sensuous, but on the contrary logical and distinctive, because it should analyze representation in order to find a "tertium comparationis" in it. In fact Wolff insists: "Metaphor is of use because we are able to come to a distinctive explanation of the word" (Wolff, Sehr 82). It is Baumgarten who solves this problem 11 . Into the Leibniz's division "obscurity - clarity - distinctness" he introduces a pair of concepts: "extensive clarity" and "intensive clarity". A representation is obscure if it cannot be recognized, but it is clear if it is recognized. Baumgarten argues that a clear 11 For Baumgarten's aesthetics see, in particular, U. Franke, Kunst als Erkenntnis, Zur Vermittlungsfunktion der Sinnlichkeit in der Ästhetik A. G. Baumgartens, Wiesbaden 1972, and W. Bender, "Rhetorische Tradition und Ästhetik im 18. Jahrhundert: Baumgarten, Meier und Breitinger," Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 99 (1980): 481-506.

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Tanehisa Otabe

representation is able to be much clearer in two ways. "The greater clarity caused by a clarity of distinctive marks can be said to be intensively clearer, the greater clarity caused by a large number of marks can be said to be extensively clearer. Extensively clearer representation is vivid" (Baumgarten, Met §531). If a representation is analyzed in its distinctive marks, it becomes intensively clearer, that is, it attains its logical distinctness beyond sensuous clarity. On the other hand, if a representation contains more marks without analyzing them separately and its marks are, in this way, represented together, it remains indeed sensuous, but it becomes extensively clearer and becomes vivid, which is requisite for a representation to be "aesthetic". It is apparent that Baumgarten introduces the concept "extensive clarity" in order to characterize aesthetic representation which is distinguished from logical representation. He also names such a vivid representation "fertile [praegnans] representation" (§517)12. Reflecion on this differentiation of the kinds of clarity makes clear how the "meaningfulness" of metaphor is related to its "sensuousness": meaningful metaphor should not analyze representation into its distinctive marks, but it should represent more marks together. Gottsched argues that metaphor becomes meaningful if it makes us "think a great variety of things at one time" (Gottsched, AR 241). The reason why he adds the determination "at one time" is that this variety of things should not be analyzed separately13. It follows that "meaningfulness" is not to be understood as the result of analysis, but as the vividness of representation. We could conclude that Gottsched's claim about the "meaningfulness" of metaphor is philosophically legitimated by Baumgarten's theory of 12 It is an origin of Lessing's theory of the "most pregnant moment" (Lessing, 251). For the conception "pregnant" see H. Adler, Die Prägnanz des Dunklen. Gnoseologie, Ästhetik, Geschichtsphilosophie heij. G. Herder, Hamburg, 1990. 13 Mendelssohn argues: "we perceive at once quite a lot of marks from an object, without distinguising them distinctively." See M. Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften, Jubiläumsausgabe, Berlin, 1929- (rpt. 1971-), I, 170.

1. F r o m "Clothing" to "Organ of Reason"

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"extensive clarity" and "pregnant representation". In fact, Baumgarten pays attention to metaphor exactly because it makes representation extensively clearer, i.e., more pregnant (see Baumgarten, Med §§23,79,89, Aes §§732,787). What is noteworthy is that the semiotics or characteristics of the Wolffian school underlies Baumgarten's metaphor theory 14 . Baumgarten argues: "Although images by ways of words and discourses are clearer than those of visible things, nevertheless we are not trying to affirm a prerogative of a poem over a picture, since the intensive clarity which, through words, is granted to symbolic cognition beyond the intuitive, contributes nothing to extensive clarity, the only clarity that is poetic" (Baumgarten, Med §41). Discourse has the function of analyzing a representation in its distinctive marks and, consequently, making it clearer and distinctive. Therefore, from the viewpoint of logical distinctness, symbolic cognition (i.e., a cognition by means of discursive signs) is superior to intuitive (i.e., sensuous) cognition. This superiority of symbolic cognition, however, has nothing to do with the aesthetic quality of a representation, because it is not the intensive, but the extensive clarity that makes representation aesthetic. But now we face the following question: if discourse is a medium for making a representation distinctive, how is a poetic, that is to say, aesthetic discourse, which should make a representation not intensively, but extensively clearer, possible? Baumgarten argues that aesthetic discourse takes upon it14 For the influence of semiotics on aesthetics in the eighteenth century see, in particular, T. Todorov, "Esthétique et sémiotique au XVIIIe siècle," Critique, 29 (1973), 26-39, and U. Franke, "Die Semiotik als Abschluß der Ästhetik, Semiotik, 1 (1979), 345-359. Todorov's conclusion, however, that Lessing "propose la première analyse systématique, toujours pertinente, des moyens dont dispose le langage pour devenir motivé" is inaccurate. According to Lessing poetic signs should be "transparent", but not "motivated". See my article "The Transformation of German Aesthetics in the Eighteenth Century Seen f r o m a Semiotic Point of View," Transactions of the Eighth International Congress on the Enlightenment, The Voltaire Foundation (Oxford, 1993), 1467-1471.

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self the task of transforming symbolic cognition into intuitive cognition by means of discursive signs. While discourse in general functions by ascending from intuitive cognition, which is still sensuous and clear, to symbolic cognition, which is logical and distinctive, aesthetic discourse accomplishes its task, on the contrary, by descending from symbolic cognition to intuitive cognition. In this way the Horatian formula "ut pictura poesis erit'" 5 is, based upon the philosophical system of Wolffian school, interpreted as follows: poetic discourse should cause intuitive cognition in the same way as a picture does 16 . But then we face an another question: are not visual images and poetry the same in that they use signs? Are not colours and figures in a picture not to be reckoned as signs? It is Breitinger and Lessing who, by answering this question, further develop the theory of metaphor. What matters here is the distinction between "natural signs" and "artificial signs" which is widespread in the Wolffian school. Wolff provides the following definition: "Those things are called natural signs which contain in themselves the reason of their signification. [...] Natural signs are opposed to artificial signs, whose ability to signify is dependent on the arbitrariness of some intelligent being, for instance of a human being" (Wolff, Ont §§956,958). Natural signs contain in themselves the reason of their meaning. Therefore, first, natural signs are "necessary" signs because they always signify their meaning, and, second, we are able to infer the meanings of signs from the signs themselves even if we did not known them before. On the other hand, the reason for the signification of artificial signs lies not in signs themselves, but in the arbitrariness of those who determine their meaning, or in an arbitrary covenant. As a result: "From the notion of artificial signs noth15 Horace, Ars Poetica, line 361. 16 For the influence of Horatian formula "ut pictura poesis erit" upon the aesthetics in the eighteenth century see, in particular, R. W. Lee, "Ut Pictura Poesis: the Humanistic Theory of Painting," The Art Bulletin, 22 (1940), 197-269, and R. G. Saisselin, "Ut Pictura Poesis: Du Bos to Diderot," JAAC, 20 (1961): 145-156.

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ing can be inferred which belongs to what is signified by them" (§960). If this distinction between natural and artificial signs is applied to the fine arts, what is expected to be the natural consequence? Literary critics in the Age of Enlightenment claim in general that painting uses natural signs and poetry uses artificial signs, because - according to their opinion - there is, in the case of painting, a natural similarity between the signs used by painting (i.e., colours and figures), and what a picture imitates, while in the case of poetry there is no similarity between the signs used by poetry (i.e., words), and what a poem represents. As an illustration, Du Bos says: "[...] the signs with which painters address us are not arbitrary or instituted, such as words employed in poetry. Painting makes use of natural signs, the energy of which does not depend on education" (Du Bos, I, 322). Du Bos maintains, as a consequence, the superiority of painting to poetry. In his theory of metaphor Breitinger attacks the conclusion which Du Bos draws from the distinction between natural and artificial signs. Indeed Breitinger recognizes the artificiality of words in general, but at the same time he pays attention to the natural character of metaphor. "Literal words are considered to be artificial signs by the most of us. [...] Figurative words and styles are, on the contrary, necessary, natural, and real signs, because, even though the literal, true meanings of the words are not changed, similar images which have in a certain sense a necessary relationship with each other are intentionally confounded" (Breitinger, CD II, 312). Take the case of the metaphor "the head of state". Although there is no natural relationship between "head" and "king", there is an analogical relationship between "head - body" and "king - state" which is based on nature itself. It is Lessing who exactly formulates the problem posed by Breitinger17. Lessing says: "That painting makes use of natural

17 For the semiotic background of Lessing's aesthetics see D. Wellbery, Les-

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signs must result in the superiority of painting to poetry, which is able to make use of only artificial signs" (Lessing, 430). This reminds us of the argument of Du Bos, but it is not what Lessing admits as a final consequence. Lessing continues: "These two [painting and poetry], however, are not as different as is seen at first sight. In fact, poetry uses not only natural signs, but also has a means to raise its artificial signs to the dignity and power of natural signs" (430). Here Lessing mentions two possibilities for the natural character of signs used by poetry. First, poetry indeed uses natural signs: "onomatopoeia" which has "a certain similarity with the thing it expresses" and "expression of emotions" such as "interjection" 18 are the examples (430f). But the second case is important for our discussion. "Poetry also has a means to raise its artificial signs to the worth of natural signs, namely metaphor. While natural signs derive their power from their similarity with things, metaphor introduces instead of this similarity (which it does not have) a similarity which the signified thing has with another thing whose concept can be recalled more easily and vividly" (431). The task of metaphor is, therefore, to transform artificial signs of discourse into natural signs as far as possible without denying the artificiality of discourse as is the case with onomatopoeia and expression of emotions. In other words, metaphor is not a natural discourse in a strict sense, but it approximates natural discourse by means of artificial discourse. Hence it follows that metaphor plays a special role in our cognition. While our cognition rises from its natural and intuitive stage into its distinct and discursive stage by means of artificial signs of discourse, metaphor should re-establish that first stage by the same means, that is, by artificial signs. Be-

sings Laocoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason, Cambridge, 1984. 18 Lessing argues that the expression of emotion is to be seen as an example of the natural sign because it is "almost the same between all languages" (Lessing, 431).

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cause of the natural quality of its signs, metaphor brings forth intuitive cognition. The natural quality of metaphor and its intuitiveness come to the same thing. Sulzer says: "Metaphors do not appear to be artificial signs any longer, but to be images through which we are able to have a vivid and intuitive cognition of the condition of things" (Sulzer, AT III, 390). As painting enables intuitive cognition because it uses natural signs by which we get intuitive cognition of what is signified by them, metaphor attains intuitiveness because it transforms artificial signs into natural signs as far as it can. In this way metaphor is justified as a special form of cognition because it gives us an intuitive cognition which cannot be reduced to logical and distinctive cognition.

Metaphor as Organ of Reason Is metaphor concerned solely with intuitive cognition? It must also make a contribution to logical and distinctive cognition, as is the case with WolfFs view quoted above. From this point of view it is worth noting that Curtius draws a distinction between "illustrative simile" and "explanatory simile" (Curtius, §18). Because the former gives "more extensive clarity" to representation, its function is the same as the function of metaphor we dealt with in the preceding section. In this section, therefore, we should take the latter "explanatory simile" into account. Curtius says: "The womb of nature conceals in itself many things whose essential parts are so hidden that they entirely escape our senses, or at least the most of them do so, and even our understanding is able to have only obscure concepts of them. [...] Put the case that such things present themselves to the wit of a poet. If these things are left as they are, he cannot represent clearly enough to meet the demands of the poem. Instead he has recourse to another thing which is similar to them, and tries to explain the obscure and non-sensuous quali-

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ties of one subject through the well-known and sensuous qualities of another subject" (§18). Curtius stresses the limitation of our cognitive faculty because we can not have a clear representation of a certain sort of thing. Simile is a means to overcome this limitation, in other words, to make obscure representations clear [klar] and explain them [erklären]19. Indeed Curtius mainly deals with the explanatory simile used in poetry, but the explanation is not a function peculiar to the simile used in poetry, but a function of simile in general. In fact Curtius refers to non-poetical simile before dealing with poetical simile20. We should not overlook the fact that Curtius regards the explanatory simile not as descending from distinctive cognition to intuitive cognition, but, rather, as making obscure representation clear. Due to this ascending direction simile performs an important role in the progress of cognition as an organ of reason. It is Sulzer who throws light on this cognitive function of metaphor21. Sulzer's general designation of words or discourse is identical with that given by the Wolffian school. He claims: "Without the help of words we have only an intuitive cognition of things and feel that which belongs to them merely in a confused way" 22 (Sulzer, VPS 184). But after having dealt with words from this point of view, he moves on to another point of view: "My remarks so far cover all those words which are no more than artificial signs of the concepts they stand for. But there is a kind of word which is worthy of being given special attention, and whose influence on reason is much more impor19 Breitinger already pointed out a similar function of simile (See Breitinger, Gleichnisse 13f). 20 Curtius takes as examples "the expressions, through which we represent actions of God by the help of human limbs" (Curtius §18). 21 As is seen in a citation in the preceding section, Sulzer deals also with the poetic and aesthetic use of metaphor in his Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste. 22 "Confused" means "clear, but not yet distinctive". See A. G. Baumgarten, Acroasis Logica, Halle 1761 (rpt.1963), §21.

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tant. This includes those expressions which, because of their literal meaning, can be natural signs of the ideas they stand for. [...] All metaphorical expressions belong to this kind of w o r d " (187f.). What arrests our attention is not how he defines metaphor - because his definition is fundamentally identical with the definition given by Breitinger and Lessing we dealt with in the preceding section 23 - , but that he emphasizes the influence of metaphor on reason. Sulzer claims that "between our representations there are innumerable very obscure ideas which we feel without being able to distinguish them" and that such obscure ideas "limit the growth of our knowledge" (188). But he continues: "Every successful metaphor pushes these limitations away, because one of those ideas which have been so far of no use is drawn from obscurity by such a metaphor" (189). Why and how is metaphor able to be a means of making progress in cognition? Ideas are obscure if we do not distinguish them from other ideas. Metaphor offers us assistance in making obscure ideas clear because, by the help of the sensuous and clear image which metaphor depicts, we find in obscure and undistinguishable ideas those features which distinguish them from others. Hence it follows that " w i t " is necessary to invent a metaphor, because metaphor is based upon a comparison of sensuous images with obscure ideas. And through this comparison metaphor makes "what seems to be inconceivable for understanding visible and sensible" (189). In this sense metaphor plays the same part which "figure" does in "geometry" (189). Sulzer's theory of metaphor is based upon an optimistic supposition that "metaphors in a language contain in them23 While Lessing awards metaphor only the "worth of natural signs" (Lessing, 431), Sulzer seems to identify metaphor with natural signs. But this effects only a difference of expression. In fact, Sulzer says: "By natural signs I mean those words which express real or metaphysical similarities between two things, one of which corresponds to the literal meaning of the words and the other of which corresponds to the figurative meaning of the words" (Sulzer, VPS 188).

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selves all truths of which people have seen only half or of which they have caught a glimpse in the far distance without being able to develop them" (190). That is why he can conclude that "the progress of reason greatly depends on whether the metaphorical part of languages is perfect" (191). Of course, metaphor is not an end in itself, but only a means. Although it contains in itself truth, truth is represented by it only clearly, but not distinctively. As a consequence, truth cannot be "demonstrated", but only "felt" by metaphor (190), and it is only reason that is able to develop and demonstrate this truth felt by metaphor. In this respect metaphor is merely a way leading to rational truth. It is, however, often due to metaphor that reason is able to find truth. In this sense metaphor is an indispensable means to anticipate and lead the progress of reason. Sulzer says: "The philosopher increases the stock of our knowledge through syllogisms which can be demonstrated by reason, and the artist [schöner Geist] expands the boundaries of our knowledge by means of inventing successful metaphors. The imagination [of the latter] sometimes thinks as deeply as the sharp understanding [of the former]. [...] The philosopher seeks truth, but often in vain; the artist often finds it without seeking it" (191). To sum up, Sulzer's theory of metaphor is not of a "logic of imagination" opposed to that of reason, as is the case with Breitinger24, but a logic of the dynamic imagination that influences reason. As a consequence, metaphor is justified as an organ of reason.

24 Breitinger says: "The idea often occurred to me that imagination needs a certain logic as well as understanding" (Breitinger, Gleichnisse 6).

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Metaphor as a Mediator between Intuitive and Symbolic Cognition In the preceding three sections we distinguished three types of theory of metaphor in German philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment. At first sight the differences between them are clear. While the metaphor of the first type is, as a clothing of truth, a means only for those who are not reasonable enough, that of the third type is, as an organ of reason, an indispensable means even for those who are reasonable. While the metaphor of the second type is justified only as intuitive cognition, that of the third type is justified as a means of finding rational truth. In spite of such great differences, however, there must be a common basis that allows the possibility of all three types. Finally, I would like to point out the common basis and make the differences between these three types much clearer. To begin with, I would like to focus on the relationship between the first type and the third one. These two types are the same in that they do not grant to metaphor the power to demonstrate truth. Bodmer says: "Allegories never serve to demonstrate. [...] Allegorical clothing neither gives to a moral proposition any power it does not have in itself, nor takes away anything from its truth" (Bodmer, 605, emphasis added); and Sulzer claims similarly: "Metaphors in a language contain in themselves all truths of which people have seen only half or of which they have caught a glimpse in the far distance without being able to develop them. [...] Every one feels much more truth than he is able to demonstrate" (Sulzer, VPS 190; emphasis added). Where do these two types diverge from each other? What is of concern here is if the cognition of truth is temporally prior to the invention of metaphor. According to the first type truth should be recognized before inventing metaphor, so that we might not miss truth. Gellert argues: "Morality is that for which fable is devised. And because we think earlier of what we are planning than what we consider necessary to perform

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this plan, we should also think earlier of the purpose of improving morality than the fable itself" (Gellert, 37, emphasis added). What characterizes the first type is the temporal priority of the purpose to the means. On the other hand, the third type emphasizes the temporal priority of metaphor. In other words, after the artist has invented a metaphor which comprises truth in itself, the philosopher demonstrates the truth using the metaphor as a clue. The differences between these two types, therefore, can be summarized as follows: while the first type supposes the opposition "the reasonable - the unreasonable" as already established, the third type regards this opposition as a dynamic process, because metaphor which anticipates truth is able to lead the progress of reason. I will then move on to the relationship between the second type and the third type. They are the same in the way they determine the function of metaphor: metaphor makes artificial signs natural as far as possible. Their difference is concerned with the distinction between intuitive and symbolic cognition. The function of discourse in general is to raise intuitive cognition to symbolic cognition and enable cognition to be intensively clearer and distinctive; and the metaphor of the second type transforms symbolic cognition caused by discourse into intuitive cognition. Meanwhile, the metaphor of the third type clarifies the intuitive cognition which is obscure to reason and, in this way, prepares for symbolic cognition. Because metaphor mediates intuitive and symbolic cognition, it is able to function as an organ of reason. We can, now, differentiate the second type from the third more precisely by the direction of mediation. The metaphor of the second type changes symbolic cognition into intuitive cognition. On the other hand, the metaphor of the third type anticipates by its intuitive image symbolic cognition. In other words, the direction of mediation is in the case of the second type descending from symbolic to intuitive cognition; that in the case of the third type is ascending from intuitive to symbolic cognition.

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This mediating function of metaphor applies also to the first type of metaphor. This is because fable, which has two dimensions, namely the dimension of rational proposition and the dimension of sensuous image, mediates these two dimensions and makes the first dimension "completely visible" (Breitinger, CD I, 170). The first type is the same as the second in the descending direction of mediation. While the second, however, recognizes metaphor as an intuitive cognition opposed to logical and distinctive cognition, the first acknowledges metaphor only on condition that rational truth is reflected in metaphor. The last condition is also the case with the third type, but the direction of mediation is different between the first and the third type. It should be concluded that metaphor is justified as a mediator between intuitive and symbolic cognition in German philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment.

Christiane

Schildknecht

2. Experiments with Metaphors: On the Connection between Scientific Method and Literary Form in Francis Bacon"' He wrote philosophy like a Lord Chancellor

In the history of philosophy this quotation has usually been attributed to William Harvey. It can be taken to characterize Bacon's style by binding it to its origin in the spirit of jurisprudence. This characterization, however, implies the neglect of major components of Bacon's literary form of presentation with regard to his more "scientific" works. This paper will show that the form of science Bacon envisions dictates the literary conventions he employs, conventions which go far beyond the judicial background of Bacon's philosophy. The focal point of Bacon's significance in the history of philosophy is his concept of method. Bacon's inductive method moves from particulars to more general axioms and aims at a taxonomic order of the world. It is epistemologically founded on an "Aristotelian notion that the basic elements of nature are essences, that these sort themselves into kinds, that the proper study of nature amounts to an arrangement or classification of these kinds" 1 . This implies a revision of the old taxonomy and a reform of language both of which are based on his scientific method. Via the gathering of facts - Bacon's natural history -, however, this experimental method, together with the sifting *

This paper is a revised version of my "Experiments with Metaphors: On the Connection between Scientific Method and Literary Form in Francis Bacon", which was first published in Synthesisphilosophica 11 (1/1991), 2334. I am especially grateful to Gottfried Gabriel, Peter McLaughlin, Johanna Seibt and Catherine Wilson for helpful comments at various stages of its production. 1 M. M. Slaughter, Universal Languages and Scientific Taxonomy in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge, 1982, p. 89.

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of these facts founded on observation, again leads to a system of classifications and definitions. In this remnant of an Aristotelian conception of science, the method finally contrasts with the modern approach. Bacon's method is embedded in his own judicial background, the judicial practice of the common law system out of which the method evolves. The collection of particular cases decided by law - the reports - corresponds to the tables of natural history we find lying at the base of his Sylva Sylvarum; the form corresponds to the maxims of law as "rules inherent in the very form of justice" - taken not as positive law, but as a generalization of a form of access to particular cases, guided by reason. Moreover, the judicial method of eliciting truthful answers from a witness is mirrored in Bacon's inductive method of eliciting truthful answers from nature, vexing her, as it were, in experiments 2 . Bacon's method is an interplay of inductive and deductive components. It starts out with particular instances and leads, via an inductive-hypothetical way, to axioms. The deductions made from these have to be experimentally verified. This 2

It is not surprising, therefore, that Bacon combines his metaphors regarding discovery and law in describing his new method in the Novum Organum: "Lastly, even if the breath of hope which blows on us from that New Continent were fainter than it is and harder to perceive, yet the trial [...] must by all means be made" (NO I.CXIV) and: "If any one would form an opinion or judgment either out of his own observation, or out of the crowd of authorities or out of the forms of demonstration [...], concerning these speculations of mine, let him not hope that he can do it in passage or by the by; but let him examine the thing thoroughly; let him make some little trial for himself of the way which I describe and lay out; let him familiarise his thoughts with that subtlety of nature to which experience bears witness" (IV, 43; emphasis C.S.). - The references to Bacon's works are taken from the edition: The Works of Francis Bacon, I-XIV, J. Spedding et al. (eds.), London, 1857-1874 (repr. Stuttgart 1961-1963), with the first Roman numeral referring to the volume number, followed by a Latin numeral indicating the page number. In the case of the Novum Organum, abbreviated as NO, with the exception of the Preface, the first Roman numeral refers to the book number, the second to the number of the aphorism.

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method is not directed against the taxonomic order per se, but rather against the Aristotelian model of taxonomy as a closed model which is "always more solicitous to provide an answer to the question and affirm something positive in words, than about the inner truths of things" (NO I. LXIII). This emphasis on questions rather than on answers, on the process of questioning rather than on affirming, reflects, first of all, Bacon's conception of a scientific method which focusses on experience, i.e. experiments undertaken "for the purpose of framing [one's] decisions and axioms" (ibid.). Moreover, it mirrors his aversion to systems as representing the "over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods" 3 , which he contrasts with a dynamic understanding of philosophy as a "knowledge broken" (III, 405), which is gained by following his method. Bacon's view seems to be inconsistent and contradictory: on the one hand he strongly expresses his dislike for systems, on the other hand he puts emphasis on developing a rigid form of method which is itself aimed at the discovery of abstract and simple natures - the forms - and which, in the end, again results in a scheme of classification. 3 Here Bacon anticipates the position of the German philosopher, poet and scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799), whose thought oscillated between the necessity as a scientist to order and systematize the variety of natural phenomena on the one hand and the insight as a philosopher with regard to the impossibility in principle of achieving such an objective and final knowledge of nature on the other hand. Studying the book of nature, man's respective chapter can only be of a propaedeutic character. Lichtenberg, therefore, criticizes the premature systematization in (natural) science which has not even yet reached its "juvenile age". An early advocate of an interdisciplinary approach he states: " [...] Des Physikers Geschäft ist: auszumachen, welches unter unzähligen Suppositionen, die möglich sind, die einzige, einzig wirkliche, die einzige vom Schöpfer wirklich gewählte sey. Dieses ist das Fach des Physikers, hierbey muß er bleiben, und wie kann er das? Nicht anders, als er muß keinen Schritt thun ohne Erfahrung und ohne Versuche; fehlen ihm die, und weiß er nicht weiter, gut, so ist er für jetzt am Ende und muß die Hand auf den Mund legen." G.C. Lichtenberg, Vermischte Schriften, L.C. Lichtenberg, F.C. Kries (eds.), I-IX, Göttingen, 1800-1806, p. 391.

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The literary form in which Bacon presents his philosophy holds the key to solving this seeming incompatibility between the ancient (Aristotelian) heritage and a modern approach, while at the same time it pays tribute to the transitional character of Bacon's philosophy and its many-sidedness. This applies to the literary form on a larger as well as on a smaller scale, to the fragmentary and/or autobiographical treatise, reflection, fable, philosophical discourse, aphorism, and - metaphor. Those of Bacon's works which are dedicated to the new interpretation of nature differ essentially with regard to their literary form: Temporis Partus Masculus sive Instauratio Magna Imperii Humani in Universum, written in 1603, remains a fragment in the form of a speech, given by an elder and wiser man, which is directed at a pupil called "son". The speech presented here varies in the sharpness with which Bacon gets even with the "philosophastros" (III, 529): Aristotle - the worst of all sophists - , Plato, Cardano, Petrus Ramus and the Presocratics. It can be interpreted as an introduction to further systematic treatises, which on a level of stringent argumentation make up for this rhetorically tainted polemics. Valerius Terminus [...], of about 1603 and written in English, is a treatise which, by referring to the credibility of wise men bearing symbolic names, tries to convey new ideas dressed in old garments. It thereby again mirrors the gap between the new approach and its old heritage. Obviously designed as a draft for a work like the Instauratio Magna, Valerius Terminus takes up ideas which will later be developed in the Novum Organum. De Interpretation Naturae Prooemium (1603) is autobiographical with regard to its form of presentation: the reader gains insight into the thought-process of the first-person-narrator as well as into his considerations on the problem of conveying philosophical knowledge. Especially the problem of whether the new method of knowledge should be published or kept se-

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cret - the old question Plato already wrestled with 4 - will be taken up again in Bacon's New Atlantis. The Cogitationes de Natura Rerum and the Cogitationes de Scientia Humana are both of 1606. The former is an ontological treatise that deals with fundamental problems of matter and motion, the latter a conglomerate of parts of the works already mentioned, as well as fables, which Bacon later worked into his De Sapientia Veterum. The content of Cogitata et Visa de Interpretatione Naturae sive de Scientia Operativa (1607) and Redargutio Philosophiarum (1608) corresponds to the Novum Organum. While the first work expresses Bacon's thoughts, e.g. his critique regarding the previous approaches of scientific method, with the help of 19 reflections and bears the authority of his own name ("Francis Bacon sic cogitavit: [...]"), the second work starts out with the problem of an absolute new beginning, reminding one of Descartes. It then takes the form of a Platonic philosophical discourse in which special emphasis is given to arguments which would now be developed within the sociology of science. The Novum Organum, finally, is designed in an aphoristic form 5 . Its objective is an outline of a new program that aims at methodically gaining knowledge of nature. The methodical re4 This problem is closely related to an understanding of philosophical knowledge, which transcends mere sentence-knowledge, i.e. a kind of nonpropositional knowledge. While we find different forms of non-propositional knowledge in Plato, e.g. practical knowledge - the knowledge of the craftsman, the dialectician etc. - and intuitive knowledge - intuition, illumination - , with Bacon the focus is on the method of knowledge-formation, thereby corresponding to Plato's dialectician. And like Plato, Bacon takes recourse to ways of indirectly conveying this form of knowledge via the literary form. - For Plato see my Philosophische Masken. Literarische Formen der Philosophic hei Platon, Descartes, Wolff und Lichtenberg, Stuttgart, 1990, 22-53. 5 For the difference between the literary form of the - in this case scientific aphorism and an aphoristic form or "format", cf. O. Kenshur, Open Form and the Shape of Ideas. Literary Structures as Representations of Philosophical Concepts in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, London/ Toronto, 1986, p. 38ff. For a definition of the genre of the aphorism out of a perspective of literature, cf. H. Fricke, Aphorismus, Stuttgart, 1984, p. 7ff.

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search is in turn directed at the discovery of forms. It begins by collecting particular instances and bases its hypotheses on them. The literary form of the aphorism reflects the hypothetical character of Bacon's method, as well as the aspect of incompleteness this method is founded upon6. Moreover, the openness of the aphoristic form is important, not only with regard to Bacon's inductive method, but because it is also intrinsically connected with the conveying of this method and with Bacon's conception of philosophical knowledge. It appeals to the reader to play an active role in the reception of, and response to, this very method. In the Novum Organum the aphoristic form is embedded in the larger form of a fragment, - thereby, a fragment in a fragment, as it were, enhancing the open character of the Baconian concept of knowledge. In their variety of different forms of presentation all the works mentioned so far reflect an intrinsic connection between the concept of philosophical knowledge and the form of its presentation7. The new method, the conveyance of which was Bacon's major concern in most of his writings, is itself Janus-faced: on the one hand, it is systematically aimed at knowledge while repulsing the idols of the mind; on the other hand, it remains fragmentary and exemplary. The formation of knowledge for Bacon is therefore both systematic and open. It is exactly this intermediate sphere in which the literary form - in the shape 6

7

In Book I of the Novum Organum Bacon defines aphorisms as "short and scattered sentences, not linked together by an artificial method" (NO I.LXXXVI). C f . W. K r o h n , Francis Bacon, München, 1987, p. 39f.: "Bacons Bemühungen um eine seinen Ideen angemessene literarische Form dienten nicht nur äußerlicher Rhetorik. In der Renaissance w a r der Gedanke sehr ernst genommen worden, daß Erkenntnis und Vermittlung von Erkenntnis nicht zu trennen sind. Es war Bacons bisherige Lebenserfahrung, mit seinen A u f fassungen auf taube Ohren gestoßen zu sein. U n d es zeigt eine G r ö ß e besonderer A r t , dies nicht einfach auf die Ignoranz der Zuhörer, sondern auf die ungelösten Probleme der Vermittlung zu beziehen. Diese Versuche sind in dem experimentellen Geist unternommen, den zu erzeugen Bacon ausgezogen war: A u f diesem Gebiet praktizierte Bacon eigene Lehre".

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of aphorism and metaphor - takes effect. Bacon's philosophy recognizes a qualitative variety while also calling for a possible reduction of this variety to primary forms. Yet it is the methodical attention to process, rather than to end which is accentuated in his writings. Different metaphors serve to characterize the open process of autonomous knowledge-formation. All of them have the same objective, namely, to depict that which is at bottom of Bacon's Instauratio Magna and determines its introductory part, The Advancement of Learning or De Augmentis Scientiarum, respectively: "knowledge in growth" (III, 292). The dynamic aspect of knowledge-formation corresponds to the form of presentation: Only knowledge which is presented "in aphorisms and observations" (ibid.; emphasis C.S.) is able to depict the component of openness constitutive for philosophical knowledge as Bacon understands it. According to him, it is therefore exactly the method employed by philosophers of the schools as well as of the systems which prevents knowledge from growing. Here, rigidity of knowledge, which "once [...] comprehended in exact methods, [...] may perchance be further polished [...] and accomodated for use and practice; but [...] increaseth no more in bulk and substance" (ibid.), takes the place of the process of knowledge-formation. Let us now examine the main metaphors which Bacon employs for describing the acquisition of knowledge. The metaphor of a cobweb serves to explain Bacon's critique of rigid knowledge with regard to the method of the schools: This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen; who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading; but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges; and knowing little history, either of nature or time; did out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings

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forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit. (Ill, 285f.; emphases C.S.).

In the Novum Organum he returns to this metaphorical characterization of the new method: Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant: they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. (NO I.XCV; emphasis C.S.).

Here, Bacon counters a static knowledge, which gets caught in its own net with images that bespeak departure and movement. In the quotation given above it is the bee which not only gathers its material, but digests and transforms it, thereby crossing borders, breaking new ground. Other metaphors fulfil this critique of "dogmatic knowledge": the metaphors of the ship, of light, water, and gardening, as well as combinations of these 8 . The ship of science, which like an "image in an image" appears on the title page of the Instauratio Magna (1620), had set out to reach new shores and, coming in from the open sea, heads for the small passage between the "pillars of fate set in the path of knowledge [scientiis columnae tanquam fatales]" (IV, 13)'. Critical of the genre of technical literature which came into fashion during the Renaissance, Bacon describes one of the obstacles which are in his way: despite its primacy with regard to experiment and experience he remains opposed to this form of literature which, though it aims at the discovery of something new, lacks a methodical conception. H e warns against surrendering one8 Cf. also: III, p. 296 (garden); III, p. 324 (garden - water); III, p. 355 (discovery); III, p. 363 (mariner's needle). 9 For an analysis of the perspective, symbolism and metaphorical impact of the copper engraving on the title page of the Instauratio Magna cf. R. Konersmann, "Francis Bacon und die 'große simple Linie'. Zur Vorgeschichte der perspektivischen Metaphorik", in: V. Gerhardt/N. Herold (eds.), Perspektiven des Perspektivismus. Gedenkschrift zum Tode Friedrich Kaulbachs, Würzburg, 1992, 33-57.

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self solely to the "waves of experience" (IV, 17). B y doing this, some, in fact, almost "turned mechanics [mechanici]" (ibid.), but on board the ship of knowledge - remaining within the metaphor - they at best get near the harbour of the new science; they are, however, unable to drop anchor because of their blindness with regard to the method: " [ . . . ] These [...] have in their very experiments pursued a kind of wandering inquiry, without any regular system of operations. And besides they have mostly proposed to themselves certain petty tasks, taking it for a great matter to work out some single discovery; - a course of proceeding at once poor in aim and unskilful in design" (IV, 17)'°. In Bacon's opinion, therefore, his new science must sail past the following two cliffs on the way to its destination: it has to clear the obstacle of a research which is not guided by method and a knowledge which is not guided by theory, as well as evade the sciences of the schools which guarantee "a succession of masters and scholars, not of inventors and those who bring to further perfection the things invented" (IV, 14). In criticizing the sciences of the schools, Bacon aims especially at the arts which fall under the heading of "dialéctica" (I, 129), in which the argument takes the place of the experiment. It is images of movement which serve to symbolize Bacon's new way of understanding the world; a way which, following the signpost "method" leads to a new "system". More metaphors line this way: metaphors of light, of water, of gardening 11 . These metaphors, derived from the first two chapters of the book of Genesis, are interpreted by Bacon in his sense, i.e. in the sense of a dynamic movement of research, pointing forward to and guided by a method which is directed against a static system: The ship of knowledge, for example, sails to10 Again, it is a metaphor - the "true and lawful [!] marriage between the empirical and the rational faculty" (IV, 19) - which serves to illustrate Bacon's aim here. 11 For the following cf. the introduction to: Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis, A. Johnston (ed.), O x f o r d , 1974, vii-xx, especially xviff.

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wards the pillars of Hercules, which at first sight seem to represent geographically the limits of the "terrestial globe" (IV, 23). A second - metaphorical - sight, however, reveals them as leading the way into the direction of the "intellectual globe" (ibid.), the land of intellectual adventure and discovery. That this - methodical - way is a promising and, in the end, successful way can be inferred f r o m the pictorial setting with light shining on the water at the horizon 12 . Another metaphor, borrowed once more f r o m the book of Genesis, is that of water. This metaphor runs through a major part of Bacon's works, especially in the f o r m of life-giving water, rain or a fountain. In all its variations this metaphor again signifies knowledge: The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation. (Ill, 346).

With the metaphor of water, carrying the ship of science, Bacon distinguishes in the first place between a divine and a philosophical f o r m of knowledge, the latter being the kind of knowledge man can acquire by following the path of method. Whether it stems from divine illumination or has been achieved by way of method - informed by the "light of nature" both forms of knowledge have to be preserved. Here Bacon's scientific-political considerations with regard to the formation and preservation of knowledge are introduced, considerations which are to be developed further in his Utopia, New Atlantis:

12 For Bacon "light [...] is divine illumination, is knowledge, is the transmission of learning" (op. cit., xvi). This holds for Descartes as well; cf. his Cogitationes Privatae, Œuvres, C. Adam/P. Tannery (eds.), Paris, 1897-1913, X, p. 218: "[...] lumen cognitionem [significat]". Johnston sees this image as a response by Bacon to Virgil's Aeneid, "partly because it comes in a context of Aeneas setting out in a ship for a voyage in which the winds blow him to his destined home. For Aeneas is the adventurer, the warrior, and the founder of an empire, and so an image for Bacon of his own intellectual ideal" (ibid.). Cf. also B. Vickers, Francis Bacon and Renaissance Prose, Cambridge, 1968, p. 189ff.

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This excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same. (Ill, 322).

Another sphere of images, which since Plato's time belongs to the philosophical corpus of metaphor is that of the garden. By using metaphors drawn f r o m the experience of gardening, Bacon confronts the intellectual world of classical history, the myths and the Bible with details of the physical world. N o t what is cultivated and developed, but what is waste and uncultivated is of interest to him. In the Advancement of Learning he sees himself as a gardener, not "taking [the] seeds and slips, and rearing them first into plants, and so uttering them in pots, when they are in flower, and in their best state", but "uttering rather seeds than plants" and "sowing with the basket [rather] than with the hand" (X, 301)13. It is thus metaphors taken f r o m the sphere of travels, of the organic realm, and of navigation with which Bacon characterizes his scientific method. The list of metaphors he uses is a long one. What, however, is their rating within Bacon's methodical program? In order to answer this question it is helpful to recall t w o main components of this program: the new method, which will lead to the " f o r m s " via an interplay of hypotheses, induction and deduction and the deliberate incompleteness of methodical research, as well as of the program as a whole. We started out with what looked like a contradiction between Bacon's criticism of philosophical systems, especially 13 This metaphorical description of the philosophical method, the "basket" as it were, reminds one of the simile in Plato's Phaedrus (276bfF.), where the philosopher "employs the art of dialectic [...], selects a soul of the right type, and in it he plants and sows his words founded on knowledge, words which can defend both themselves and him who planted them, words which instead of remaining barren contain a seed whence new words grow up in new characters, whereby the seed is vouchsafed immortality, and its possessor the fullest measure of blessedness that man can attain unto" (Phaedrus 276e-277a).

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the Aristotelian one, and his own claim with regard to openness and growth, on the one hand, and his systematic method which again results in a classification of nature, on the other hand. But Bacon shows a high degree of sensitivity when it comes to the literary form in which he presents his philosophy. This is discussed at length in the Advancement of Learning. Here, he contrasts the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms with one "in Methods", as he calls it. With regard to the latter, he states that "it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a few Axioms or observations upon any subject to make a solemn and formal art; filling it with some discourses, and illustrating it with examples, and digesting it into a sensible Method" (III, 405). This criticism corresponds to his aversion to systems as representing an "over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods", mentioned earlier on. "Method" here becomes an equivalent for knowledge which has been won by either deduction (axioms) or induction (observations). However, neither way is justified by a sufficient basis from which valid generalizations can be drawn. It is an unscientific procedure which will certainly not lead to a substantial augmentation of knowledge. Bacon contrasts his "writing in Methods" with a "writing in Aphorisms", which has "more excellent virtues" (ibid.): "For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid: for Aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off; so there remaineth nothing to fill the Aphorisms but some good quantity of observation: and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write Aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded" (ibid.). Knowledge therefore, if it is to meet scientific standards, has to be based on a "good quantity of observation", i.e. on a sufficient basis of data. Whereas "Methods" arbitrarily combine different parts of knowledge in order to make interesting, but unjustified claims, "as a man shall make great shew of an art"

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(ibid.), this cannot be done in writing aphorisms where "discourse of connection and order is cut off". Consequently, "Methods are more fit to win consent or belief [...]; for they carry a kind of demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and therefore satisfy" (ibid.). This is what characterizes a closed system of laborious cobwebs of learning: satisfaction, completeness, endless spinning and standstill of knowledge. The aphorism, on the other hand, is "fit to point to action" and "particulars, being dispersed, do best agree with dispersed directions" (ibid.). Scientific aphorisms, on the whole, being Bacon's favourite form of presentation, thus represent "a knowledge broken" (ibid.)', openness, inquiry, incompleteness, advancement of knowledge. Bacon's aphorisms thereby reflect a non-propositional component in his concept of philosophical knowledge as knowledge which has to be acquired by the reader herself: the aphorisms "do invite men to enquire further; whereas Methods, carrying the shew of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest" (ibid.). As an open form they constitute a gap which has to be filled, thereby mobilizing the (implied) reader to participate actively in the realization of the text. This is the Baconian method 14 . By doing this, the reader herself is not merely 14 Cf. Konersmann, op. tit., p. 46, for a connection between the aphoristic form and the optimistic perspective of the title page of the Instauratio Magna, which focuses on the moment of return and encourages future departures. The spectator gets an idea of the direction he has to take, and the light in the distance promises a profit worth aiming for. The point of view which Bacon recommends, therefore, does not rely on something given or already acquired and, in so far, is quite problematic. His aphorisms, likewise, constitute an invitation to gather the acquired and experienced, and help those objective minds to achieve a point of view in positione bona which manifests itself in a willingness to transcend the threshold marked

by the columnae fatales. - For the reader-response-theory's approach cf. W. Iser, The Implied Reader. Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction

from Bunyan to Beckett, Baltimore/London, 1974, p. 34ff. Reading a book, here again becomes "like a journey, during which the occasional reflections of the author are to be regarded as resting places which will give the reader the chance to think back over what has happened so far" (op. tit., p. 39f.).

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observing, but is creative, methodically creative, as it were, in Bacon's sense 15 . It has been argued by O . Kenshur 16 , however, that in the Baconian aphorism "discourse of connection and order" is by no means "cut off" {ibid.): "Bacon's 'aphorisms' are - intellectually, if not physically - [...] closely and consistently connected to one another. If the Roman numerals and the typographical spaces between "aphorisms" in the Novum Organum were removed, the work would, in fact, read to a remarkable extent like a work in precisely that methodical or systematic form which Bacon claims to be eschewing" {op. cit., 43). Kenshur cites an example of "the conjunctions and other palpable devices that manifestly link the individual 'aphorisms' to those that precede them" {ibid.). Though the aphoristic form in Bacon serves as a representation of our fragmentary knowledge of the natural order, it is in the end much closer to a maxim, i.e. a general statement about particular things 17 . Since the Baconian aphorisms do not constitute an open form themselves, what - if anything - does fulfil Bacon's claim? Oscillating — like Lichtenberg - between two extremes, namely "between the presumption of pronouncing on everything, and the despair of comprehending anything" (IV, 39) 18 the aphoristic form mirrors Bacon's inductive method with re15 Another way of addressing this issue is Bacon's distinction between the 'magistral' and the 'initiative' method: "The magistral method teaches; the initiative intimates. The magistral requires that what is told should be believed; the initiative that it should be examined. The one transmits knowledge to the crowd of learners; the other to the sons, as it were, of science. The end of the one is the use of knowledges, as they now are; of the other the continuation and further progression of them" (IV, 449). 16 Op. cit., p. 43ff. 17 Cf. J. Stephens, Francis Bacon and the Style of Science, Chicago/London 1975, p. 26: "Maxims [...] serve Bacon as building blocks in the foundation of the new science. [...] The reader is able simultaneously to comprehend and to penetrate with his mind, which Bacon regards as essential to discourse on high levels of thought". 18 Cf. also his statement: " I do not pronounce upon anything" (op. cit., V, p. 210).

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gard to representing the establishment of "progressive stages of certainty" {op. cit., 40). It is, however, not the aphorism itself but the metaphor within this apparently "closed" and "consistent" systematic f o r m , which genuinely represents the aspect of openness and does so by looking at things f r o m a new angle, letting aspects be seen which w e r e invisible before. N e w ideas require a new language, the problem being, that philosophy, following the w a y of method and refuting "the Idols", is somehow forced to use the language of the "ordinary man", a language, which is already spoilt b y "the false notions of the vulgar that come to us through discourse" (Slaughter, op. cit.., 91) - themselves metaphorically labelled "the Idols of the Market-place" - , w o r d s which "need not, and most usually do not, resemble the deeper understanding of the scientist o r philosopher; w o r d s [which] are not isomorphic with the nature of things" {ibid,.), thereby preventing the advancement of learning: "The Idols of the Market-place are the most troublesome of all; idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of w o r d s and names" {NO I.LIX) 1 9 .

19 Again, Bacon's view here is almost identical with Lichtenberg's (and with the view of Wittgenstein, who in turn had been influenced directly by Lichtenberg). Lichtenberg's criticism of language is closely connected with his concept of the "I" - and just as it is not possible for the philosophical subject to transcend the forms of intuition of the human understanding, so, too, the philosopher cannot leave the given language behind: "Die Erfindung der Sprache ist vor der Philosophie hergegangen, und das ist es, was die Philosophie erschwert, zumal, wenn man sie andern verständlich machen will, die nicht viel selbst denken. Die Philosophie ist, wenn sie spricht, immer genötigt, die Sprache der Unphilosophie zu reden" (H 151; emphasis C.S.) - the philosopher has to speak an un-philosophical language. Another parallel in the thinking of both philosophers is their stress on hypotheses and experiment, i.e. the observation of nature 'in chains'. An aphorism with which Lichtenberg already pays tribute to Bacon's anti-systematic attitude is C 209: "[...] Der berühmte Baco von Verulam hat schon gesagt und wir haben es wahr befunden, daß in einer Wissenschaft nicht viel mehr erfunden wird, so bald sie in ein System gebracht worden"; cf. also J 1781. Accordingly, both chose the same literary form of presentation - the aphoristic form.

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Consequently, "knowledge which is new and foreign from opinions received, is to be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable and familiar" (III, 406). Therefore, "those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; the one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate; so that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes [...] to express themselves. [...] For it is a rule, That whatsoever science is not consonant to presuppositions, must pray in aid of similitudes" (III, 406f.; emphasis in the original). The aphoristic form mirrors the Baconian method which leads from the broad base of instances to the apex of the forms and it "thus parallels the unified structure of our potential knowledge, which in turn will reflect the unified structure of the natural order" (Kenshur, op. cit., 47f.). The literary form which depicts small and relatively closed units (the experiment) as well as their being embedded in a larger context (the method) points to the double-sidedness of Bacon's philosophy: it defends an inductive-deductive method while at the same time stressing its open and process-oriented, experimentbased character. Bacon's "philosophy of research" thus aims at the beginning of a new science via a fragmentary aphoristic form, which signalizes continuation, not closure and thereby appeals to the reader. It is the same fragmentary, open and innovative character which enables metaphors to open up a new perspective and/or world. This essential feature of a metaphor has its roots in the fact that a metaphor comprises a whole diversity of attributes and presents them in a unified form. Thus metaphor and analogy resemble each other with respect to their drawing comparisons between these respective attributes: the common element here lies in the unifying role of the wit, which, as the opposite of the acumen, discovers similarities among non-similar things. And, though they differ with respect to their grade of explicitness, it should be noted, however, that in an analogy, too, not every single aspect of the comparison involved is made explicit. This explicitness in turn, though, helps to clarify

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and, subsequently, to avoid the formation of "idols" in Bacon's sense - something which can be held against the use of metaphors. Metaphors, on the other hand, reduce what Paul Ricoeur calls a "semantic impertinence,"20 carry cognitive information and act like Bacon's bee: the autonomous gathering and acquisition ("digestion") of the respective material deliberately intends leaving the old predication-net in favour of a new self-spun one. With respect to the method involved this implies transferring knowledge from one area to another, insight into new connections, the opening-up of new epistemic worlds - precisely that which constitutes the hypothetic-experimental character of a method21. While an analogy deliberately aims at loosening the predicative tension, with a metaphor the "category-mistake", which rests on the predicative contradiction, the deliberate violation of linguistic-semantic borders is intended. Reality, here, is not represented by taking recourse to analogy, but to identity and difference. Bacon's thought and method somehow come to a standstill half-way: between the methodical acquisition of knowledge about the forms on the one hand, and occult residues within this method on the other. On the level of the literary form of presenting his philosophy the occurrence of analogy and metaphor within the aphoristic form corresponds to Bacon's transitional position. The metaphors Bacon employs in order to characterize his method belong to different areas, which themselves remain relatively constant with regard to the respective aspects of the method they are to represent. Thus it is metaphors taken from the organic realm which serve to distinguish Bacon's method 20 Cf. P. Ricceur, The Rule of Metaphor. Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, Toronto/Buffalo, 1977, p. 131ff. 21 In so far as the instauratio constitutes a synthesis of innovatio and restitutio the pictorial setting of the ship of science on the first page of the Instauratio Magna and the use of metaphors fulfil the same purpose: they represent a change in the point of view, and thus a willingness to leave the old perspective behind in favour of an unbiased standpoint, which in turn is a condition for openness as to the new; cf. Konersmann, op. cit., p. 41.

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of invention from a mere cultivation of knowledge already in use. Bacon, here, talks about streams of knowledge or about the roots, which false concepts take in the mind of men. These are contrasted with the fruits, according to which philosophy is judged; "more especially if, in place of fruits of grape and. olive, it bear thorns and briers of dispute and contention" (NO I.LXXIII, emphases C.S.) 22 . Philosophy, according to Bacon, has to be cured from its barrenness, because "what is founded on nature grows and increases, while what is founded on opinion varies but increases not" (NO I.LXXIV; emphasis C.S.). Bacon's diagnosis with respect to the barrenness and want of fruitful results and inventions in the sciences over centuries, formulated with recourse to metaphors taken from the realm of medicine and diseases,23 calls for a new remedy. As a "proper remedy" (NO I.XL) he thus praises "the formation of ideas and axioms by true induction" (ibid.) and, according to this new foundation, employs a new kind of linguistic mediation: architectonic metaphors. While those metaphors, which are taken from the sphere of medicine, diagnostically relate to "the great injury of the sciences and philosophy" (NO I.LV), and, while the botanical metaphors critcize the old and propagate the new method,24 the architectural metaphors lay the foundation 25 . The focus of 22 Cf. also NO I . X C I X , where Bacon contrasts the "experiments of light" of the new method with the "experiments of fruit". 23 C f . the Preface to the Novum Organum, where Bacon praises his new and infallible way of the understanding as a remedy, which promises a healthy condition even in those cases, where dialectic came too late to rescue; see also NO I . X X X . 24 Cf. NO I . L X X X : "[...] After these particular sciences [i.e. astronomy, optics, music, a number of mechanical arts, medicine, moral and political philosophy, and the logical sciences] have been once distributed and established, they are no more nourished by natural philosophy [...]. And therefore it is nothing strange if the sciences grow not, seeing they are parted from their roots." Only the methodical repatriation of the particular sciences to natural philosophy guarantees that "the branches of knowledge may not be severed and cut off from the stem" (NO I.CVII). 25 C f . Bacon's criticism of the method of the ancients, NO I.CXXV. In this

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Bacon's metaphors, however, is the metaphor of the "way", which stresses the specifics of the method, the process of experimentally verified knowledge-formation as well as the open character of this knowledge. Bacon's aim is "to open a new way for the understanding" (NO Preface; emphasis C.S.), his role that of "a guide to point out the road" (ibid.) 26 . By employing different kinds of metaphors he does justice to this aim in a twofold way: the metaphor of the way, on the one hand, depicts Bacon's specific concept of a method, the metaphors themselves, on the other hand, correspond to the internal structure of this very method. Metaphors of the "way" occur frequently in Bacon's works: in a Cartesian manner, for example, he talks about a "new and certain path for the mind" (NO Preface; emphasis C.S.), "a course [...] guided at every step" (ibid.; emphasis C.S.), i.e. based on methodical verification and experimental recourse of hypotheses and axioms to facts. Since it is not possible to gain insight into the "Latent Processes and Latent Configurations" (NO II.LII) via direct experience, but constitutes the task of actively carrying out the Baconian research program, the Novum Organum breaks off at this point: the description of the methodical way changes into actively setting out on this way. Correspondingly, Bacon contrasts his method with the method of the ancients: "the question between them and me being only as to the way" (NO I.LXI). The keeping of a "course of severe inquisition" (NO I.LXVII, emphasis C.S.) thus, takes the place of an aimless, i.e. methodless drifting from object to object; "wandering and straying as they [i.e. men] do with no settled course" (NO I.LXX; emphasis C.S.) is replaced by "the true way for the interpretation of nature" (NO I.LXIX; emphasis C.S.) to context the agreement between Bacon and Descartes, who also is concerned with the foundation of a new philosophical method, again, is striking. For the use of metaphors (of architecture, travel and the ) in Descartes cf. N. Edelman, "The Mixed Metaphor in Descartes", The Romanic Review 41 (1950): pp. 167-178 and Schildknecht, op. tit., p. 59f. 26 Cf. also N O I.XXXII, XXXVI.

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which the "paths [...] of experiment" {ibid.) lead and which is characterized by the fact that it deduces axioms "from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all" (NO I.XIX). Thus Bacon's method itself is, though lastly guided by an open concept of knowledge, defined by a rise "by gradual steps to that which is prior and better known in the order of nature" (NO I.XXII) 27 . Along with the specification of the method, the metaphors change: while the "way" represents the general (more or less methodical) manner of reaching the aim of the sciences, badly mapped out by men, which renders itself as "altogether erroneous and impassable" (NO I.LXXXII), it is only "a road for the human understanding direct from the sense" (ibid.), which guarantees the methodical reach of this aim, without being confronted by detours and obstacles. Bacon's method of invention thus depends essentially on the "course of experiment" (ibid.), i.e. on experience which is ordered and (experimentally) worked out. While the way, taken as a general signpost might be erroneous or impassable, and can be deserted, shut out, stopped up or lost (cf. NO I.LXXXII, I.LXXXIII), "route" and "course" stand for the methodical approach, which, in the end, renders a direct access to the forms of nature possible, and therefore have positive connotations: "The course of science is not yet wholly run" (NO I.LXXXII), "a method rightly ordered leads by an unbroken route through the woods of experience to the open ground of axioms" (ibid.)2S.

27 Cf. NO I.CIV. 28 The value attributed to "way", "road", "course" and "route", as sketched above, corresponds to the metaphors of light, which run parallel to those of the way (of method): simple, unordered experience is a "mere groping, as of men in the dark that feel all round them for the chance of finding their way" (NO I.LXXXII), whereas "the true method of experience [...] first lights the candle, and then by means of the candle shows the way" (ibid.). Cf. also NO I.C.

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After an excessive use of way-metaphorical descriptions of method, the above mentioned metaphorical fields of the way ("road"), of travels ("discovery"), of the organic ("cultivation of sciences") and of the science of medicine ("difficulty has its rise [...] in the human understanding, and the use and application thereof, which admits of remedy and medicine") culminate in NO I.XCIV. After the method has thus been metaphorically laid out in analogy or contrast to familiar areas, NO I.XCV yields a further specification of the method in the form of an interplay between the experimental and the rational component. Especially NO I.LXXXII, LXXXV and XCIV display Bacon's characterization of the new method via the use of metaphors taken from various areas. While the experiment is the heuristic centrepoint of Bacon's method, the metaphor constitutes the true heuristic-hypothetical part of Bacon's literary form: It depicts his method in the very literal sense of the word, points, like it, to "the top". "For all nature", he writes, "rises to a point like a pyramid. Individuals, which lie at the base of nature, are infinite in number; these are collected into Species, which are themselves manifold; the Species rise again into Genera; which also by continual gradations are contracted into more universal generalities, so that at last nature seems to end as it were in unity; as is signified by the pyramidal form of the horns of Pan" (VIII, 449). The metaphor manages to comprise the diversity of natural phenomena at a glance - and where the world of science means the loss of a phenomenal world, the metaphor balances this deficit. The close connection between method and metaphor thereby corresponds to his insight into the role of thinking by analogy. Meta-methodical passages dealing with forms of thought and knowledge repeatedly occur in the Novum Organum. "The human understanding", so Bacon, "is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds" (NO I.XLV)29. Although the method is aimed at the discovery of something new, it how29 Cf. also NO I.XLVI.

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ever requires the transfer of knowledge from one area to a different one, from old to new. As Bacon's criticism of the ancients has shown, the dearth and barrenness of arts and inventions is based on "endless repetitions, and how men are ever saying and doing what has been said and done before" (NO I.LXXXV). Even (new) definitions are of no help here: "Nor do the definitions [...] by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies" (NO I.XLIII). The conveyance and explanation of things new, so Bacon, "will yet be apprehended with reference to what is old" (NO I.XXXIV); at the same time he endeavours to "have [his] doctrine enter quietly into the minds that are fit and capable of receiving it" (NO I.XXXV; emphasis C.S.) - the change in perspective from an old to a new method accordingly is carried out via analogy and metaphor and thus corresponds to Bacon's distinction between two kinds of minds with respect to philosophy and the sciences: "[...] Some minds are stronger and apter to mark the differences of things, others to mark their resemblances" (NO I.LV); the different ways of reflection, i.e. the analysing reflection, which is directed at the particulars of things, and the compositional reflection which is directed at their composition, must - according to Bacon - alternate and be held by turns; one could say they should be understood in a complementary way, "so that the understanding may be rendered at once penetrating and comprehensive" (NO I.LVII). Thus Bacon stresses, that a major part of all discoveries rests on "transferring, comparing, and applying of those [operations] already known" (NO I.CX), and thereby accentuates the analogical part of his method. Because "the human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination-, and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow [...] similar to those few things by which it is surrounded" (NO I.XLVII; emphasis C.S.).

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A premature analogising, however, hinders the formation of knowledge: "The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion [...] draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate" (NO I.XLVI). In contrast to this false reconciliation, Bacon's method relies on the corrective force of counter-instances: "Besides, [...] it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed toward both alike" (ibid.) - even if it seems to be the case that "for that going to and fro to remote and heterogeneous instances [...] the intellect is altogether slow and unfit, unless it be forced thereto by severe laws and overruling authority" (NO I.XLVII; emphasis C.S.). Bacon thus leads the intellect according to his claim - in a rather anti-authoritative, i.e. metaphorical way to see something new. In this sense, in what has been said so far it should have become clear, that metaphors play a not merely external role with respect to Bacon's method (in the sense of yielding an adaequate description as well as relating it to more familiar areas), but, since metaphors are themselves characterized by the component of a simultaneous appearance in the understanding of remote and irregular cases in the form of an "impertinent predication", they resemble the essential feature of the Baconian method in nuce and are, therefore, methodical metaphors. Bacon's method opens heuristically with particular instances, hypotheses, and experiments, but aims at the "closed" system of his forms. The literary form of the aphorism mirrors this systematic approach, insofar as the aphorisms here appear not in their general, open form, but are closely and consistently connected to one another. However, like the method,

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they bear an essential open element within this closure by again resting on experiments - on experiments with metaphors.

Part Two: A Semantic Perspective

Catherine 2. Elgin

3. Metaphor and Reference"'

Metaphors abound and are often understood without difficulty. Theories of metaphr also abound. Yet an understanding of how metaphors function is surprisingly hard. I take metaphor to be a semantic matter: Terms genuinely denote the objects they metaphorically describe. And literally false sentences may be genuinely true when construed as metaphors. Metaphorical sentences have the same cognitive functions as literal sentences and others besides. O n e such additional function is to liken their literal and metaphorical objects.

Denotation Application of old words to newly encountered objects is a staple of language use. Often we proceed without difficulty. We unhesitatingly apply the term "car" to unusual passenger vehicles, and the term " o d d " to unfamiliar integers not evenly divisible by two. Where habit or stipulation settle the reference, where we have no inclination to withhold a term, its application is literal. Metaphor also involves applying old words to new objects. But here in metaphor matters are not so straightforward. For the habits and stipulations that guide literal usage both suggest and preclude metaphorical applications 1 . People do not belong *

This paper derives substantially from Chapters 4 and 8 of my With Reference to Reference, Indianopolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983. 1 Cf. N. Goodman, Languages of Art, Indianopolis: Hackett, 1976, pp. 81-85

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to the literal extensions of botanical predicates. Nevertheless, the demise of the follower of Richard II is correctly described as follows: The weeds which his broad spreading leaves did shelter, That seemed in eating him to hold him up, Are plucked up root and all by Bolingbroke. (.Richard I I , III, 4)

Richard literally had no sheltering leaves, nor had his flatterers roots. Yet much as weeds weaken the plants that shelter them and disfigure the garden they infest, Bushy and Green, while under Richard's protection and apparently supporting him, undermined his reign and damaged his realm. To avoid the further damage they would do if left unchecked, Bolingbroke, like a gardener, had them destroyed. Because we know how to characterize plants as weeds, we know how to use " w e e d " to characterize people. The metaphorical interpretation of a term thus depends on its prior literal interpretation. The priority is semantic, not just historical or etymological. It is not only because the characterization of plants as weeds antedates that characterization of people that the latter is deemed metaphorical. Semantic priority concerns current usage. The application of " w e e d " to uncultivated plants that weaken the soil, deprive other plants of nutrients, and eventually take over a garden is what justifes its application to Richard's flatterers. If neither interpretation recalled and depended on the other, then regardless of their etymology, their current usage would be non-metaphorical. Ordinarily, the sorting of objects effected by a term's metaphorical application reflects the sorting effected by its literal application. This does not account for metaphorical uses of Active terms, though, for they sort nothing. Whatever I am getting at when I say that Oswald is an ogre, I am not (even metaphorically) consigning him to the null set.

and "Metaphor as Moonlighting", Of Mind and Other bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 71-77.

Matters,

Cam-

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Before I can say how fictive terms function metaphorically, I need to say a little about how they function literally. Since such terms have, and are known to have null denotation, their denotations do not distinguish among them. Instead, as Goodman argues, we should explicate them on the basis of certain terms that denote them. These terms are replacements of the schema: p-description2. Thus "Hamlet", "the Prince of Denmark", "the melancholy Dane", and the like are all Hamletdescriptions; "Peter Pan", "the boy who never grew up", "the leader of the lost boys", and the like, all Peter-Pan-descriptions; and so on. Understanding a fictive term involves recognizing it as an instance of particular p-descriptions; and creating a "fictive individual" like Hamlet, or a "fictive kind" like ogres involves bringing a variety of expressions to instantiate the same p-descriptions. Just how we identify diverse items as instances of a particular predicate is a difficult question. But there is no reason to think that it is any more difficult to explain how we recognize that certain linguistic items instantiate particular p-descriptions than it is to explain how we recognize that certain vehicles instantiate "car" or "truck". Nor is there any reason to think that the explanations of the two cases differ significantly. Upon reading Peter Pan, we immediately and directly recognize certain expressions as Peter-Pan-descriptions and others as Captain-Hook-descriptions. We do not need to map our terms onto their referents to ascertain that our classifications of them under various p-descriptions are correct.

2

Cf. Languages of Art, pp. 21-26. Goodman introduces "p-description" to disambiguate "description of p". Under one interpretation, a description of Peter Pan describes a denizen of Never Never Land; under another, it describes no one, there being no such person as Peter Pan. O n the former interpretation "description of p" is a schema of a one place predicate that classifies expressions on the basis of kind. O n the latter, it is the schema of a two place predicate that links a term with its denotation. I follow G o o d man in restricting "description of p" to its two place semantic interpretation, and using "p-description" to classify terms directly.

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P-descriptions sort literal uses of Active terms. Their metaphorical uses reflect these sortings 3 . If Oswald is an ogre, some predicates that count as ogre-descriptions - "fearsome", "brutal", and "nasty", perhaps - apply denotively to Oswald. But no single literal predicate need underwrite the metaphorical transfer. Applying " o g r e " metaphorically to Oswald may bring about a likening that no literal predicate precisely captures. A Active characterization such as "Simon Legree is an ogre" may involve a fictive metaphor. Since neither "Simon Legree" nor " o g r e " denotes, the metaphor effects no reclassification of denotata. But a reclassification of descriptions occurs. "Ogredescription" applies metaphorically to characterizations that "Simon-Legree-description" applies to literally. A non-null term may occur metaphorically in a fictive context as well. In " D o n Juan is a wolf", the predicate " w o l f " literally denotes wolves and metaphorically denotes obsessively amatory men. Accordingly, it metaphorically picks out obsessively-amatory-man-descriptions, including Don-Juan-descriptions. To say that Don Juan is a wolf is then to effect a metaphorical classification of Don-Juan-descriptions. The metaphorical use of a term effects a new classification not only of the objects it denotes, but also of associated descriptions and pictures. Metaphor is not just ambiguity. Like an ambiguous term, a metaphorical term has more than one extension. But while the several interpretations of an ambiguous expression are semantically independent, a term's metaphorical application depends on its literal application. Although some tokens of " w e e d " apply to unwanted flora and others to mourning garb, neither application influences the other. "Weed" then is ambiguous as between botanical and sartorial readings. But because some tokens of " w e e d " apply literally to unwanted plants others apply metaphorically to Richard's flatterers. The role of " w e e d " in 3 N . Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, Company, 1979, p. 104.

Indianopolis: Hackett Publishing

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classifying people recalls and is guided by its role in classifying plants. To apply "weed" to people then is to use the term metaphorically. A metaphor, Goodman says, is "an affair between a predicate with a past and an object that yields while protesting" 4 . Metaphor depends on both attraction and resistance. A term resists its metaphorical application for the objects it applies to typically do not belong to its literal extension. But it attracts that application, for it likens the objects in its metaphorical extension to those in its literal extension.

Systems Taken in isolation, a predicate is simply a device for grouping objects. Seldom are predicates taken in isolation. They usually function collectively as families of alternatives that sort the objects in a domain. Such a family may be called a scheme, and the objects it sorts its realm. The odd/even scheme applies literally to the mathematical realm; a color scheme, to the visible realm; the animal/vegetable/mineral scheme, to the physical realm. A system is a scheme applied to a realm5. N o more than literal predicates do metaphorical ones function in isolation. Whether explicitly or tacitly, an entire scheme typically transfers to a new realm, the reassignment of predicates reflecting their assignments in their native realm. Metaphor thus is a displacement of a term or scheme under the influence of the rules and habits that determine its original application. Metaphors that merely supply new labels for old kinds are coextensive with available literal labels. Thus, for instance, we might classify alternatives in a binary system as " o n " and " o f f ' or as "pass" and "fail". Such metaphors simply point up or exemplify features their literal and metaphorical referents 4 5

Languages of Art, p. 69. Ibid., pp. 71-74.

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share. But such cases are comparatively rare. Usually a metaphor effects a sorting that no literal scheme does. The objects that instantiate the same metaphorical predicate then coinstantiate no literal predicate. Schemes organize the objects in their realms by establishing relations of inclusion and exclusion. These relations continue to obtain when the scheme transfers. The entire scheme need not, of course, be explicitly mapped onto the new realm. In metaphorical as well as literal cases, semantic systems are systems of implicit alternatives. If we label a social program a war on poverty, we introduce a network of terms for characterizing responses to social conditions. With some, we are at peace. A m o n g these are allies in the current struggle (for example, public education), as well as potential foes (perhaps industrial pollution) we are not yet ready to take on. O u r various attempts to alleviate poverty can be described as campaigns, battles, and skirmishes, and be evaluated as victories or defeats. This need not be explicit. Simply calling our program a war makes the descriptive resources of the militaristic scheme available for describing the social realm. Metaphor does not require an alien realm. A scheme may apply to its native realm in such a way as to effect a novel sorting. In labeling someone an "intellectual midget", we employ a scheme that literally classifies people by stature to classify them on the basis of cognitive attainments. A new sorting of the realm results, since height is no measure of epistemic achievement. Whether a token is literal or metaphorical depends on how it is interpreted. Acceptable interpretations can classify the same tokens differently. Under an interpretation that construes the extension narrowly, relatively few applications are literal, relatively many metaphorical. Under one that construes extension more broadly, more applications are literal. A n interpretation that counts only animal appendages "legs" takes all talk of table legs metaphorically. According to a more generous construal for animals and furniture alike fall under the literal application of "leg".

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Where tokens have divergent extensions, interpretation decides whether the difference is a matter of metaphor or ambiguity. If the application of a term to objects in one domain precedes and informs its application to objects in the other, the latter is metaphorical. If the applications are semantically independent, the expression is ambiguous. It is not always obvious which is the case, and different acceptable interpretations may yield different verdicts. Whether "lame duck" is ambiguous or metaphorical depends on whether, according to the interpretation in effect, politicians who are about to leave office exemplify features of disabled water fowl.

Truth Truth is not exclusively literal. Thinkers who relate everything to a single central thesis, Isaiah Berlin contends, are hedgehogs and those who pursue a variety of unrelated cognitive ends, foxes 6 . Even though "Plato is a hedgehog" is literally false, under Berlin's system it is metaphorically true; whereas "Plato is a f o x " is both literally and metaphorically false. " T r u e " and "false" then are not equivalent to "literally true" and "literally false"; nor is "denotes" equivalent to "literally denotes". For "hedgehog" metaphorically denotes Plato. To construe metaphors as true involves no violation of Tarski's theory 7 . Any interpreted extensional language admits of a Tarski truth definition, so long as its primitives are finite in number and certain types of self reference are barred. A truth definition is formally correct if it yields no paradoxical sentences such as This very sentence is false.

6 I. Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox, N e w York: Simon and Schuster, 1953, p. 1. 7 Cf. A. Tarski, "The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages", Logic, Seamrttics, and Metmathematics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.

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It is materially adequate if the sentences it yields are replacements of the schema: (T) X is true if and only if p

where the name of a sentence replaces X and the sentence itself (or its translation into the metalanguage) replaces p. Interpretation of primitives is given trivially, by a list. Thus "snow" denotes snow; "white" denotes each white thing; and so on. Nothing in Tarski's formal definition of truth mandates any particular choice of primitives or any particular assignment of objects as their extensions. Any semantic system that satisfies the formal requirements has a truth definition. Metaphorical systems typically do so 8 . Metaphor consists in applying a scheme to a new realm, or in applying it to its old realm in a new way. Any scheme that has a truth definition when interpreted literally has a truth definition when interpreted metaphorically. Whether snow is identified with frozen particles of water vapor, or with interference on the television screen, "snow" denotes snow. And "Snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white. Since "true" is a semantic predicate, a truth definition can be given only for an interpreted language. But whether the interpretation is literal or metaphorical makes no difference. The construction of a truth definition explains what it is for the sentences of a system to be true, not what it is for them to be metaphorical. A complete account of metaphorical truth plainly requires both. The point here is that if we accept Tarski's criterion for a formally correct and materially adequate definition of truth, we have no reason to deny that many metaphorical sentences, even though literally false, are true. Each system has its own truth definition. Under a literal system, "Plato is a hedgehog" is false; under a metaphorical one, it is true. The fact that we define "truth" for separate sys8 For an argument that mataphor is extensional, cf., C. Z. Elgin and I. Scheffler, "Mainsprings of Metaphor", The Journal of Philosohy, 84 (1987): 331335.

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tems rather than for the language as a whole is no special cause for concern. Tarski recognized that as it stands a natural language does not admit of a truth definition. Regimentation is necessary to eliminate paradox-generating semantic terms, and to partition the vocabulary into primitive and non-primitive terms. Multiple, divergent definitions are required to handle vagueness and indexicality. And so on. Moreover, natural language is evidently too unwieldy to accommodate itself readily to the demands of regimentation. Truth definitions for sublanguages are far easier to supply. Recognition of this often leads to treating a preferred sublanguage (usually, the language of science) as though it were the whole language, thereby effectively excluding all other sentences as insusceptible of truth. The cost of this move is prohibitive. Not only metaphorical sentences, but also metaphysical sentences, evaluative sentences, statements of propositional attitude, and much of ordinary non-scientific discourse then do not admit of truth. Since the formal requirements for a truth definition dictate no such exclusion, and since we are strongly inclined to consider such sentences true, it is better to define "true" for the systems or sublanguages such sentences belong to rather than conclude that because they fail to fit into a preferred regimentation of the language of science, they are not candidates for truth. Davidson 9 contends that a truth definition yields semantic rules for a language. Because he thinks no such rules can be given for metaphors, he denies that metaphors can be true10. But the "rules" a truth definition yields are trivial, and are equally satisfied whether a sentence is interpreted literally or metaphorically. So if a truth definition gives semantic rules, there is no reason to deny that there are semantic rules for 9 D. Davidson, "Semantics for Natural Language", in: D. Davidson and G. Harman (eds.), The Logic of Grammar, Encino: Dickinson, 1975, p. 18. 10 Except, of course, metaphorical sentences like "No man is an island", which are true under their literal interpretation. Cf. D. Davidson, "What Metaphors Mean", in: S. Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979, pp. 29-45.

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metaphors. Such rules, like the rules for literal language, will of course be utterly uninformative. To avoid paradox, we need not banish all semantic terms from the object language. Only those coextensive with "true", "false", and "denotes" and the like need be excluded. Since "literal(ly)" and "metaphorical(ly)" give rise to no paradox, they may remain. If the object language retains them, "S is p" is metaphorically true = S is metaphorically p

just as "S is p" is literally true = S is literally/).

If the object language excludes them, we are left with the original formulation of Convention (T): " 5 is p" is true = S is p.

But this is indifferent as between literal and metaphorical readingsPerhaps Davidson is concerned with the rules for primitive denotation, not just with sentences that satisfy Convention (T). But the same point applies to these. If the object language excludes "literal(ly)" and "metaphorical(ly) " , that " s n o w " denotes snow

is indifferent as between literal and metaphorical readings. If it includes them, " s n o w " literally denotes literal snow

and " s n o w " metaphorically denotes metaphorical snow.

The so-called rules of primitive denotation remain trivial. We no more know how to identify the stuff " s n o w " metaphorically applies to on the basis of the latter rule than we know how to identify the stuff " s n o w " literally applies to on the basis of the former.

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Metaphor as Cognitive Davidson further contends that metaphor is non-cognitive. This popular canard is hard to fathom given the contributions metaphors to indisputably cognitive disciplines. Computer metaphors configure the domain of cognitive science. These metaphors, Boyd argues 11 , cannot be dismissed as merely decorative or heuristic, for we currently have no nonmetaphorical way to draw the same distinctions. The constellation of computer metaphors organizes the psychological realm in a way that no literal scheme does. Until a coextensive literal scheme develops, the metaphor is ineliminable. The metaphors serve to focus psychological research. The goal of that research is not to discover what the metaphor's author intended, but how human cognition unfolds - something no more known to the author than to anyone else working in the field. In science, a metaphorical claim functions like any other hypothesis. Diverse members of the scientific community articulate, clarify, disambiguate, and elaborate it. Such a metaphor does not reside in a single work, nor is it the property of a single author. Like a literal hypothesis, a metaphorical one will be incorporated into a scientific theory if it proves fruitful, explanatory, and (at least approximately) true. Metaphorical scientific claims evidently perform the same functions as literal ones. Both are open to intersubjective scrutiny. Both can be contested, confirmed or disconfirmed by evidence, accepted and incorporated into a science or rejected as false or as trivial or as lacking in explanatory power. The computer metaphor, with its talk of inputs, outputs, accessing, and processing, facilitates communication and verbal reasoning about human cognition. The metaphor then both organizes the phenomena for investigation and provides a vocabulary in which to conduct that investigation. Surely a metaphor that plays these roles enhances understanding. 11 R. Boyd, "Metaphor and Theory Change", in: A. Ortony (ed.) and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Metaphor

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Metaphor functions cognitively in another way as well. Recall that a scheme determines a system of kinds according to which the objects in a realm are classified. No scheme provides a label for every set of objects in its realm. One function of metaphor is to introduce a new mode of organization by classifying under a single label objects that are classed under diverse literal labels12. Metaphor thus augments our conceptual repertoire. It enlarges our stock of predicates for classifying the objects in a domain. This might, of course, be done without recourse to metaphor. We could simply introduce a new literal taxonomy to effect novel groupings. The problem is to discover what new groupings are wanted. The metaphorical application of a scheme to a new realm employs a mode of organization that has proven useful elsewhere. By deploying available conceptual resources, the metaphor facilitates comprehension and communication about the newly organized realm. At the same time, it exhibits affinities between its literal and metaphorical realms.

Likening The metaphorical application of a term likens the objects in its metaphorical and literal extensions. The difficulty is to say how. Metaphor is often said to be grounded in similarity. A term then applies metaphorically to certain objects because they are similar to the ones it applies to literally. The problem is that everything is somehow similar to everything else. So if similarity underwrites metaphor, every term applies metaphorically to every object. This just is not so. In Richard II, "weed" applies metaphorically to Bushy and Green, not to Bolingbroke, Richard, or John of Gaunt. Unlike similarity, metaphorical likening is selective.

12 Cf. "Metaphor as Moonlighting".

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T h e metaphorical application of " w e e d " to B u s h y and G r e e n does not stem f r o m their satisfying s o m e general formula S is metaphorically a weed s S is literally p

where p stands for s o m e finite string of specifiable predicates that literal weeds instantiate. F o r metaphors typically lack literal paraphrases. N o r does the application of a term to diverse extensions automatically effect likening. W h e n a term applies a m b i g u o u s l y to objects in different extensions, no likening takes place. It is tempting here to try to pass the buck. W h y not say that metaphorical likening results f r o m s o m e sort of psychological association? T h e n " w e e d " applies metaphorically to B u s h y and G r e e n because calling t h e m weeds p r o v o k e s an association with undesirable plants. Since calling B o l i n g b r o k e a weed elicits no such association, he is not in the metaphorical extension of the term. A n d since n o n e is p r o m p t e d when m o u r n i n g clothes are called weeds, that both plants and clothing are called weeds is mere ambiguity. This, to be sure, does not solve the p r o b l e m . B u t it does s u p p l y an excuse f o r denying the p r o b l e m is ours. If metaphorical likening is a matter of p s y c h o logical association, it is a matter for psychologists to explain. O n e does not have to be particularly pessimistic a b o u t p s y c h o l o g y ' s prospects to find this m o v e unattractive. If the application of the term " w e e d " to B u s h y and G r e e n induces a psychological association while its application to B o l i n g b r o k e o r to m o u r n i n g garb does not, it is reasonable to expect semantic differences to account f o r these psychological differences. So even if the exact nature of the association is a matter for psychologists, the differences between metaphorical and nonmetaphorical applications of a term seem not to be. M y thesis is this: Metaphorical likening is b r o u g h t about b y chains of reference linking literal and metaphorical extensions of a term. T h e tenability of m y thesis plainly depends on what I take chains of reference to be.

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Like Goodman, I recognize two basic modes of reference denotation and exemplification. Denotation goes from a label to the objects that label applies to. Exemplification goes in the opposite direction - from a symbol to labels that apply to it. If " g r e e n " denotes grass, "green" refers to grass; if grass exemplifies "green", grass refers to "green". Exemplification is not, however, the converse of denotation. To denote an object, a term need only refer to it. To exemplify a label, an object must both refer to and instantiate that label. Only if grass is green can it exemplify "green". Exemplification is but a subrelation of the converse of denotation. It is the mode of reference that connects with what they sample. So it can transform an object with no history of symbolizing - a rutabaga or a rhinocerous - into a symbol 13 . N o t every symbol is purely denotational or purely exemplificational. Some symbols are referentially complex, involving a number of interacting referential functions. Metaphors are such symbols. But they are sufficiently complex that before considering them it will be fruitful first to investigate the semantics of allusion. Allusion is a form of referential action at a distance. One thing alludes to another by referring to it indirectly. I might, for instance, allude to my joblessness by mentioning that I have lots of free time, a condition exemplified by people who are out of work. The simplest chains are these: 1) a alludes to b by denoting something c that exemplifies b; and 2) a alludes to b by exemplifying something c that denotes b. Schematically, the two simplest cases look like this: In more complicated cases, referential chains are longer: a alludes to b by denoting or exemplifying something that in turn denotes or exemplifies something that ... denotes or exemplifies b 14.

13 Languages of Art, pp. 50-71; With Reference to Reference, pp. 71-96. 14 Cf. N. Goodman, "Routes of Reference", Of Mind and Other Matters, pp. 55-71.

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c

b

a

c

b

a Figure 1

The intermediate links of a referential chain typically are not explicitly identified. If an allusion is at all subtle, the length and configuration of its referential chains and the identities of their intermediate links will not be obvious. Metaphorical likening, I suggest, is a matter of allusion. A metaphor then denotes the objects in its metaphorical extension and alludes to those in its literal extension. Let me illustrate: An epidemic of essentialisra spread throughout philosophy.

"Epidemic" metaphorically denotes essentialism which exemplifes a label such as "disorder acquired by contact with those who have it", a label that also denotes literal epidemics. The chain then goes from the term to its metaphorical denotation, from there to a label both literal and metaphorical denotata exemplify, and on to its literal extension. Schematically: label exemplified

term

metaphorical extension

literal extension

Figure 2

Joint exemplification of the labels in question need not antedate the metaphorical application of the term. A metaphor can effect a likening by bringing certain shared characteristics to

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the fore — that is, by making the objects in its extensions exemplify labels they previously only instantiated. "Hume's Treatise is a gold mine" is more complex. Typically, "gold mine" applies metaphorically to sources of great wealth or profit. Still, the rewards of the Treatise are hardly financial. Rather, "gold mine" metaphorically denotes Hume's Treatise, which exemplifies a label such as "very rewarding". Sources of wealth that "gold mine" ordinarily applies to metaphorically also exemplify this label. These in turn exemplify "highly profitable", a label literal gold mines likewise exemplify. Thus: "gold mine'

"very r e w a r d i n g *

"highly

profitable'

sources of wealth

Figure 3

In such a case, the chain of reference involves a previous metaphorical application of the term. How are we to identify the vehicles of metaphorical likening? Sometimes there are multiple candidates. Suppose Mavis calls Travis a troglodyte. Travis and the individuals in the literal extension of "troglodyte" might jointly exemplify a number of labels - "stupid", "loutish", "primitive", "subhuman". Individually and in combination these labels underwrite the metaphor. So the effectiveness of one chain of reference does not preclude others. Metaphors often are secured by multiple chains. Travis, of course, is not literally subhuman. So a full explication of how "troglodyte" functions metaphorically requires explaining how "subhuman" does. The relevant chain of reference might look like this:

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3. M e t a p h o r and Reference 'primitive label'

"troglodyte*

/

/\

"metaphorically subhuman'

"literally subhuman'

humanoids

Travis

Figure 4

Multiple referential chains evidently may connect metaphorical and literal extensions of a term, and their links may involve further metaphors. Moreover, regardless of the referential chains we have already identified, there remains the prospect others. So although a chain of reference can explain a particular affinity between metaphorical and literal referents, no chain or group of chains can claim to constitute a full literal paraphrase. For we are never in a position to maintain that known chains exhaust the metaphor. Often, as we've seen, a metaphor effects a novel sorting of the objects in its domain. The objects it groups together constitute the extension of no literal term. Once we recognize the way chains of reference link metaphorical and literal referents, the explanation is straightforward. In the simplest cases, the metaphorical referent of a term exemplifies some of the same labels as its literal referent 15 . But not every collection of objects has a literal predicate associated with it, so there need be no literal term that applies to just the objects in the metaphorical realm that exemplify labels in question. If there is not, the application of the metaphor brings about a novel sorting. 15 To avoid needlessly complicating my discussion, I consider only the simplest cases. The point is the same for more complex ones.

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An example may be helpful here. Consider Fred is a mere coat rack.

Fred and literal coat racks jointly exemplify "functions mainly to keep coats off the floor". Fred, we may conclude, does little - his primary contribution to the greater good being to hold coats. Certainly there are literal predicates that characterize such people - "ineffectual", "inconsequential", "of little account", and so on. But not everyone who instantiates these literal predicates, indeed, not even everyone who exemplifies them, exemplifies "functions mainly to keep coats off the floor". So not everybody in the extension of these literal predicates is in the extension of the metaphor. If "a mere coat rack" effects a novel sorting of the human population, no simple literal term denotes all and only those people who are metaphorically mere coat racks. An especially apt metaphor may evoke a shock of recognition. Even though its object does not belong to its literal extension, its application to that object seems peculiarly apposite. Such metaphors sometimes evoke aftershocks as well. Besides the primary chains of reference from their literal to their metaphorical applications, we find chains that go the other way - from the metaphorical back to the literal. The metaphor then prompts a reconsideration of term's literal referents as a result of their being likened to its metaphorical referents. Consider: If they don't surrender, we'll turn their country into a parking lot.

The primary chains of reference go from parking lot construction to the enemy nation's destruction. "Turn it into a parking lot" applies metaphorically to the country because, unless it surrenders, we will cause it to exemplify such labels as "leveled", "demolished", "flattened" - labels exemplified during parking lot construction. But that the annihilation of an enemy nation admits of metaphorical description as turning it into a parking lot provokes a reconceptualization of urban renewal. Secondary chains of reference then go from the destruction of

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countries to the construction of parking lots. These chains involve joint exemplification of a different group of labels - labels like "devastated", "ravaged", "laid waste". The metaphor then underscores the fact that parking lot construction causes the terrain to exemplify these labels. The lore of our fathers, Q u i n e is wont to say, is a fabric of sentences - perhaps a more intricately woven one than he imagines. A term that denotes one thing alludes to something else. It may exemplify as well. It has numerous metaphorical extensions whose members exemplify some of the same labels as its literal referents, and others whose connections to its literal referents are more remote. The complexity and interconnectedness of the term's various referential functions explains why, when a strand breaks, the fabric does not unravel. Typically, a strand is multiply tethered. Severed in one place, elsewhere it holds fast. Moreover, to relieve the tension when the fabric becomes strained, we can cut the strand at any of several places. And in different cases different types of alteration seem best. When cognitive psychologists discover that their literal claims are at odds with their computer metaphor, they may sacrifice literal assertions to safeguard metaphorical ones. Then the metaphors can guide their quest for a better literal account. When we can no longer accept a sentence as literally true, we can sometimes still hold it true by construing it metaphorically. Religious assertions that contravene scientific findings often admit of such reconstruals. When ethologists discover that lions are cowardly and gorillas gentle, we can safeguard earlier metaphors and allusions by reconfiguring referential chains - tethering them to lion-descriptions and gorilla-descriptions, false ones as it turns out, rather than to actual lions and gorillas. The multiplicity of referential connections results in a certain latitude for choice. Investigation may force us to conclude that some modification in a referential network is needed that a given term does not refer in all the ways we thought. Still, empirical investigations do not pinpoint a unique source

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of difficulty or determine what form modification has take. Our understanding of the term's several symbolic roles, an evaluation of their relative importance and centrality, and an appreciation of the human enterprises that embed them ground our choice among revisions. If these choices are not uniquely determined by the evidence, neither are they ad hoc.

Eva Feder

Kittay

4. Metaphor as Rearranging the Furniture of the Mind: A Reply to Donald Davidson's "What Metaphors M e a n " *

The Argument Against Metaphoric Meaning Donald Davidson has argued that metaphors mean nothing but what the literal meanings of the words mean. Going against a tradition of philosophical inquiry which began with Richards and Black, Davidson has claimed that there is no distinct cognitive content to metaphors, that metaphors cannot be paraphrased only because "there is nothing to paraphrase." For students of metaphor who have sought to place metaphor in the pantheon of cognitive thought, Davidson's arguments are a call to arms. They pose a powerful challenge to the thrust and purpose of much current work. The proper response, I believe, lies in bringing to the front some of the weapons forged in the process of investigating the cognitive force of metaphor. These researches have yielded important insights into the nature of non-metaphoric as well as metaphoric language and thought, insights which can be brought to bear on the arguments that Davidson offers. Although some, like Mark Johnson (1981), regard Davidson's claims as a return to the conceptions of language and metaphor which Black challenged just thirty years ago, Davidson is explicit in not wanting to be mistaken as promoting the traditional view that the metaphor merely "seduces the rea-

*

This paper appears in a modified form and in Spanish in The Philosophy of Language, Max Freund (ed.), University of Cost Rica Press, 1987. Portions of it appear in Kittay (1987).

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son" (as Bachelard put it). Or, as Locke says in an exemplary statement: If w e w o u l d speak of things as they are w e must allow that [...] all the artificial and figurative application of w o r d s eloquence hath invented, are f o r nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move passions, and thereby mislead the judgement [...] they [...] cannot but be thought a great fault either of the language or person that makes use of them 1 .

Davidson, on the contrary, professes that "metaphor is a legitimate device not only in literature, but in science, philosophy, and the law" (1981, 202). To clear the "muddle" about metaphoric meaning, he avows, will allow one to see what is truly interesting and valuable about metaphor. While there is no reason to doubt Davidson's sincerity in making this disclaimer, ultimately, underlying his stance toward metaphor's putative cognitive content and special meaning are, I believe, the very assumptions about language which inform a mistrust of metaphor already apparent in Locke. Davidson's argument against metaphoric meaning has three parts. First, he presents objections to extant theories of metaphoric meaning. Second, he argues that the very project of attributing meaning to metaphorical statements is mistaken. Third, he argues against the view that metaphors have an irreducible cognitive content. The argument the very idea of a metaphorical meaning takes the following form: (1) Meaning in language is context-independent.

1

(Bk 3, C h . 10, pp. 105-6, quoted in: de Man (1978) p. 13). See de Man (1978) f o r a discussion on the undoing of this epistemic stance. Locke proceeds to speak of language as "a conduit" that "may corrupt the fountains of k n o w l edge which are in things themselves" and may "break or stop the pipes w h e r e b y it is distributed to public use." Perhaps the ineloquence of a plumbing metaphor permits Locke to remain blind to his o w n rhetorical devices and to miss that the very metaphor he uses f o r language - language as a conduit, a conduit that may adequately or inadequately convey the thought entrusted to it - gives rise to the suspicion of metaphor Locke advocates.

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(2) Aspects of language which are not context-independent are not questions of language meaning, but of language use. (3) Metaphorical interpretation is context-bound hence it is not a question of meaning but of use. (4) Therefore there is no meaning of metaphorical utterances beyond their literal meaning.

He uses the conclusion in (4) to argue against metaphors having a distinct cognitive content: (5) Since metaphors have only a literal meaning, any cognitive content they possess must be expressible in a literal utterance. (6) Whatever is interesting about metaphor must therefore lie in a use of language and cannot be a question of an unparaphraseable cognitive content.

The argument has a positive corollary: (7) Metaphors serve to intimate similarities - and as such are among the endless devices w e use to draw attention to similarities in things.

I will postpone replying to Davidson's arguments against specific theories of metaphoric meaning until after I have examined the basis for his objection to the general project of giving a theory of metaphoric meaning. Thus my response to Davidson will begin by questioning the grounding supposition that literal language is context-independent while metaphors are context-bound. Once this assumption is dislodged, the idea of metaphoric meaning becomes plausible once more. Having reinstated the plausibility of the project, I will focus on Davidson's critiques of extant theories of metaphoric meaning. Taking into account what is valuable in Davidson's critique, I will suggest one formulation of the position that metaphors have meaning that not only by-passes the legitimate difficulties to which Davidson points, but that also points to an account of the irreducibility cognitive content of metaphor. Throughout, I will attempt to throw the reflections of metaphor back onto the views of language Davidson has elsewhere developed and that underlie his opposition to metaphoric meaning and cognitive content.

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On the Very Idea of Metaphoric Meaning The Place of Metaphor in a Truth Semantics Let us begin by considering how the notion of a metaphoric meaning fares within the Davidsonian project of tying meaning to Tarski-like truth conditions. Davidson's view that "to know what it is for a sentence - any sentence - to be true [...] amounts to [...] understanding the language'" (1967, 310) receives its precise formulation in terms of Tarski's convention T. According to Davidson, an adequate semantic theory must yield an appropriate T-sentence for each sentence of the object language; but, we cannot assign these truth conditions to sentences in the object language one at a time - these must be given for the totality of sentences in the language. Thus in learning to interpret a language, we ascertain a pattern amongst those sentences to which speakers of a language assent, and we abstract the word's meaning from its role in these sentences (Davidson, 1974a, 320). For any particular word, we can state its role in a given sentence. (Davidson, 1969b). Davidson recognizes that this account is subject to certain strictures and modifications. "The totality of sentences" refers here only to those sentences for which we have correctly identified a canonical logical form. Moreover, to accommodate the impact of (hidden) indexicals on a sentence's truth conditions, the Tarski T-sentence must be relativized to a speaker, a time, and a place. Let us now ask what happens if we include those sentence that are to be understood metaphorically among the sentences of the language, as part of the "totality of sentences". Tarski was working only with formal languages and so would not concern himself with these. But Davidson wants the Tarskilike conditions to apply to natural language. Researchers have called our attention to the pervasiveness of metaphor in our daily discourse. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, among others). If the Tarski-like conditions apply to natural language, then they will have to apply to metaphorical sentences as well.

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We can see that if we insist that metaphors have no meaning aside from the literal meaning of the words that compose them, then the meaning of metaphors poses no difficulty. While some metaphorical sentences will turn out to be trivially true (e.g., Mao's remark, "A revolution is not a dinner party"), most will be obviously false. Consider, for example, the sentence "Man is a wolf". We can formulate a T-sentence that will provide the truth conditions for the sentence understood literally: "Man is a wolf" is true only if man is a w o l f .

Evidently man is not a wolf. Thus the sentence is simply false. From these truth conditions, taken together with other sentences in the language for which we formulate T-sentences, we can speak of the meanings of the words in the sentence "Man is a wolf". Were there to be distinct metaphoric meanings, then if meaning is necessarily tied to truth-conditions, the corresponding truth-conditions applicable to sentences might well be different from those of the literal meanings. But this state of affairs would be seriously hinder our capacity to abstract the meaning of a term from the totality of sentences for which we have T-sentences. If such metaphorical meanings were included among literal meanings, our terms would have odd and inconsistent extensions, and the truth-conditions for the totality of sentences would fail to yield consistent patterns of word and sentence meaning. A number of remarks are in order. The first has to do the empirical method for determining the truth-conditions of the sentences which Davidson advocates for a theory of radical interpretation. Building on the principle of charity, Davidson says, I propose that we take the fact that speakers of a language hold a sentence to be true (under observed circumstances) as prima facie evidence that the sentence is true under those circumstances. For example, positive instances of "Speakers (of German) hold 'Es schneit' true when, and only when, it is snowing" should be taken to confirm not o n l y the generalization, but also the T-

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sentences, " ' E s schneit' is true (in German) for a speaker x at the time t if and only if it is snowing at t (and near x).

But now consider a standard metaphorical sentences, "Time flies" and imagine a intrepid foreign interpreter encountering this sentence, along with sentences such as "The bird in the sky flies", "Airplanes fly", etc. Our non-English speaker discovers that the speakers of English assent to "time flies", particularly at entertaining parties, engrossing movies, etc., and that the sentence is frequently asserted and assented to among speakers (at least, on such occasions). Our interpreter would be in a position to fashion several T-sentences in her own language. We might translate these roughly as "The bird in the sky flies" is true (in English) for speaker x at time t if and only if the bird in the sky flies at time t (and near x)," "The airplane flies above us" is true ( in English) for speaker x at time t, if and only if the airplane flies above the speaker x at time t," and "Time flies is true (in English) for a speaker x at time t if and only if time flies at time t (for speaker x)." If we should take as true sentences which speakers of the language would assent to, then it seems that we must take "Time flies" to be true at least some of the time, e.g. when the speaker is having fun and when the speaker will not assent to the statement that "Time drags on." But this is just the case with all literal sentences which have hidden demonstratives. After all, it is not always true that an airplane flies above us, etc. The point is that if we assess the truth of sentences through what Davidson has called the Social Theory of Interpretation, there will be metaphorical sentences such as the one above which will have to be assigned truth conditions appropriate to its metaphorical sense and not its literal sense. This is especially true of those sentences where a metaphorical interpretation is far more natural than the literal interpretation and which appear so frequently in the language that intuitions about their (literal) truth have become unclear. We could, of course, treat such sentences merely as idioms that ought to be understood as a single lexical item. But then

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we would have to account for the fact that we can form intelligible sentences such as " T h e years fly b y " , " T h e day just flew", etc. O r we could say if we lift the restriction of what can serve as the subject of "to fly," permitting abstract objects as well as concrete entities may be said to fly, these sentences can, under certain circumstances, be assigned T-sentences which come out true. Then nothing about the specificity of flying, such as moving through air, not touching the ground, and so forth figure in the meaning of fly. We would say that " t o f l y " just means " t o pass by very rapidly." The difficulty is that we then have to explain how we can have a sentence such as " T h e plane is flying very slowly" which is true if and only if the plane is flying very slowly, relativized to a speaker, time and place. Other attempts to find a meaning that accommodates literal and metaphorical occurrences, I suggest, will meet similar problems. A more promising solution may be to relative sentences to pertinent contextual features - features which would indicate a mode of discourse, that is, if the words of an utterance ought to be taken literally or metaphorically or in some other fashion. Then could we entertain and perhaps accommodate metaphoric meaning - but this challenges the supposition that literal language is context-independent for then literal as well as metaphorical sentences would have to be marked for their mode of discourse 2 . And now we get to the heart of the matter, for impediment to incorporating metaphoric meaning is directly related to the putative context-independence of literal meaning. In "What 2

A solution, related to the one suggested here, is offered by J o s e p h Stern (1985) who proposes that we employ Kaplan's distinction between character and content. Stern suggests an Mthat operator, analogous to Kaplan's Dthat operator to mark a term as having a metaphorical character which then depends on contextual considerations for the specification of its content. This is perhaps a direction worth pursuing. However, Stern and I disagree with respect to the relation between the specification of content and the semantics of metaphor. For a criticism of Davidson developed along the lines suggested by Stern, see Stern (1991).

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Metaphors Mean?" Davidson does not explicitly allude to the tie between meaning and truth-conditions to argue against the idea of metaphoric meaning. Perhaps this is because he, surprisingly, is willing to countenance some sense of "metaphoric truth", one that does not apply to sentences. Instead he posits the context-independence of literal meaning and the distinction between word meaning and word use in his argument against metaphoric meaning. In studies of semantics, it has long been a supposition, and seemingly a necessary one, that literal meaning and literal truth conditions can be assigned independently of the context of use. But to see why it is an important supposition in Davidson's scheme consider that we arrive at the meaning of words by positing Tarski-like truth-conditions for the sentences of the language; the truth conditions, which, when given for the totality of sentences, yield the meaning of the words which compose these sentences only if we can abstract the meanings of the words from the specific contexts in which they occur. Given that the close relation between meaning, truth conditions, and context-independence yields an inevitable rejection of metaphoric meaning, ought we to reject Davidson's theory or the possibility of metaphoric meaning; can we perhaps loosen the knot tying meaning to truth conditions so as to plausibly concede to the many appealing aspects of Davidson's position, yet allow in some sense of metaphoric meaning? I suggest that the knot becomes untied precisely by virtue of the challenge posed by a consideration of metaphor and the context-dependency of literal as well as metaphoric language.

Meaning and

Context

The first question we want to raise concerning metaphors is how we come to recognize that an utterance is metaphorical. A traditional answer has already been alluded to here - metaphors are utterances which are generally obviously true or obviously false. But certainly we utter obvious truths and obvi-

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ous falsehoods for many reasons, and we rarely need to think very long or hard about when such are metaphoric uses. Instead, I will maintain, audaciously, that any utterance we can interpret metaphorically, we can also interpret literally - although a literal reading may sometimes be very bizarre. If we now say that it is the context which determines that the sentence be interpreted metaphorically, then it is also the context that determines that the sentence be interpreted literally. In that case, literal meaning is, at the very least, context-bound in that we cannot supply a correct interpretation, i.e., a literal interpretation, and hence literal truth conditions, without a consideration of the context of the utterance. Here a Davidsonian may ask: why do I need any contextual material to know that the truth value of "Man is a wolf" is always false? For the T-sentence gives me the condition that this sentence is true if and only if man is a wolf, and clearly, men are not wolves. Yet Davidson himself provides an example of a literal use of a sentence which would generally be interpreted as a metaphor. "The men are pigs" would, in most contexts, be metaphorical and false, regardless of how the indexicals are specified; but when uttered by Ulysses of his men in Circe's palace, we are to suppose that these are meant as literal and truthful words. "The men are pigs" is true for Ulysses at time t, where t is the time he uttered the sentence in Circe's palace, if and only if the men are pigs. But even if the men are literally pigs, we could mean and understand the sentence as metaphorical at the same time. Then how we assign the truth value of "The men are pigs" as said by Ulysses in Circe's palace depends on whether we take the sentence to be literal or metaphorical. Indeed Davidson provides several fine examples of how utterances which, at first glance, may be supposed to be metaphorical and clearly false, turn out to be meant literally and truthfully. What we see is that, even with no mention of "metaphorical meanings", the truth conditions appropriate to a sentence's interpretation are effected by our understanding of whether the utterance is to be interpreted literally or metaphorically. And, as I pointed out, if the deter-

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mining factor in the case of metaphor is context, then context plays the same determining factor if the sentence turns out to be literal. The argument establishes that the assignment of a truth value to a sentence is sensitive to two factors which are not neatly encompassed by the Davidsonian theory. First, that metaphor - that is, whether a sentence is to be understood literally of metaphorically - appears to have some bearing on the assignment of the truth value of a sentence and hence on its meaning; and second, that contextual factors not fully specified as indexicals in a T-sentence - at least when the sentence is clearly ambiguous between a literal and a metaphorical interpretation - have a bearing on determining the truth value of sentences. Let us deal with how a Davidsonian might respond to the second challenge first. Davidson (1967) has already indicated to us how we may handle cases of ambiguity. Could we not simply assign two (or more) sets of truth conditions for each reading. Indeed we could not, for on Davidson's account the metaphorical reading, unlike ambiguity between two literal readings, has not an independent status as "meaning" and the meaning is simply the literal meanings of the words. In that case, there ought not to be two sets of truth conditions but one. Could we not then assign this sort of ambiguity to the class of sentences lacking a clearly understood logical form sentences whose analyses must await a deeper understanding of logical form. No. Hopes to consign this problem to that messy drawer are dashed when we realize that virtually any word, phrase, sentence or group of sentences we may employ could, in the right context and in the right circumstances, be understood metaphorically. Were we to live in a sufficiently repressive society, this essay, in its entirety, could conceivably be a metaphorical critique of our present socio-economic system - one too dangerous to deliver outright - and my argument for the context-dependency of literal language might be a call for recognizing our mutual interdependence in a struggle for freedom. Wild? Just think of allegories and political trea-

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tises written as "innocent" tales. In fact, it is not too difficult to build the argument that, within the requisite context any utterance could be metaphorical - just as any (or at least virtually any) utterance could be literal. These contextual considerations are not confined to one part of the language. That context determines whether a sentence is to be understood literally or metaphorically is only the beginning of its involvement in meaning. John Searle offers an amusing and convincing set of arguments that even in the case of that quintessential literal sentence "The cat is on the mat" (apart from the evident indexical elements) there are an indefinitely large number of background assumptions against which we understand this sentence, assumptions which cannot, in any simple or obvious manner, be built into the semantics of the sentence. Yet, Searle argues, the truth conditions of the sentence are nonetheless dependent on these contextual background assumptions 3 . There is no need to reproduce the Searle's various examples. As Davidson himself notes, in a somewhat different context: If the vast amount of agreement on plain matters that is assumed in communication escapes notice, it's because the shared truths are too many and too dull to bear mentioning. What we want to talk about is what's new, surprising, or disputed. (1974a, 321)

The sort of background assumptions of which Searle speaks and to which even the most evident literal statements are relative, are just those "plain matters" which escape our notice,

3 Searle (1978) invites us to consider the truth conditions of this sentence uttered by a speaker referring to a cat and a mat as they float about outside the earth's gravitational field: is the cat still on the mat when its position corresponds to what it would be, when relative to our gravitational field, we would say the mat is on the cat or the cat is beside the mat? Now Searle asks that we imagine ourselves travelers on a spaceship. As we look out we see one of two circumstances - either, speaking from our usual vantage point, the cat is on the mat or the cat is under the mat. In that case, Searle suggests that "The cat in on the mat" would be a clear and literal response to the question "Where is it now?".

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but which are operative nonetheless in our understanding of our language4. If metaphors seem particularly context-bound, it is because a literal interpretation yields statements which are at odds with the normal background assumptions to which literal and conventionally used language is relative. But if literal language is context-dependent, several questions arise with respect to metaphor. Can we still draw a clear distinction between language use and language meaning? If we can, on which side of the divide does metaphor fall. If not, does the connection between meaning and truth condition become far looser than Davidson would have us believe. If we have driven a wedge between meaning and truth conditions, can we admit in metaphorical meanings? Searle thinks that the context-dependency of literal language does nothing to disturb the distinction between "sentence meaning and speaker meaning", a distinction he sees as coincident with the meaning/use distinction Davidson depends on. But "speaker meaning" is still meaning and it bears on truthconditions - thus to assimilate metaphoric meaning to speaker meaning would be to admit it as meaning - albeit not as narrowly defined as Davidson's conception of meaning 5 . Once we allow context to function in the case of literal meaning, then as Searle's move indicates, the distinction which remains between use and meaning shifts. The shift is such that metaphors, while a use of language, is one that impacts on meaning and truth conditions and which needs consideration in a semantic theory. To illustrate the shift in the distinction between meaning and use, consider Davidson's example, "Lattimore's a Communist." The sentence, says Davidson (1981, 213) can be used 4 In Kittay (1987) I argue that the context dependency of literal language goes beyond even the general dependency on those shared beliefs discussed by Searle. See the discussion in Chapter 3. 5 Davidson does not allow for speaker meaning. While I take metaphoric meaning to be a species of utterance meaning, I do not think utterance meaning need be coincident with speaker meaning. See Kittay (1982b).

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to make an assertion, a true or false accusation, or a metaphor. Certainly, he would concede that it might be stated ironically. For example, were it spoken of an ostentatious capitalist as he hands a beggar a dime. Now contrast the sentence uttered as a lie and as a bit of irony - a contrast sharpened by the fact that in both cases the sentence is false and is known to be false by the speaker. I will call the text in which a sentence occurs, along with the conventions required to understand the text and the indexically specifiable circumstances of the utterance, the discourse situation. For the statement to succeed as irony, there must be something in the discourse situation which indicates to the hearer that the utterance is false. There must also be something in the discourse situation indicating that the speaker knows that the sentence is false, that the speaker knows that the hearer knows the sentence to be false, and that the speaker knows that the hearer knows that the speaker knows that the hearer knows that the sentence is false. This last requirement bears a similarity to Gricean conditions for nonnatural meaning - that is meaning that is intentionally produced by speakers6. No such circumstances pertain to lies. In the case of the lie, it is important that the audience not realize that the speaker is aware of the falsehood of his sentence. The success of the speakers' communication depends on it. Gricean-like meaning intentions for the sentence as lie are the same as for the sentence as truthful, while the Gricean-like meaning intentions for the

6

Grice makes the distinction between utter's meaning, utterance-meaning and utterance occasion meaning. What I have attributed to the disourse situation, Grice would attribute to conversational implicatures. But understanding the conversational implicatures will allow us to understand the meaning of an utterance on a particular occasion. Grice maintains a strong connection between the logical properties of language and the truth of sentences in the language, but he permits a concept occasion meaning and utterance meaning in which conversational implicatures are featured among the applicability conditions of the utterance. See Grice (1989), pp. 213-224, 86-117.

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sentence as irony are different than the sentence as literal and truthful statement. Notice that we do not need access to an actual speaker nor to her intentions to determine the meaning of an ironical statement. For the sentence to be correctly understood, i.e. correctly interpreted, the text in which the sentence is embedded, or the discourse in which the sentence occurs, or the background against we we understand the sentence must contain some indication that allows the hearer to surmise that the speaker knows that Lattimore is not a Communist and that the other Gricean-like intentions hold. When teaching students to detect Socrates' irony, we must teach them how to read the text so that they recognize that the irony is evident in the text itself. Because their proper interpretation requires identifiable elements of the discourse situation, metaphor and irony demand a semantic analysis and are not simply forms of language use. At least when we include within meaning speaker's intentions, or perhaps better the contextual indicators of speaker's intentions, ironical language falls on one side of the use/meaning divide, while lies fall on the other7. I wish to argue, moreover, that while the truth value of the sentence does not in any way depend on whether the utterance is a lie - although if it is a lie its truth value often, although not necessarily, will be "false" - this is not so in the case of irony. We have argued that it may be the case that if a sentence is taken as a metaphor, it has "false" as its truth value; but if taken as a literal sentence, it has "true" as its truth value. Davidson's own example of the Mirror headline illustrates this point. If the sentence "Hemingway is lost in Africa" is meant 7

It is true that Grice himself would most likely take the recognition of the intentions to involve a conversational implicature of the sort he discusses in Grice (1989). Conversational implicatures of this sort belong, according to Grice, within pragmatics. I believe that my argument indicates that there is here an understanding of meaning entirely continuous with the nonnatural meaning (the paradigmatic instance of which is linguistic meaning), which is crucial to what constitutes an ironical utterance. This meaning, I call later in this paper, second-order meaning.

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metaphorically, that is we mean to say that Hemingway died in Africa, we assign its literal truth value as "false". Were he lost, we would have, at least at the time of the newspaper headline, no way to ascertain that he had in fact died and so we could not be in a position both to ascertain that he had died and that he was lost. But if it is meant literally and Hemingway was in fact lost in Africa, then we assign to the sentence the value "true". The same point can be made of the ironical utterance. The equivocation surrounding the meaning of "Communist" can only be recognized if some non-literal meaning of the sentence is recognized. Once again, a standard reply by a Davidsonian might be something like this: According to the theory, "Lattimore is a Communist" is true if and only if Lattimore is a Communist. If Lattimore is a Communist then the sentence is true, if Lattimore is not a Communist then the sentence is false. The meaning of the sentence is independent of the irony or lack or irony used in putting the sentence forth. I may interpret it a literal, ironical or metaphorical, but what it is that I interpret is a sentence with the meaning as specified in the Tsentence. To argue my point, I would like once more to invoke Davidson's holism and his Social Theory of Interpretation. For how we determine if Lattimore is a Communist, if, let us say, the denotation of 'Lattimore' falls under the extension of 'Communist', must depend on the other sentences in the language and the role played by 'Communist' in those sentences. Presumably all the sentences from which we make the determination concerning the extension of 'Communist' are literal. Yet the only account of how extensions get assigned depends on a theory of interpretation, that is, a theory about determining what speakers assent to when they are presented with sentences in the language. But, as I argued before, what they assent to, depends upon how they understand them - as literal or as metaphorical or, in this case, as ironical. Either the account begs the question of nonliteral meaning at the crucial point in the argument, or the Social Theory of Interpretation is

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incompatible with the theory of meaning based on Tarski's theory of truth. At stake is the concept of language and meaning as context independent. Implicit in the arguments above is that contextfree language is undetermined with respect to its meaning. This is not to claim that neither words nor sentences have any meaning outside of a context, but only that there remains much that is unfixed except in a particular context, and that the specificity of meaning which pertains to some sentences depends heavily on default assumptions that can always be overriden. When these defaults are overridden, the sentence is open to different understandings that are not thereby arbitrary. Examining the way in which metaphors take on meaning is a project of displaying how overrriden default assumptions given rise to distinctive meaning. Philosophers of language and most linguists are accustomed to speak of semantics in terms of word meaning and sentence meaning and, therefore the inclusion of features from the discourse situation appear to be contextual and pragmatic rather than semantic. By investigating metaphor, we learn that not only is it not the case that a word, to recall Frege, only has meaning in the context of a sentence, but a sentence lacks a definitive meaning outside of its linguistic and situational context - its discourse situation. Recognizing that T-sentences need to include a consideration of indexical elements is already a move in the direction of recognizing some important features of the discourse situation, but much remains to be done to learn how to identify and systematically specify relevant contextual features 8 .

8

I attempt to grapple with some of the relevant contextual features of discourse as they are pertinent to metaphor in Kittay (1984, 1987).

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Evaluating Theories of Metaphoric Meaning I have argued that once we acknowledge the context-dependency of literal language, then the use/meaning distinction no longer precludes a consideration of a metaphoric meaning not identical to a literal meaning. But granted that metaphorical meaning is not impossible, are there any good candidates for a theory of metaphorical meaning. Unless some good candidate theories are available, Davidson's arguments against a distinct cognitive content attributable to metaphors may still hold sway.

Metaphoric Meaning as Extended

Meaning

Davidson first identifies the theory, or the view "that in metaphor certain words take on new, or what is often called 'extended,' meanings." (203). The sense is extended by including additional entities under the term's "extension". In the example Davidson gives from Dante, "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters", "face" acquires a metaphorical sense in that it now refers not only to all faces, but also to waters. Davidson argues that this account cannot be right since then waters must really have faces, if "face" is to correctly apply to waters. The metaphor "evaporates" and there is little difference now between a metaphor and a new term introduced into our vocabulary. Davidson, of course, is correct. The criticism can even be amplified. If by "new" or "extended meaning" we mean something like an additional dictionary meaning, then the view is clearly false. For metaphor would cause dictionary entries to swell to an unreasonable size, and it is clear that metaphors do no such thing. The problem with Davidson's argument, as Black (1978) noted, is that it is not clear that Davidson is attacking any view that receives notice today. In this form, the argument attacks an already discredited view.

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There is, however, an intensionalist form of the view, especially as proffered by a number of linguists and linguisticallyminded philosophers. We can expand Davidson's critique to include these. On the intensionalist theory of metaphoric meaning, the meaning of a metaphorically used term is, at least within the context of the utterance, altered by virtue of its combination with literally used words that violate certain semantic strictures on acceptable combinations of terms. This view, generally associated with proponents of a componential semantics, I call the feature addition/deletion thesis. On this account, metaphors results when rules that prescribe the meaningful combination of words are broken and/or are superseded by rules that transfer, add or delete semantic features of the constituent words of a sentence. Thus within the sentence, "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," the usual components of face, say [{surface)(frontal)(part of head)" H U M A N v ANIMALS,,] combine with the semantic features of "water," say [{inanimate)(liquid)(clear)(odor/ess)(H20)] so as to alter the meaning of face and, on some views to alter the meaning of waters. In particular, there will be a transfer of features, say (liquid){clear), etc. to "face" and (frontal) and (HUMAN v ANIMALS) to waters. In a variant, certain semantic features of the salient terms are deleted, while others are added. Unlike the extensional view Davidson cites, the feature addition/deletion thesis figures in many current attempts by psychologists and linguists to explain metaphoric meaning, although it is a view that has begun to fall out of favor. To view metaphorical interpretation as a process of "feature addition/deletion" is fundamentally mistaken for reasons similar to those given by Davidson. Consider Yeat's metaphor "childbearing" moon as in the line, "Crazed through much childbearing, the moon is staggering in the sky." Let us assume that to construe this metaphor we displace the features in "Moon" which violate selection restrictions on what may be "child-bearing", e.g. INANIMATE, and replace them with just the features appropriate to entities that are

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child-bearing, ANIMATE, HUMAN, FEMALE. Thus to make sense of the phrase we must presumably disregard the inanimate, non-human, sexually neuter attributes of "moon." Such a conception of the moon strikes us more properly as mistaken than as metaphorical. This phrase is a metaphor not because some of features of "moon" are de-emphasized, but because it is capable of making the reader grasp both the actual barrenness of the moon, and its seeming procreative cycle as it grows from a thin sliver to the rounded shape of a pregnant woman. But we need not evoke the powers of poetic metaphor to see that the feature addition/deletion program is mistaken. It fails for it does not allow us to distinguish metaphors from mistakes and from conventions not completely congruent with the conventions of quotidien language, e.g. technical language or descriptions in science fiction or fairy tales. In mathematics, for example, we often encounter words of our everyday language used in a completely new way. The terms "rank," "chain," "nest," in set theory have only a few of the lexical features which usually define them in ordinary language. In terms of the deletion/addition thesis, we could say that their interpretation in a sentence of set theory involves a displacement of semantic features. Yet these terms are not being used metaphorically when they are used in set theory. Rather they are technical terms. According to the feature addition/deletion thesis we would interpret both metaphorical and technical discourse in precisely the same way — clearly an intuitively unacceptable conclusion. In both the extensional and intensional versions of the view that metaphoric meaning is somehow a modification or an extension of the ordinary meaning, the original literal meaning drops out. In the precess metaphor is lost, and we have instead a neologism of sorts.

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Metaphor as Ambiguity The second position Davidson reviews specifically attempts to avoid this error. Here metaphor is thought to be a species of ambiguity - having both the established sense and an extraordinary and metaphorical sense. Davidson points out, with justification, that unlike ordinary cases of ambiguity we do not need to "hesitate" or decide between alternative readings of the two meanings of a metaphor, and that punning, the one case of ambiguity in which we are not called upon to choose between alternative readings, is still not metaphorizing. Davidson again is right. But again, few writers take metaphor to be ambiguity as such.

The Double Semantic Import of Metaphor The most thoughtful works on the subject propound a view similar to the last account Davidson criticizes. This position, attributed by Davidson primarily to Paul Henle, but shared by proponents of interaction view, calls attention to the double semantic import of metaphors. In addition to its usual meaning, there is a second meaning which is connected to the first through a rule. Thus we hold the two meanings in mind at once. Davidson sees a strong parallel with the account Frege gives for the meaning of terms in oblique contexts. One meaning fixes the referent of a term in ordinary contexts, while another fixes the reference in the special context of modal operators of propositional attitudes. Imaging a conversation with a visitor from Saturn to whom we have painstakingly taught the word "floor", a word we intend to metaphorically apply to the earth as we take off in his spaceship, Davidson asks, What difference would it make to your friend which way he took it? With the theory of metaphor under consideration, very little difference, for according to that theory a word has a new meaning in metaphorical context; the occasion

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of the metaphor would, therefore, be the occasion of learning the new meaning. (1981,206-7).

Davidson, has put his finger (metaphorically speaking) on a crucial issue - although he does not draw the correct conclusion. For someone who is just learning the language, and who shares neither a common language nor, possibly, a common set of beliefs, a metaphorical use might appear to be but another meaning of the expression. We could not expect the stranger to grasp metaphorical intent. This is because metaphor can be understood as such only by someone who has mastered certain rules of language and (most likely) someone who shares a set of background assumptions which underlies the particular linguistic system. Studies have indicated that children, under the age of six, have great difficulty understanding novel metaphors and until approximately the age of eight use very few metaphors. (See Asch and Nerlove, I960) 9 . The reason for this, I believe, is that children have not mastered the meaning of words sufficiently to be in a position to recognize the strangeness of a metaphorical use. In addition, the categories of children under six is still quite fluid (Kohlberg, 1966). They therefore may have less difficulty assimilating a new object within the extension of a term than recognizing that the term lies outside the categorical bounds of the usual sense of term. Because such background knowledge - both about the world and about the language is required to understand metaphor, the failure of young children and Saturnians to perceive a distinctly metaphorical meaning constitutes no argument against the view that metaphor carries a double semantic import. 9 There is controversy in the psychological literature with respect to these finding. Winner et al have claimed to undermine some, although not all of the validity of this claim. However, the examples upon which Winner worked and Nerlove and Asch used are considerably different. Winner worked with very conventional metaphors and examples that I would not necessarily take to be metaphors at all. In one study, she and her colleagues suggest that there is primitive-metaphoric interpretations and cognitive prerequisites of mature metaphoric comprehension.

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What such a double semantic import might amount to ought to emerge as we follow another suggestion of Davidson's, namely the analogy he draws with Frege. N o t only will we exploit this comparison, but we will use further analogies with Frege to sketch an account of metaphoric meaning which skirts some of Davidson's objections and renders others invalid.

Metaphor as Second-Order Meaning When I. A . Richards (1936) called attention to the "two ideas" in metaphor, he labeled them "vehicle" and "tenor". The vehicle was the term with its ordinary sense. It was a vehicle for the tenor, that which the metaphor spoke of - now generally called the topic. Max Black (1962) spoke of "interaction" as the relation between the two 10 . Davidson attributes to the theory that metaphors have a double semantic import the view that the tenor (topic or principle subject) is the metaphoric meaning. While some writers do appear to espouse this view, it is clearly a mistake to suppose that the topic is the meaning of the metaphor. Taking the simple metaphorical sentence, "man is a w o l f " and assuming that the vehicle is " w o l f " while the topic is man, we see that if " w o l f " is the metaphorically used term and the topic is its new (metaphorical) meaning, then the metaphor "man is a wolf" amounts to the tautology "man is a man". Then, just as Frege began his query into the distinction between sense and reference by asking why "The morning star is the evening star" is not simply a tautology equivalent to " A = A , " we can highlight the distinction between the meaning of a metaphor and the tenor by asking why "man is a wolf" is not equivalent to "man is a man". This query suggests that the confusion of tenor with meaning is parallel to the conflation of sense and reference within 10 In Black (1962), these map roughly into the subsidiary subject and principle subject, respectively.

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theories of meaning of non-figurative language. Frege uses the terms "sign" which he takes to refer to a "name, combination of words, letter" (1952, 57); sense which he says indicates "wherein the mode of presentation is contained" and reference, which is the designation of the sign. A graphic representation is given in Figure 1.

SIGN — Phonemic sequence or orthographic inscription TERM

\ SENSE — Mode of presentation REFERENT— Object

Figure 1

If we represent metaphor in corresponding diagrammatic fashion we get the schema of Figure 2. If we say that Frege's sign is the mode of expression and the sense is the mode presentation, then we can drawn an analogy between the structure of a metaphorical and a literal sign as follows. The vehicle sign is the mode of expression and the sense of the vehicle term is the mode of presentation, but what is presented is not the referent of the vehicle, but the topic of the metaphor. The topic is not the meaning of the metaphor, just as the referent is not the meaning of the expression. The topic is what is being presented by the sense of the vehicle expression. But the topic is not a referent. It is generally the term or terms that refer to some object or entity in the world and the meaning of the topic is itself a mode of presentation of the referent. Thus in metaphor the referent is presented through two modes of presentation simultaneously and one mode of presentation is used as the mode of presentation for

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Sign—Mode of Expression VEHICLE^ METAPHOR

/

\TOPIC

Sense — Mode of Presentation

Figure 2

another mode of presentation. If we understand a mode of presentation as the content of the term, then we can say that in the case of literal meaning, an expression has one content which represents its meaning, which constitutes the literal and conventional sense of an utterance11, and which I call its firstorder meaning. First-order meaning is differentiated from second-order meaning,u, that is, meaning which emerges when there is more than one content level operative. In metaphor, there is more than one mode of presentation of the referent of the metaphor - that which constitutes the literal meaning of the vehicle expression and that which constitutes the literal meaning of the topic. In metaphor, then, we have a second-order meaning. Roughly speaking, we can say that we have a second-order meaning when elements of the context indicate that a first-order meaning either is not available (in that the constituents of the utterance taken literally and conventionally do not combine to form a sensical utterance) or that a firstorder interpretation is not appropriate given the usual conversational conventions of the language community; yet the first order meaning of the utterance or its constituents is systematically related to an interpretation which fits the context. 11 T o speak of literal and conventional is not a redundancy where two or m o r e w o r d s combine - witness idioms. 12 See Kittay (1987) for a fuller discussion of second-order meaning.

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For example, were the sentence "The rock is getting brittle with age" 13 uttered in a conversation about an aging professor emeritus rather than in a discussion of geology, we would say that the first-order meaning was not appropriate. Nonetheless it would be necessary to an understanding of the appropriate interpretation. Metaphors are only one sort of second-order meaning. Indirect speech is another prominent case. In both metaphor and indirect speech, the appropriate interpretation is gotten, as Searle suggests, by performing some function on the first-order meaning. In the case of metaphor, the function involves abstracting from the situational or linguistic context, so that we first recognize that the background presumed by the context is in conflict with a first-order interpretation, and second extract a content from the context that provides the topic of the metaphor and therefore the metaphor's second content. The final step of the analysis will be explicated when we specify the nature of the interaction between topic and vehicle14. Positing a second-order meaning will help us considerably in dealing with Davidson's objections to metaphoric meaning. We said earlier that were we to include metaphorical sentences among the totality of sentences for which we could form Tsentences, and we were to say that these had metaphoric meanings in addition to their literal meanings, the inclusion of metaphoric meanings would make it impossible to abstract word meanings in the manner that Davidson thinks necessary for an account of how sentence meanings are dependent on word meanings. But if we separate out first- and second-order meanings then metaphorical meanings no longer pose such a problem, since the forming of T-sentences would pertain only to first-order interpretations of these sentences. But for there to be the distinction between first-order and second-order 13 This example is due to Michael R e d d y (1969). 14 I have argued elsewhere (Kittay, 1978, 1982a) that the second-order meaning of metaphors result f r o m transposing the semantic relations a term has within its own semantic field unto a new conceptual field - the one given by the context - thereby reordering the second field by virtue of the relations which pertain in the first.

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meanings, we need to relativize meanings to contexts in such a way that we assure ourselves that we are formulating the truth conditions for first-order interpretations. Such relativization to context should be seen as an extension of the relativization which Davidson already acknowledges to be necessary: those which relativize to speaker, time and place. Additional indices may relativize to salient background assumptions, to fictional or imaginary worlds, or to the nature of the discourse, such as domain specific discourse, for example, legal language and sports commentary. (See Ross, 1981 for a discussion of "craftbound discourse."), etc. To recognize the importance of context in our understanding of language, literal or metaphorical, is only a first step. The second and far more difficult one is to identify the pertinent elements of context that contrain possible readings of the the language of the texts and make others plausible. To say then that metaphoric meaning is a second meaning is to leave much in first-order discourse intact. It asserts with Davidson that the first-order meaning of metaphoric utterances is indeed operative in gleaning the meaning of metaphor. Davidson writes: The work of applying a theory of truth in detail to a natural language will in practice almost certainly divide into two stages. In the first stage, truth will be characterized not for the whole language, but for a carefully gerrymandered part of the language [...] The second part will match each of the remaining sentences to one (or in the case of ambiguity) more than one of the sentences for which truth has been characterized. We may think of the sentences to which the first stage of the theory applies as giving the logical form or deep structure of all sentences. (1973b, 320)

The first stage to which the theory applies, however, will give the logical form or deep structure only to sentences interpreted in their first-order meanings. And yet second-order discourse also has a deep-structure. Its surface structure is not derivable directly from the deep structure of first order meaning. New rules and relations are required to derive the utterances which are characterizable as having a second-order

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meaning 15 . Davidson suggest that were metaphors to have a special meaning then "we might be able to specify the meaning of a word in a metaphorical setting by waiting until the metaphor dies" (208). He denies that this can be done, and rightly so. But from this we ought to conclude not that metaphors have no special meaning. Rather, if instead of a second meaning, as in the case of ambiguity, they have a second-order meaning, we understand why this can not be done. For a genuinely dead and unrevivable metaphor is one where there is no second-order meaning recognized by the speakers of the language - the word acquires as a first-order meaning the sense which previously only contributed to its second-order meaning. If we are dealing with a phrase composed of several words the entire phrase is treated like a single item (and is learned as a single lexical item) with the literal senses of the constituent words forgotten in favor its new first-order meaning. But most metaphors never die completely and while they may seem to merely acquire a new first-order meaning, their double content can often be evoked in the right context' 6 . This is what characterizes them as dead metaphors rather than as new lexical items. Drawing the distinction between first and second-order meaning similarly does not leave intact the assumption of the context independence of literal language 17 . This context dependency has still further consequences which we will explore as we attack the second flank of Davidson's attack on metaphoric meaning, the challenge that metaphor does not contain any cognitive content which could not be given in a literal paraphrase.

15 See Steinhart and Kittay (forthcoming) for a network model of human memory in which first and second order discourse processes and structures are represented. 16 See the experimental confirmation of this in Ray Gibbs (1992). 17 See Kittay (1987), especially Chapter 3 for a further development of the context dependency of literal as well as metaphorical language.

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The Cognitive Content of Metaphor Metaphor and Simile

Introducing the notion of second-order meaning also helps explain some differences between metaphors and similes. Similes seem have only a first-order meaning. Nonetheless similies that are figurative comparisons ("My love is like a red, red rose" rather than "Apples are like pears") are importantly like metaphors. Both accomplish similar conceptual ends. But they use different linguistic resources. Davidson (1981) introduces the issue of simile because he believes that a consideration of simile shows us what is mistaken in the idea of metaphors have a special meaning and special cognitive content. He says: Just because a simile wears a declaration of similitude on its sleeve, it is, I think far less plausible than in the case of metaphor to maintain that there is a hidden second meaning. [...] We might then say that author of the simile intended us - that is, meant us - to notice that similarity. But having appreciated the difference between what the w o r d s meant and what the author accomplished by using those words, we should feel little temptation to explain what has happened b y endowing the words themselves with a second, o r figurative meaning. (210)

To claim that metaphors have a second-order meaning is not to endow "the words themselves with a second, or figurative meaning," but only to attribute a meaning to the result of words functioning together within certain contextual situations. This is a meaning derived from certain rule-like operations on the usual meanings of those words. Thus we have virtually no disagreement with Davidson when he says that "the unexpected to subtle parallels and analogies it is the business of metaphor to promote need not depend, for their promotion, on more than the literal meanings of words" (1981, 211) as long as we append "and the rules for second-order discourse specific to metaphor." But these rules are just the ones that identify the utterance as metaphorical and that direct us to making "the subtle parallels and analogies it is the business of

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metaphor to promote." And it is the business of metaphor to promote parallels and analogies not accomplished through literal comparison and which use the resources of second-order discourse. Davidson argues that "metaphor and simile are merely two among endless devices that serve to alert us to aspects of the world by inviting us to make comparisons" (1981, 211) and cites several stanzas from T. S. Elliot's poem "The Hippopotamus" to make the point that the poem neither explicitly tells us that the Church resembles a hippopotamus nor does it use metaphor to "bully us" into making the comparison. Descriptions of the Church and the hippopotamus are merely juxtaposed, and thereby "intimates much that goes beyond the literal meanings of the words." While we may grant that Davidson is right that metaphor and simile are among many ways in which we are invited to make comparisons, we must see that comparing the Church to a hippopotamus in not like comparing the Church to the State - nor is it like comparing a hippo to an elephant. Literal comparison takes place within fixed, common or given categories, e.g. comparing hippos to elephants - a comparison within the category of authoritative and powerful institutions. But comparisons in metaphor and simile cross categorical boundaries, e.g. comparing a large mammal to an authoritative powerful institutions. The special nature of this comparison is epitomized by metaphor. The "like" in simile is itself a metaphor. Thus metaphor is not merely one "among endless devices"; it is the paradigmatic device for pointing out analogies and making comparisons which cross the bounds of our usual categories and concepts. Comparisons across categorial boundaries promote the creation of similarity judgments that are productive of new ways of organizing information 18 .

18 These are the sorts of considerations that give rise to Max Black's (Black, 1962) contention that often metaphors create similarities instead of merely being based on pre-given similarities.

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Recognizing that metaphors are not limited to phrases or sentences but can the form of entire text, we can understand Elliot's poem as a whole as the metaphor. While the sentences within the poem may have at first sight only a first-order meaning, once we can ascribe a second-order meaning to the poem itself, we can derivatively acribe a second-order meaning to its sentences as well.

Metaphor's Irreducible

Cognitive

Content

Moving across categorial bounds, I have suggested, is what gives to metaphor its power to "create" similarities. In speaking of the particular comparison metaphors "create", we have begun to go beyond talk of metaphoric meaning to explore the sense in which metaphors may be said to have irreducible cognitive content. Davidson's criticism of metaphoric meaning is the sharpest and most difficult to answer when he attacks Max Black's claim that literal paraphrases fail to capture the cognitive content of the metaphor. Davidson asks: H o w can this be right? If a metaphor has a special cognitive content, w h y should it be so difficult or impossible to set out? If [...] a metaphor "says one thing and means another," w h y should it be that when w e try to get explicit about what it means, the eiFect is so much weaker -[...] W h y inevitably? Can't we, if we are clever enough, come as close as w e please? (215)

Again, with his finger on the pulse Davidson says, There is, then, a tension in the usual view of metaphor. For on the one hand, the usual v i e w wants to hold that a metaphor does something no plain prose can possibly do and, on the other hand, it wants to explain what a metaphor does by appealing to a cognitive content - just the sort of thing plain prose is designed to express. (216)

To answer it, without falling into talk about the ineffable, requires not only what we call upon the distinction between first-order and second-order meaning, but also that we look at the relation between language and the process of categorization and concept formation. And moreover, it requires rein-

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stating an idea which Davidson (1973a) has so ably criticized and thus almost consigned to the fires, the idea of a conceptual scheme. The question of whether metaphors have a special cognitive content, becomes for Davidson a question of whether they stand for or express a fact: Joke or dream or metaphor can, like a picture or a bump on the head, make us appreciate some fact - but not by standing for, or expressing, the fact. (1981, 217)

He claims that metaphors are not propositional in nature. The fact that metaphors are not paraphraseable, therefore, results from there being no proposition expressed in metaphors such that it might be subject to paraphrase. Rather, the things they make us notice are potentially infinite in number. If what the metaphor makes us notice were finite in scope and propositional in nature, this would not itself make trouble; we would simply project the content metaphor brought to mind onto the metaphor. But in fact there is no limit to what metaphor calls to our attention, and much of what we are caused to notice is not propositional in character. When we try to say what a metaphor "means," we soon realize there is no end to what we want to mention. (217)

Although it is true that metaphors can make us notice an infinite number of things, this is not the source of its distinctive cognitive content and its consequent irreducibility to paraphrase. We can as well say that literal utterances make us notice an indefinite number of things. Literal sentences too can have an infinite number of implications - these have often been called open-textured sentences - and nothing about their literality bars us from noticing any of these. What is distinctive about metaphor and what makes it an important cognitive instrument has to do rather with its relation to the conceptual presuppositions inherent in first-order meanings. We know that meaning and truth are closely associated in Davidson's theory of language, and we have suggested that the context-dependency of even literal language draws a wedge between meaning and truth. This context dependency, I suggest, results from the role of concepts and categories in medi-

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ating between the world and our language. The close association of meaning and truth in Davidson's theory denies such a mediative function of concepts or conceptual schemes. The contention is that language is the repository of categorization schemes by which we organize what we know and believe to be the case. Its categories are sometimes purely functional and at other times incorporate strongly held beliefs. Metaphor is the linguistic means by which the stable categories which underly our literal speech are un-fixed: we attempt to understand one phenomenon in terms of the conceptual structures normally used to organize other phenomena. But our concepts are interrelated, forming implication rich networks and setting the basis for coherence in speech. When we reorder one set of concepts, adjustments need to be made elsewhere. If metaphors cannot be paraphrased, it is because the category newly-formed by the metaphor does not sit easily with our other concepts and categories. To make this claim plausible, I offer - what else? - a metaphor.

Rearranging the Furniture of our Minds'9 Imagine we enter a room fully furnished. The room has the usual set of windows, closets, doors. Its furniture is arranged in a fashion familiar to the Western eye, with items placed around the room in certain conventional or traditional groupings. Upon occupying the room, we make a few changes — we move a comfortable chair close to a reading light and retire the television to an inconspicuous corner. We also make some small changes for purely aesthetic reasons - reordering the tables so that different woods blend to together in a more pleasing fashion. Still, we respect certain implicit rule for ordering furniture: chairs are generally next to tables, desks or reading lights; the dining room table is surrounded by chairs; night 19 This section of the article can also be found, with a few minor changes in Kittay (1987), pp. 316-324.

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lights and night tables are placed within reach of the bed; etc. Other furnishing also follow an established order: clothes are in closets or dressers (rather than displayed on walls); books are in bookshelves; and food is in the refrigerator or larder. We declare that everything is in order. As we live in the room, a variety of friends and acquaintances pass through, many with particular needs and habits which require some temporary and some permanent changes in our furniture arrangement. One suffers from a back problem, and finding only soft, upholstered chairs in the living room area, she moves a hard-backed chair from the dining section over to the sofa where we are seated. Generally, after she leaves, we put the chair back into its "proper place." Why, we may ask is its former place and not its new situation its "proper place?" We may have a variety of answers: it belongs with other dining room chairs; it serves another important function in its original position; it meets certain aesthetic demands better; it creates a clutter in the new position; we are simply used to it in the old place. If our friend visits often enough, we might just leave the chair there. N o w the chair, in its new position, will be in its "proper place", though as one of the dining room set, it will continue to betray its borrowed origins 20 . Another acquaintance, who has lived in the East for several years and comes to use the typewriter, chooses a low sofa chair to do her damage. She removes the sofa cushion, places it on the floor, so that she can sit crossed legged on the cushion while using the de-cushioned sofa as a typewriter stand. To avoid tripping on the cushion, to make the sofa serviceable again, and to get the typewriter back to its suitable position, we have to replace these each time she leaves. Yet another friend, who calls himself an artist, denounces the excessive functionalism of our room. Insisting that one ought to

20 Though we can imagine that one day we replace the dining room chairs with another set and then, only a historical record can inform one of its origins; it will no longer be evident from the present furnishings and arrangements.

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create new meaning through antifunctionalism, he stands our sofa on its side and places it right in front of a window. While this arrangement gives a "new look" to the room, under no conditions would we assent to it as a permanent state of affairs - we return the sofa to its former position. Working through the analogy we can say that the room, with the walls, windows, and doors intact, as well as the material of which the furniture is composed is the world we humans encounter, prior to our activity of structuring and creating our environment. The furniture, the relation the pieces bear to one another and the rules we follow for placing and using the furnishings represent our creation and arrangement of the world we inhabit. The sentences in the language of our room world refer to furniture, its relation to the room and to other pieces of furniture, and to its relation of our needs, desires, aspirations, visà-vis what happens in the room. The meaning of a piece of furniture has to do with its form and material, its placement in the room relative both to its serviceablity as regards our needs, desires, aspirations, etc. As we find and arrange the furniture of the room, we set and define the order amongst things which we assume, given our knowledge and desires at that time, to be the best (or the only conceivable) way of arranging the world. To speak correctly is to utilize the furniture according to our current conventions reflected in its correct placement or to make changes only governed by the rules of furniture arrangement - for example, while the chairs go near the tables, dining room chairs go under a dining-room table, and armchairs go next to side tables. To speak correctly is also to assent to the correct placement of a piece or pieces; we can assent or dissent either by responding to questions or by utilizing the furniture as it is correctly or incorrectly placed. To assent to the proper placement of a piece of furniture is to speak the truth. To sit down where there is no seat is effectively to utter falsehood. To assent to a bureau placed against the door leading to the bath would be to speak nonsense. To assent to all the furniture

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clumped in the middle of the room would speak of possible, but improbable worlds. Our friends, who habitually disrupt our arrangement by moving chairs, cushions, typewriters and sofas - "out of their proper places", take furniture which has a certain material form and placement suited to a given purpose or sense and adopt it for another use in a different furniture arrangement. Where this second sense and placement in some way reflects and retains the previous one, the rearrangements are "metaphoric placements." By replacing the chair (or cushion or typewriter or couch), we effectively confirm that their's is a false utterance, given the proper order. Let us stay, for the moment, with the least disruptive placement - the moved dining-room chair. The context of its literal use is to seat someone at the dining-room table. In the context of a person with lumbago in need of a chair, the displaced object has a "meaning", that is, it serves a reasonable and intelligent purpose (one of the several things furniture may do). Straight-backed dining chairs are well-suited to meet certain cultural forms of dining. In Western societies we do not eat reclining or seated on the floor, and only in haste do we eat standing up. But that straight-backed structure is also wellsuited to seating persons with back problems. Once our friend leaves, the chair is just "out of place" - it is no longer in a context which provides for it the sort of meaning possible for furniture-in-place to have. The move is metaphorical in that it disrupts a given order and utilizes a feature of the old order in the creation of a new one: while the straight-backed chair may have been created to serve a posture suitable for formal dining, amid a cluster of soft-upholstered furniture it provides a weakened back with all the comfort required for conversing. We could say that some of the "conceptual content" of the dining situation is retained in its new placement. Similarly the cushion of the sofa, when converted to a seat for a typewriter stand, retains its service as something upon which we sit, although the mode of sitting is distinctive. Notice that in the rearrangement by our

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first visitor, the reordering in the room creates no radical change in the concepts utilized - the chair is still used as a chair, though of a different sort, and there is no change in fundamental rules of furniture ordering - chairs get clustered together to permit conversation21. Converting the sofa into a typewriter stand and seat respects certain required relationships between a seat and typewriter stand but significantly violates rules for what to do with sofas. Having a sofa in the manner of the antifunctionalist breaks all the reules — but that is just the point. Notice also that once someone has discovered that the dining-room chairs can be used in this new clustering, other dining rooms chairs may be dislocated for the same purpose. The metaphorical use of the sofa can be adapted for other purposes as well - the decushioned sofa can serve as a dining area or as a writing table (if it is firm enough), etc. Once a metaphorical usage has been introduced, it is not unusual that other terms associated with the metaphorically used term are used in a similar metaphorical fashion. If we speak of a basketball player being hot because she has scored many points, we can speak of her as being cold because she has failed to score high. If we

21 A s with an unfamiliar metaphor, we might, at first, be charmed by a new arrangement. But if we found that w e continually tripped over the displaced furniture and missed it in its former place, w e should return it to its f o r m e r place - it would become a transient metaphor. Still our friend becomes a habitual visitor with predictable habits. Returning the chair each time becomes a nuisance at first but eventually as habitual as our friend's visits. It has n o w become a conventional metaphor - useful to serve our friend's special needs and ready at hand f o r any new friends w h o similarly find the available soft couch and armchairs uncomfortable. Were it not inconvenient f o r it to remain in its dislocated place w e would say that it had become a dead metaphor: the phrase "burned up" can be used, with little discomfort of mind, for consigning (or being consigned) to flames and f o r being v e r y angry. A sentence such as "time flies" could be used literally as in the children's joke: "Time flies. You can't. They f l y too quickly." But in its literal sense it has little use - that displaced chair can sit in its new position w i t h o u t much bother at all.

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speak of someone as burned up because they are very angry, we can say that a few days later they were still smoldering. Alterations may be more radical, more systematic, and more productive of far-reaching rearrangements. We may switch around whole areas of the room and replace movable with built-in furniture. (In which case we should not merely organize the multiple things in the room but organize the unitary room itself.) Many pieces of furniture would be "out of place" and altered - but systematically so. In virtue of the disorienting new arrangements, we find ourselves putting books back on refrigerator shelves rather than in their familiar book cases. The reorderings are, at first, metaphorical. We can imagine a great commotion in our model world as furniture is moved back and forth in a trial and error fashion. These displacements are metaphoric and "false" or "nonsensical" statements, if you will. The experienced superiority of the new ordering allows it to become entrenched and to replace the old one. To the extent that the change is systematic and widespread, it leaves only the slightest trace of its metaphoric origin. It is now the literal truth. Truth in our analogue world then has something to do with given realities such as gravity, the solidity of walls, the construction of doors and windows, etc., (read laws of nature, natural climatic and environmental conditions, societal regularities, etc.), much to do with the furniture (read objects and concept of objects) we have found, constructed, arranged and rearranged, and something to do with what we need, want, desire, believe about the furniture and its arrangement (read the world and what we have made of it thus far). Meaning has to do with the serviceability of the objects and their arrangement - where utilization includes satisfying not only needs, but desires, aesthetic considerations, or any reasonable or intelligible goals22. Reference has to do with those objects that 22 While meaning is closely tied to use, its meaning does not change by virtue of an occasional non-standard use. A book placed under a leg of a table does not change its meaning from something to be read to something to

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are placed about the room and utilized according to the "meaning." A conceptual scheme is a chosen ordering which will both reflect and shape what we tale as true and meaningful, although the fact of alternate schemes need not be precluded by a given arrangement. A Davidsonian in our model world might say that if we know when to assent to a piece being in its proper place, then we know the meaning of the sentence asserting that the piece is in its place. A n d if we utilized the piece in a fashion commensurate with its form and its positioning then we understand how to form meaningful sentences with the object. In that case assenting to a piece of misplaced furniture is assenting to a false statement - the displacement has no extraordinary meaning — no metaphorical meaning - it is just a displacement which called our attention to something, for example, the need for a hard-back chair along with a cluster of sofa chairs. The point of the furniture metaphor is to indicate what the Davidsonian neglects, namely that the room, per se, can tolerate a large variety of furniture arrangements just as our world can tolerate varied conceptual schemes. We need not counter the conundrum of incommensurability, however, for in our room as in our lives, there will be certain fixed elements and certain fixed needs. Both our shelters and our language respond to fixed needs and conditions. Since responses to circumstances vary - sometimes systematically - locating the fixed points is often not a trivial problem. Often we will need to learn our way about the unfamiliar arrangement in order to determine the points of coincidence with our own scheme. F r o m these, the intelligibility and serviceability of varied schemes can be deciphered and delineated.

support a table. Even if w e all forgot how to read and used b o o k s only as supports, a clever archaeologist would still be able to uncover its real, if former, significance. The book used to support the leg of a table may be thought analogous to a code word, rather than to a metaphor - new use not connected with the original use in the former case, while metaphoric use connected with the former use.

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In the case of metaphor, we generally encounter alterations and conflicts in localized parts of general schemes. We introduce a new partial reordering which is in conflict with the order as it currently coheres with the general scheme. Some (re)orderings serve a need which is transient, easily accomplished by a temporary rearrangement, and are disorder only relative to a chosen order which was established relative to some fixed and alterable constraints. Others are more global. The most significant changes force us to reorder permanently parts of our conceptual system, as we do in cases of important social, economic, or scientific upheavals. These, in turn, become literal truth. But we assent to a new use as literal only when it fits in with other established uses and without creating a conceptual incongruity. If what is meaningful and true has to do with proper arrangements then meaning and truth is mediated by what we take as proper. What we take as proper is relative to what is pertinent to truth. Thus what we take as proper will be precisely what we call our conceptional scheme. From the perspective of those who live in a world richer than our room, the proper configuration is only one of many possibilities. Even the couch turned on its side and placed against the window may have a purpose, aesthetic, practical or jovial - it may be a drastic way to cut out excessive sunlight, serve as a fortification in a shoot-out with the Feds as gansters are pictured doing in movies of the early part of the century, or in the case of passionate Bonnie and Clyde fans serve as an allusion to their out-law heros who shielded themselves from bullets by placing mattresses against windows. In such instances, it is the overzealous housekeeper who places the couch on its feet and against a wall who disturbs the order of the room. Once we settle on a furniture arrangement, a privileged conceptual scheme, we can indeed claim there is a proper place for each object - though some may be designated as highly moveable or transient items, e.g. coasters, ashtrays, books - like

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commonly used adjectives or the word "good" 2 3 . Given a chosen arrangement, with allowances for minor variants, displacements are either metaphors or mistakes or jokes or artful or useful innovations. Metaphors presuppose that the arrangement is relatively transient; what is displaced goes back to its proper place as soon as the new use and the special contextual considerations which have given rise to it are no longer operative. It also presupposes that the new use is related to its former use, and that it is only a displacement relative to the given ( and still serviceable) established order. The given arrangement yields what I have called a first-order meaning. Alterations which at once respect that order but which answer to different constraints - constraints that call for a different sense of order - are species of second order meaning, metaphor in particular. If, as I have suggested, this sense of order is what we call a conceptual scheme, then metaphors introduce partial reorderings of our conceptual scheme. As long as the established scheme is the basis for first-order meaning, metaphors cannot be paraphrased in literal first-order language, since they come into being by virtue of a different ordering. If the altered scheme is accepted and becomes the "proper ordering" then, what was once a metaphor can now be represented literally in the new scheme. When light was reconceived as a wave phenomenon, the term "light wave" became a literal expression and could be fully explicated in literal terms - that is until quantum theory exhibited the limitations of such a literal order. But as long as the old order remains 23 Although we have a bookshelf, a b o o k lying on a night table is not necessarily out of order. A b o o k remains serviceable as a book and not out of place in most any location, except perhaps in the refrigerator or under the leg of a table (where it may be serviceable as a wedge to level the table), just as the word " g o o d " can be placed in front of almost any sort of w o r d , except perhaps prepositions and articles. Also just as a book would generally not be serviceable as a chair and never as a bed, so " g o o d " does poorly as a verb and not too well as a noun. Precisely though, because it can so easily occupy different positions sensically, so to speak, a book's location rarely constitutes a metaphorical utterance. Analogously, " g o o d " almost never is used metaphorically (though it can be used ironically).

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serviceable, we can keep switching back and forth - just as we keep moving the hard-backed chair to the dining-room table when our lumbago sufferer leaves24. To return to the opening of this essay and to a well traveled empiricist theory of language, for Davidson as for Locke a well-ordered language speaks truth and is meaningful to the extent that it can be truthful. I have used the "room" metaphor to suggest that truth is relative to an accepted system of concepts and beliefs which reflect a given set of relations a language community has to world it occupies. What language expresses and means is mediated by such a conceptual frame, one which is itself partially shaped by language. It is a frame which must be adaptable to both temporary, imaginary, and permanent alterations in our world. Again using our leading metaphor, to reorder the furniture, we need to assent to a piece in its new location. We do this only when the new placement can be made to fit - in a permanent way - with the rest of the arrangement. Alterations may be local or global. We assent to a new usage as literal only when it fits with other established usages and without creating a conceptual incongruity. Assenting to some changes may commit us to others or only heuristically guide new ways of thinking, speaking and acting. Sometimes this involves reordering only parts of our conceptual system, as we sometimes do in a permanent way when important scientific changes take place. Sometimes the impact on our language and thought is more global. On this view, language is not the "conduit" Locke (and perhaps Davidson) would have 24 If we had money and space enough and a commitment to this friends habitual return, we could purchase a new chair for this purpose, i.e. find a new word for this purpose. And furniture and some language is "made to order." But there are limits - of space and economics in our room-world - of conceptual economy in the linguistic one. If we acquire a large number of friends with a similar disorder we may have to accommodate by acquiring a new set of furniture that occupies a special part of the room. In our language, we often set aside parts of the vocabulary for special purposes which come along and bring in some borrowed words and some new ones which serve only the specified need. These are the enclaves Ross calls (1981) "craftbound discourse".

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us believe. Language instead exists in a dialectic relation with our conceptual system and with what we "hold to be true", to use a Davidsonian phrase. We could expand indefinitely on our "room" metaphor. Rooms and their furnishings, like language and our concepts are things we live amongst. They change with time, need, desire, and whim. They both reflect and shape our beliefs and desires. They are rarely as tidy as we might like, although we can glory in the disorder - knowing that our room and our language has a lived-in character. Some order, at least one intelligible to ourselves and to those with whom we share our space and our words, nonetheless, remains crucial. And a systematic tolerance of a "disorder" that can be shown to purposeful and intelligible is equally essential, if we are to keep our surroundings and our minds adaptable to the changing circumstances of our lives and our world. Understanding the workings and the meaning of this latter "disorder" is as much a part of understanding meaning and language as is understanding the "proper order." It is within a carefully conceived "chaos" that metaphors attain an irreducible content and their special meaning.

References Asch, S. E. and H. Nerlove (1960), "The Development of Double-Function Terms in Children: An Exploratory Study", in: B. Kaplan and S. Wagner (eds.), Perspectives in Psychological Theory, New York: International Universities Press, 47-60. Black, M. (1962), "Metaphor" in: M. Black, Models and Metaphors, Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press. (Originally published in Proceedings from the Aristotelian Society, 55 (1954): 237-294. — (1977), "More About Metaphor", Dialéctica, 31: 431-457. — (1978), "How Metaphors Work: A Reply to Donald Davidson", in: S. Sacks (1978). Davidson, D. (1965), "Theories of Meaning and Learnable Languages", in: Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Proceedings of the 1964 International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, 383-393. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

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— (1967), "Truth and Meaning", Synthese, 17: 304-323. — (1969a), "True to the Facts", The Journal of Philosophy, 66: 748-764. — (1969b), " O n Saying That", in: D. Davidson and J. Hinntikka, Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W.V. Quine, New York: Humanities Press, 158-174. — (1973a), "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", Presidential Address delivered at the Seventieth Annual Eastern Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Atlanta, American Philosophical Association. — (1973b), "Radical Interpretation", Dialéctica, 27: 313- 328. — (1974a), "Belief and the Basis of Meaning", Synthese, 27:309-323. — (1974b), "Semantics for Natural Languages", in: G. Harman, On Noam Chomsky: Critical Essays, New York: Anchor Press. — (1975), "Thought and Talk." in: S. Guttenplan, (ed.), Language and Mind, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 7-23. — (1977a), "Reality Without Reference", Dialéctica, 31: 248-258. — (1977b), "The Method of Truth in Metaphysics", in: P. French, T. Uehling, Jr., H. Wettstein, (Eds)., Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol II, 244-254. — (1979), "The Inscrutability of Reference", The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, 10: 7-19. — (1981), "What Metaphors Mean", in: M. Johnson (1981). Reprinted from Critical Inquiry, 5 (1978): 31-48. Frege, G. (1952), "On Sense and Reference", in: P. Geach and M. Black (eds.), Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, Oxford: Blackwell and Mott. Gibbs, R.(1992), "Metaphorical Knowledge and Understanding Language", paper delivered at Metaphor and Cognition Conference, Tel Aviv, May 11 14, 1992. Grice, P.(1989), Studies in the Ways of Words, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Henle, P. (1965a), "Metaphor", in: Paul Henle (ed.), Language, Thought, and Culture, Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 173-195. Hjelmslev, L. (1943), Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, F. J. Whitfield, trans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Johnson, M. (1981), (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Kittay, E. F. (1978), The Cognitive Force of Metaphor (unpublished dissertation), The Graduate School of the City University of New York. — (1981), "Semantic Field and the Structure of Metaphor" Studies in Language, 5: 31-63. — (1982a), "The Creation of Similarity: A Discussion of Metaphor in Light of Tversky's Theory of Similarity", PSA 1982. — (1982b), "Presumptive Intentions: Or Must We Mean What We Intend". Paper delivered to the Annual Meetings of the American Philosophical Division, Eastern Division, Eastern Division, December.

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— (1984), "The Identification of Metaphor", Synthese, 58: 153-202. — (1987), Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kohlberg, L. (1966), "A Cognitive-Development Analysis of Children's SexRole Concepts and Attitudes", in: E. Maccoby, The Development for Sex Difference, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980), Metaphors We Live By, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Man, Paul de (1978), "The Epistemology of Metaphor", in: Sacks (1978), 1129. Reddy, M. J. (1969), "A Semantic Approach to Metaphor", in: R. I. Binnick, et. al., (eds.), Papers from the Fifth Regional Meetings of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago: Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, 240-251. Richards, I. A. (1936), The Philosophy of Rhetoric, London: Oxford University Press. Ross, J. F. (1981), Portraying Analogy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sacks, S. (ed.)(1978), On Metaphor, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Saussure, F. de. (1966), Course in General Linguistics, Bally, Sechehaye and Riedlinger (eds.), W. Baskin, trans. New York: Philosophical Library. Searle, J. R. (1978), "Literal Meaning", Erkenntnis, 13: 207-24. Steinhart, E. and Kittay, E. F. (forthcoming), "A Network Model for the Generation of Metaphor: A Formal Interpretation of the Semantic Field Theory of Metaphor, Synthese. Stern, J. (1985), "Metaphor as Demonstrative", Journal of Philosophy, 80/12: 677-710. — (1991), "What Metaphors Do Not Mean", in: Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XVI, 13-52. Tulving, E. and D. M. Thomson (1973), "Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory", Psychological Review, 80. Winner, E. , A. Rosenstiel and H. Gardner (1976), "The Development of Metaphoric Understanding", Developmental Psychology, 12/4: 289-297. Winner, E. (1979), "New Names for Old Things: The Emergence of Metaphoric Language", Journal of Child Language, 6: 469-91. Winner, E., M. Engel and H. Gardner (1980), "Misunderstanding Metaphor: What's the Problem? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Vol. 30: 22-32.

Zoltdn Kovecses

5. The "Container" Metaphor of Anger in English, Chinese, Japanese and Hungarian

Introduction Lakoff and Kovecses (1987) have shown that conceptual metaphors and metonymies play an important role in the conceptualization of anger in English. More specifically, and regarding the metaphors, we uncovered a number of conceptual metaphors such as anger as a "hot fluid in a container," as "fire," as "dangerous animal," as "opponent," as "burden," etc., and suggested that the concept is largely constituted by them. Furthermore, we pointed out that the "heat" metaphors, especially the "hot fluid in a container" metaphor, are central in the metaphorical system of anger in English. Since it is an anthropological commonplace that the metaphors that make up a culture vary from culture to culture, it was expected that the conceptual metaphors of anger that one can find in languages that belong to other than the Indo-European family would be radically different. In recent years, several studies have been done to investigate the concept roughly corresponding to anger in languages belonging to non-Indo-European language families by making use of the linguistic methodology that Lakoff and Kovecses employed in their study of anger and that was further developed b y Kovecses (e.g. 1990, 1991a, b). In particular, King (1989) studied the concept of anger in Chinese (the Chinese term is nu); Matsuki (1989) analyzed ikari in the Japanese language; and Kovecses has done a study of the corresponding Hungarian concept, dtih. What can perhaps be considered the main result of these investigations is somewhat surprising. The

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studies showed that the speakers of these languages use roughly the same metaphors, including the "container" metaphor, in the conceptualization of anger, nu, ikari, and diih.

Moreover, it turned out that the "(hot) fluid in a container" metaphor is not only present in Chinese, Japanese, and Hungarian, but is also central, just as it is in English. Finally, it was found that although the "container" metaphor is present in all four cultures, it exhibits subtle but remarkable differences from culture to culture. Given these findings, some important issues in the crosscultural study of emotion arise. How is it possible that the "container" metaphor is the central metaphor in the cultures where it is present? Is the claim that the "container" metaphor is present in these cultures a mere imposition of a Western idea on non-Western cultures? How is it possible that the "container" metaphor is present in such widely different cultures as English, Chinese, Japanese, and Hungarian? Once it is present, why and precisely how does it vary cross-culturally? What role does human physiology play in the conceptualization of emotion concepts in a cross-cultural perspective? What role does culture play in conceptualizing emotions and the physiological component of emotions? These are some of the questions that will be explored in this paper.

The "Container" Metaphor As linguistic usage indicates, all four cultures seem to conceptualize human beings as containers and emotions as some kind of substance (typically a fluid) inside the container. This conceptualization can be captured in terms of the metaphors "the body is a container for the emotions" and "the emotions are substances (fluids) inside the container." Let us refer jointly to these two sub-metaphors as the "container" metaphor. Here are some examples from the four languages:

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English: He was filled with anger. She couldn't contain her joy. She was brimming with rage. Try to get your anger out of your system.

Chinese: man qiang fen nu full cavity anger to have one's body cavities full of anger

Japanese: Ikari ga karadajyu ni jyuman shita anger in my body to be filled was My body was filled with anger. Kare wa'ikari o buchimaketa. he anger to expose He exposed/expressed/showed his anger. Ikari o uchi ni himeta. anger inside to lock in I contained my anger.

Hungarian: Tele van duhvel. full is duh-with He is full of anger. Nem tudta magâban tartani diïhét. not could himself-in to keep anger-his He could not keep his anger inside. Péter egy méregzsâk. Peter a poison-bag Peter is an anger-bag

A major attraction of the "container" metaphor for the purposes of conceptualizing anger (and other, what Hume called, "violent passions") is that it captures a great number of aspects and properties of anger. It allows us to conceptualize intensity (filled with), control (contain), loss of control (could not keep inside), dangerousness (brim with), expression (express/show),

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etc. Indeed, it appears that no other conceptual metaphor associated with anger can provide us with an understanding of all these facets of anger. This feature of the "container" metaphor may be responsible for the singular popularity of the metaphor both historically in a given civilization (Geeraerts and Grondelaers, 1991) and cross-culturally (Solomon, 1985). It is also the metaphor that appears to be the most popular both as a folk theory and also as a scientific theory of emotion (Solomon, 1985; Lutz, 1988; Kovecses, 1990). As we have just seen, the same general "container" metaphor exists in the four cultures. However, the general metaphor seems to be elaborated in more or less different ways at a more specific level of metaphorical understanding.

English The metaphor that characterizes English at this specific level is "anger is the heat of a fluid in a container." Consider the following examples from Lakoff and Kovecses (1987): You make m y blood boil. Simmer d o w n ! I had reached the boiling point. Let him stew. She was seething with rage. H e was pissed off.

All of these examples assume a container (corresponding to the human body), a fluid inside the container, as well as the element of heat as a property of the fluid. It is the hot fluid or, more precisely, the heat of the fluid that corresponds to anger. That this is so is shown by the fact that lack of heat indicates lack of anger (as in "keep c o o l " ) . The "hot fluid" metaphor in English gives rise to a whole series of metaphorical entailments. This means that we carry over knowledge about the behavior of hot fluids in a closed container onto the concept of anger. Thus we get: When the intensity of anger increases, the fluid rises:

5. The "Container" Metaphor of Anger His pent-up anger welled up inside him. She could feel her gorge rising. We got a rise out of him. M y anger kept building up inside me. Pretty soon I was in a towering rage.

Intense anger produces steam: She got all steamed up. Billy's just blowing off steam. I was fuming. Smoke was coming out of his ears.

Intense anger produces pressure on the container: He was bursting with anger. I could barely contain my rage. I could barely keep it in anymore.

And a variant of this that emphasizes control: I suppressed my anger. He turned his anger inward. He managed to keep his anger bottled up inside him. He was blue in the face.

When anger becomes too intense, the person explodes: When I told him, he just exploded. She blew up at me. We won't tolerate any more of your outbursts.

As further special cases of this entailment, we also find: Pistons: He blew a gasket. Volcanos: She erupted. Electricity: I blew a fuse. Explosives: She's on a short fuse. Bombs: That really set me off.

When a person explodes, parts of him go up in the air: I blew my stack. I blew my top. She flipped her lid. He hit the ceiling. I went through the roof.

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When a person explodes, what was inside him comes out: His anger finally came out.

And such special cases of this as: She was having kittens. M y mother will have a cow when I tell her.

Hungarian The Hungarian version of the "container" metaphor also emphasizes a hot fluid in a container. The Hungarian metaphor "anger is the heat of a fluid in a container" differs from the English one in only minor ways. F o r r a vere. is-boiling the blood-his His blood is boiling. F o r r t benne a diih. was-boiling in-him the anger Anger was boiling inside him. F o r t y o g a diihtol. is-seething the anger-with H e is seething with anger. Felforrt az agyvize. up-boiled the brainwater-his His brainwater has boiled over/up.

The only difference in relation to English seems to be that Hungarian (in addition to the body as a whole) also has the head as a container which can hold the hot fluid. As can be seen from the examples below, most of the entailments of the "hot fluid in a container" metaphor also apply in Hungarian. When the intensity of anger increases, the fluid rises: Felgyulemlett benne a harag. up-piled in-him the wrath Wrath built/piled up in him.

5. The "Container" Metaphor of Anger Feltort benne a harag. up-welled in-him the wrath/anger Anger welled up inside him.

Intense anger produces steam: Teljesen begozolt. completely in-steamed-he He was all steam. Fiistolgott magaban. was-smoking in-himself He was fuming alone/by himself.

Intense anger produces pressure on the container: Majd szetvetette a harag. almost burst-him the anger His anger almost burst him. Majd eldurrant a feje. almost burst the head-his His head almost burst. Majd szetrobbant diiheben. almost exploded anger-in He almost exploded with anger. Alig birta magaban tartani diihet. hardly could in-himself to hold anger He could hardly hold his anger inside. Magamba fojtottam haragomat. into-myself subdued anger-my I subdued my anger inside me. Befele forditotta diihet. inwards turned anger-his He turned his anger inwards. Elfojtottam duhomet. subdued anger-my I subdued my anger.

When anger becomes too intense, the person explodes: Megpukkadt mergeben. burst anger-in He burst with anger.

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Pukkadozott a diihtol. was bursting the anger-from He was bursting with anger. Szetrobbant diiheben. exploded anger-in He exploded with anger. Nem tiirom kitoreseidet. not tolerate out-bursts-your I do not tolerate your outbursts. Majdnem eldurrant az agya a diihtol. almost burst the brain the anger-from His brain almost burst with anger.

When a person explodes, parts of him go up in the air: A plafonon van mar megint. the ceiling-on is already again He is on the ceiling again.

When a person explodes, what was inside him comes out: Kitort belole a duh. out-burst from-inside-him the anger Anger burst out of him. Kifakadt. out-broke He broke out. Nem birta mar tovabb, es vegiil mindent kipakolt fonokenek. not could-tolerate-he already any more and finally unpacked-he everything boss-his-to He couldn't take it any longer and finally blew up at his boss.

A metaphorical entailment in Hungarian that does not necessarily require a hot fluid in a container is the case where the pressure of the substance on the walls of the container (corresponding to the growing intensity of anger) makes the container grow bigger, instead of causing it to explode. Intense anger makes the container grow bigger: nagy/ekkora lett a feje big/this-big became the head-his His head grew this big.

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nagy maja van big liver-his is His liver is big.

Interestingly, this entailment also has to do with the head (and also the liver) in Hungarian. Extreme anger is indicated by an increase in the size of the container that holds the anger. English and Hungarian seem to share a cooking image as a possible elaboration of the "container" metaphor. That is, the primary image of the body serving as a container holding a hot fluid is elaborated in the form of a special case that comes from a particular culinary practice — a liquid boiling in a covered pot. Hence we have the expressions boil, boiling point, stew, seethe, and simmer. Here are some additional Hungarian examples: Hadd fojjon a sajat leveben. let stew the his-own juice-in Let him stew in his own juice. Egesz nap csak fortyogott magaban. all day only was-seething He was seething all day by himself.

Japanese Matsuki (1989) observed that the "anger is the heat of a fluid in a container" metaphor also exists in the Japanese language. One property that distinguishes the Japanese metaphor from both the English and the Hungarian one is that, in addition to the body as a whole, the stomach/bowels area (called hara in Japanese) is seen as the principal container for the hot fluid that corresponds to anger. Consider the following Japanese examples (taken from Matsuki, 1989 and my two Japanese informants): Hara ga niekuri kaetta. stomach boiling to reverse I was furious.

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Ikari ga karada no naka de tagiru. Anger seethes inside the body. Ikari ga hara no soko wo guragura saseru. Anger boils the bottom of stomach.

Some of the metaphorical entailments are also the same as in English and Hungarian. When the intensity of anger increases, the fluid rises: Ikari-ga kokoro-no naka-de fukurande-itta. anger in my mind/inside me was getting bigger My anger kept building up inside me.

Intense anger produces steam: Atama kara yuge ga tatsu. Steam rises up from the head. Kanojo-wa yugeotatete okotte-ita. she with steam/steaming up was angry She got all steamed up. Atama-kara kemuri-ga dete-ita. out of his head smoke was coming/pouring out Smoke was pouring out of his head.

Intense anger produces pressure on the container: Ikari no kimochi wo osaekirenai. Cannot suppress the feeling of anger. Watashi-wa ikari-o osaeta. I anger suppressed I suppressed my anger. Atama ni chi ga noboru. Blood rises up to the head.

When anger becomes too intense, the person explodes: Haha wa toutou bakuhatsu shita. My mother finally exploded. Kannin-bukuro-no o-ga kireta. "patience bag" tip/end was cut/broken/burst His patience bag burst.

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Ikari-ga bakuhatsu-shita. anger exploded My anger exploded. Ikari ga fukiageru Anger blows up. Atama-no sen-ga kireta. nerve fiber was cut off Her nerve fiber (in her brain) was cut off./Her nervous system exploded.

The entailments that do not carry over in the case of Japanese are "when the person explodes, part of him go up in the air" and "when a person explodes, what was inside him comes out." This finding may be due to insufficient linguistic evidence. What is clear, however, is that all my sources unanimously indicated that Japanese does have the first four of the entailments, the fourth being the explosion corresponding to loss of control over anger. Indeed, the others that follow this in the sequence may be regarded as mere embellishments on the notion of loss of control. It was noted above that anger is conceptualized in Japanese as a hot fluid that is primarily in the stomach/bowels area {hara) that functions as a container. But there appears to be another metaphor in Japanese that portrays anger as being in hara without anger being simultaneously conceptualized as a hot fluid. (As regards this metaphor, I depart somewhat from Matsuki's analysis, reanalyze some of her examples, and rely on additional linguistic information provided for me by two Japanese informants.) Thus we also have "the hara is a container for anger" metaphor. The main difference between the "hara as container" and the "hot fluid in a container" metaphors seems to be that while the "hot fluid" metaphor clearly implies a pressurized container, the "hara" metaphor does so only marginally, if at all. Let us now see the examples: hara ga tatsu stomach to stand up get angry

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ikari wo karaishimeta anger chew I suppressed my anger. hara no mushi ga osamaranai stomach bug no calm down I can't calm down. hara o tateru stomach to stand get angry haradachi magire ni standing stomach in/with in anger haradatashii stomach-standing provoking/irritating rippuku (suru) standing stomach get angry Hara no naka de hidoku okoru get terribly angry inside stomach Hara ni suekaneru cannot keep it/anger in stomach Kimochi wa wakaru keredo hara ni osamete kudasai I understand how you feel, but save it inside stomach Hara ni osameteoku hold it in stomach Hara ni shimatteoku keep it in stomach Hara ni suekaneru cannot lay it in stomach Anmari hara ga tatta node hon wo nagetsuketa I threw a book because stomach rose up so much. Haradatatashisa ni mune wo shimetsukerareru feel strangled with mune (=chest) because of the rise of stomach Toutou atama ni kita Finally it (anger, stomach) came to atama (head).

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As Matsuki (1989) points out, a particularly interesting feature of the "hara" metaphor is that it has an elaborate control aspect. An increase in the intensity of anger is indicated by hara rising, the chest ( m u n e ) getting filled with anger, and eventually anger reaching the head (atama). These three successive and increasing degrees in the intensity of anger are associated with different possibilities for controling anger. It is only when anger reaches the head that the angry person cannot control his anger. (This may have to do with the folk theory that extreme anger can interfere with one's normal mental functioning, thus making it impossible for the angry person to control his anger.) However, when the anger is in hara or mune, one is still in a position to overcome, and thus hide (for instance, often by smiling), one's anger. As regards the conceptualization of anger in Japanese, the significance of all this is that it shows the Japanese concern with and emphasis on trying to hide and control one's anger (see Averill, 1982).

Chinese Chinese offers yet another version of the "container" metaphor for anger (nu in Chinese). The Chinese version makes use of and is based on the culturally significant notion of qi. Qi is energy that is conceptualized as a fluid that flows through the body. It is also a fluid that can rise and then produce an excess. This is the case when we have the emotion of anger. King (1989) isolated the "excess qi" metaphor for anger on the basis of the following examples: Anger is excess qi in the body sheng qi produce qi to produce qi qi man xiong tang qi full breast to have one's breast full of qi

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xin zhong de nuqi shizhong wei neng pingxi heart in P O S S anger qi the anger qi in one's heart chen zhu qi deep hold qi to hold one's qi down qi chong niudou qi hit stars (name of a constellation) one's qi hits the stars qi yong ru shan qi well up like mountain one's qi wells up like a mountain nu qi chong tian anger qi hit sky one's anger hits the sky nu qi chongchong anger qi hit one's anger qi hits bie yi duzi qi hold back one stomach qi to hold back a stomach full of qi yuji zai xiong de nuqi zhongyu baofa le pent up at breast P O S S anger qi finally explode L E the pent up anger qi in one's breast finally explodes bu shi pi qi fa zuo N E G make spleen qi start make to keep in one's spleen qi

First, it may be observed that in Chinese anger qi may be present in a variety of places in the body, including the breast, heart, stomach, and spleen. Second, anger qi seems to be a fluid that, unlike English, Hungarian, and Japanese, is not hot. Its temperature is not specified. As a result, Chinese does not have the entailment involving the idea of steam being produced. Third, anger qi is a fluid whose buildup produces pressure in the body or in a specific body organ. This pressure typically leads to an explosion that corresponds to loss of control over anger.

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Another metaphor, "anger is the movement of qi" gives us a sense of what happens after the explosion. Consider the following examples: dong nu move anger to move one's anger dong qi move qi to move one's qi chu nu touch anger to touch one's anger ji nu stir anger to stir one's anger yi zhi ziji de fen nu restrain self POSS anger to restrain one's anger xin ping qi he heart even qi harmony One's heart is even and one's qi is harmonious. ta nu qi shao ping le he anger qi a little level L E His anger qi calmed down. ping xin jing qi level heart quiet qi to have a level heart and quiet qi

The excess qi is now gone and qi flows through the body harmoniously once again.

The Conceptualization of Anger in the Four Cultures In the light of the foregoing conceptual metaphors and their linguistic manifestations, the following picture of the respective emotion concepts {anger, diih, ikari, and nu) emerges. We

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can represent the concepts arising from the various "container" metaphors as a cognitive scenario, or script, or model that has a variety of stages. Thus, the model has an ontological part that gives us an idea of the ontological status and nature of anger: in all four languages anger, or its counterpart, is a fluid inside a container that can exert pressure on the walls of the container. The fluid is typically hot and this property is conceived of as responsible for the pressure that builds up (in the English, Hungarian, and one of the two Japanese "container" metaphors). (Actually, the ontological part is broader in what it encompasses: it also includes some physiological processes. These will be discussed later.) It is this ontological part of the model that constitutes the second stage in the model or scenario as a whole. The first stage in the model is the causal part that gives us an idea of the possible causes of anger in the different cultures. Our data does not say anything about the cultural diversity of causes, it just tells us that anger is conceived of as something that is caused, or produced by a situation. Still another part of the model is concerned with the expressive component; that is, the ways in which anger is expressed in the different cultures. Our linguistic data is limited again in this respect because it simply tells us that all four cultures think of anger as something that somehow gets expressed, but does not specify the characteristic forms of expression in the various cultures. Finally, the expressive component is preceded by a control component that gets manifested as two separate stages of the model: attempt at controling expression and loss of control over expression. Thus, the resulting five-stage model for the four cultures seems to be the following: cause —> anger —> attempt at control —> loss of control —> expression. Since expression and control are closely linked with each other, it is possible to conceive of the two as a single aspect and refer to them as the expression part of the model. This is, of course, an abstract formula that fits all four languages. It is a formula that suggests that the structure of anger and its three cultural counterparts is the same at a generic level. What it does not show, however, is that there are differences in

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conceptualization across the languages at a more specific level (see Averill, 1982). But if we go beyond the abstract formula, we can see some noteworthy cultural differences in conceptualization. In the discussion of Japanese ikari, it was suggested that the (possibly more traditional) Japanese model (the one without the hot fluid) gives the angry person more chance to exercise control over anger than the Western model does. This seems to be in line with traditional Japanese values governing behavior and is often regarded as the main distinguishing characteristics of Japanese culture (see, for example, Reischauer, 1964, and Doi, 1973, as quoted in Averill, 1982). Another example of cultural differences can be found in the expressive part of the model. King (1989) suggests that according to the Chinese conception of nu, instead of the angry person losing control, he can and will choose not to express his anger by diverting it to various parts of the body. This is one of the prototypical courses for anger to take in a clearly definable set of situations in Chinese culture and would seem to stand in sharp contrast with, the Western conception where anger is prototypically expressed as a form of retaliation against another person. Even the other common form of expressing anger in China that King reports is less directed at another person than at the release of excess qv, that is, the main desire associated with anger ( « « ) seems to be to get rid of anger by possibly directing it at another and thus regain equilibrium in the body, rather than harming another as a result of having a large amount of the emotion. In the study of emotion, a distinction is commonly made between an emotion and the expression of the emotion. In the scheme above, the emotion itself would seem to correspond to the ontological part of the model and the expression of the emotion to the expressive part of the model (including or at least being linked with the control part). Given the distinction, it can be suggested that most remarkable cultural differences have to do with the expressive part (stages 3, 4, and 5) and the causal part (stage 1), and not with the ontological part (stage 2). The ontological part corresponds to the conceptual-

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ization of the ontological status and nature of the emotion itself, and it displays remarkable similarities in the four languages (which is not to say that there are no interesting differences in the conceptualization of ontological status in the four cultures). A question that naturally arises at this point is how the conceptualization of the ontology of the emotion itself is related to the expression of the emotion. It seems to me that these two components of emotion are not independent of each other. At least on the basis of the evidence of the present study, we can claim that the particular conceptualization of the ontological status of anger influences, or maybe even determines, the way we construct the rest of our conception of anger. Without conceptualizing anger as a (hot) fluid in a closed, pressurized container, we could not think of anger as something that can be expressed (and controlled), that is, as something having an expressive part. If this is true, it challenges the legitimacy of the 'emotion-expression' distinction. What we now call 'expression' would turn out to be simply a by-product of the larger and maybe more basic scheme of conceptualizing emotion. Had we not conceptualized emotion as a fluid in a container, we would not have come up with the 'emotion-expression' distinction itself. Indeed, there may exist cultures where emotion is not thought of in this way and as a result it may not be customary in these cultures to talk about the 'expression of emotions' (even though the anthropologists who describe these cultures may continue to talk about the ways in which people express their emotions in a culture). One of the most fascinating questions, of course, from an anthropological perspective would be to see which cultures view emotions as fluids in a container and which do not.

The Physiology of Anger in the Four Cultures Given that the cultures under analysis all view anger in this way, at least two important issues arise that need to be tackled.

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The first issue that we address is this: Although English, Hungarian, Japanese, and Chinese are widely different cultures, they have produced very similar conceptualizations of anger, diih, ikari, and nu, respectively. The conceptualization (of both ontology and expression) is done in each case in terms of versions of the "container" metaphor. How can we account for the considerable degree of similarity that we have seen for the four languages? I think the answer is very simple. The reason is that English-speaking, Hungarian, Japanese, and Chinese people have the same bodies and seem to see themselves as undergoing the same physiological processes when in the state of anger, diih, ikari, and nu. They all view their bodies and body organs as containers. And, as linguistic evidence suggests, they respond physiologically to certain situations (causes) in the same ways. They seem to share certain physiological processes including body heat, internal pressure, and redness in the neck and face area (as a possible combination of pressure and heat). It is important to bear in mind that I am not making a biological and/or physiological claim here. The claim is a linguistic one, and is based on the linguistic examples to follow: Body

heat

English: Don't get hot under the collar. Billy's a hothead. They were having a heated argument. When the cop gave her a ticket, she got all hot and bothered.

Chinese: [King only provides examples for a "fire/heat" metaphor.] Japanese: (Watashi-no) atama-ga katto atsuku-natta. my head get hot My head got hot.

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Karera-wa atsui giron-o tatakwasete-ita they heated argument were having They were having a heated argument. atama o hiyashita hoo ga ii head cool should You should cool down.

Hungarian: forrofejii hotheaded heves heated felheviilt vita heated argument

Internal

pressure

English: Don't get a hernia! When I found out, I almost burst a blood vessel. He almost had a hemorrhage.

Chinese: qi de naomen chong xue qi DE brain full blood to have so much qi that one's brain is full of blood qi po du pi break stomach skin to break the stomach skin from qi fei dou qi zha le lungs all explode LE one's lungs explode from too much qi

Japanese: kare no okage de ketsuatsu ga agarippanashi da he due to blood pressure to keep going up My blood pressure keeps going up because of him.

5. T h e " C o n t a i n e r " M e t a p h o r of Anger sonna ni ikiri tattcha ketsuatsu ga agaru yo like that get angry blood pressure to go up Don't get so angry; your blood pressure will go up. aosuji o tatete okoru a blue vein to stand to get angry to turn blue with rage/anger Kare-wa chinoke-ga ooi he blood a lot of/much He has a short temper.

Hungarian: agyverzest kap cerebral hemorrhage gets will have a hemorrhage felmegy benne a pumpa up-goes in-him the pump pressure rises in him fel tudna robbanni up could-he burst he could burst kidagadnak a homlokan az erek out-swell the forehead-on the veins The veins come out on his forehead. majd szetveti a diih almost bursts(-him) the anger He almost bursts with anger. majd szetpattan duhcben almost bursts in-his-anger He almost bursts with anger. felment a vernyomasa up-went the blood pressure-his His blood pressure went up. majd kipattantak az erei almost out-burst the veins-his His veins almost burst.

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Redness in face and neck area English: She was scarlet with rage. He got red with anger. He was flushed with anger.

Chinese: ta lian quan hong le yanjing mao huo lai he face all red L E eyes emit fire come His face turned red and his eyes blazed. qi de lian fa bai qi D E face start white to have so much qi that one's face turns white qi de zui chun fa bai qi D E mouth lips start white to have so much qi that one's lips turn white qi de lian fa qing qi D E face start blue to have so much qi that one's face turns blue qi de lian dou zi le qi D E face all purple L E to have so much qi that one turns purple

Japanese: kare wa makka ni natte okotta he red to be get angry He turned red with anger. makka ni natte okoru red become get angry get mad/angry kare wa ikari-de akaku-natta he with anger got red He got red with anger.

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Hungarian: Voros lett a feje. red became the head-his His head turned red. Lila lett a feje. violet became the head-his His head turned violet. Elvorosodott diiheben. reddened anger-his-in He reddened with anger. Voros volt, mint a pulyka. red was-he like the turkey He was red like a turkey. Pulykavoros lett. turkey-red became He became turkey-red. lila hajat kap violet hair gets his hair turns violet Elkekiilt a meregtol. become-blue the anger-from He turned blue with anger. Majd elzoldiilt. almost became-green He almost turned green. Elsapadt a meregtol. become-pale the anger-from He turned pale with anger.

Motivation for the Conceptualization of Anger English, Hungarian, Japanese (and possibly Chinese as well) seem to share body heat. The notion of body heat, perhaps together with the idea of the warmth of blood, seems to be the basis for the heat component of the English, Hungarian, and Japanese "container" metaphors. Interestingly, King (1989)

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does not mention any linguistic examples for Chinese that describe body heat as a physiological response (although he does discuss a "fire/heat" metaphor, which may not amount to the same idea, however). This conceptual gap may be responsible for the fact that the Chinese "container" metaphor does not consist of a hot fluid. Since the human blood is present in many of the linguistic examples we have seen, it is reasonable to assume that it is mainly blood that accounts for the fluid component in the "container" metaphors. Many of the examples suggest that blood is often seen as producing an increase in blood pressure when angry, and this, together with muscular pressure, may be responsible for the pressure element in the "container" metaphors. All four languages seem to have the image of a pressurized container, with or without heat. In sum, the view of the body as a container, the presence of blood (and other fluids) in that container, and the physiological responses of internal pressure and body heat together make it very natural for human beings to conceptualize anger and its counterparts in other cultures as a (hot) fluid in a pressurized container. Physiology and Culture A second issue we are now in a position to discuss is that despite the similarities in body and physiological functioning, there are considerable differences in conceptualization (of both ontology and expression) across the four cultures. If we are so much alike physically and our physical makeup matters so much in conceptualization as has been suggested so far, how come English, Hungarian, Japanese, and Chinese speakers do not perceive anger in exactly the same ways? Again, the answer may be simple. The reason is that each of the four cultures has developed its own distinctive concepts that dominate explanations in the given culture and through which members of the culture interpret their experiences.

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In the Euroamerican tradition (including Hungarian), it was the classical-medieval notion of the four humors that led to the particular conceptualization of anger (and that of emotion in general) that we have today (Geerarts and Grondelaers, 1991). However, the use of the humoral view as a form of cultural explanation extends far beyond anger and the emotions. In addition to being an account of emotional phenomena, it was also used to explain a variety of issues in physiology and medicine (Geeraerts and Grondelaers, 1991). In Japan, as Matsuki (1989) tells us, there seems to exist a culturally distinct set of concepts that is built around the concept of hara. Truth, real intentions, and the real self (called bonne) constitute the content of hara. The term honne is contrasted with tatemae, or one's social face. Thus when a Japanese person keeps his anger under control, he is hiding his private, truthful, innermost self and displaying a social face that is called for in the situation by accepted standards of behavior. King (1989) suggests that the Chinese concept of nu is bound up with the notion of qi, that is, the energy that flows through the body. Qi in turn is embedded in not only the psychological (i.e. emotional) but also the philosophical and medical discourse of Chinese culture and civilization. The notion and the workings of qi is predicated on the belief that the human body is a homeostatic organism, the belief on which traditional Chinese medicine is based. And the conception of the body as a homeostatic organism seems to derive from the more general philosophical view that the universe operates with two complementary forces, yin and yang, which must be in balance to maintain the harmony of the universe. Similarly, when qi rises in the body, there is anger {nu), and when it subsides and there is balance again, there is harmony and emotional calm. Thus the four emotion concepts, anger in English, diih in Hungarian, ikari in Japanese, and nu in Chinese, are in part explained in the respective cultures by the culture-specific concepts of the four humors, hara, and qi. What accounts for the distinctiveness of the culture-specific concepts is the fact

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that, as we have just seen, the culture-specific concepts that are evoked to explain the emotion concepts are embedded in very different systems of cultural concepts and propositions (as pointed out, for example, by Lutz, 1987). Since different systems of cultural concepts and propositions account for the differences between culture-specific concepts and since culturespecific concepts account for most of the differences among the four emotion concepts, it can be suggested that the differences in the systems of cultural concepts and propositions indirectly account for most of the differences among the four emotion concepts under investigation. However, it is a striking property of the assumed culturespecific concepts that, at a more physical level of analysis, they themselves seem to be fairly similar to each other. In the theory of the four humors, the blood is a warm fluid that is in a container and that can exert pressure on the sides of the container. Hara is a container that holds a substance that can rise inside a larger container that is the body. And qi is a fluid that flows in the body as a container and that can build up pressure in that container. In other words, the culture-specific concepts that are used to explain the emotions in the four cultures seem to be conceptualized in similar ways. Where does this uniformity in the conceptualization of the "explanant" (i.e. the culture-specific concepts) come from? We have seen that in the case of the "explanandum" (i.e. the versions of the "container" metaphor) it came from the similarities of the human body. I believe that it makes sense to suggest that the same applies to the "explanant." That is, the culture-specific concepts are similar because the people that produce them have similar bodies. It would be unreasonable to suppose that conceptualization in the case of the "explanandum" works differently from the way it works in the case of the "explanant." After all, in both cases what we experience most directly, and thus "understand" best, and therefore can use as our safest point of reference in understanding the world in general (i.e. concepts either as "explanandum" or as "explanant") is our own body and its functioning. (This way of thinking owes a great deal to ideas about

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the "embodiment of concepts", as suggested, for example, by Johnson, 1987 and LakofF, 1987.)

Conclusions We have seen linguistic evidence in four very different languages that suggests that the ontological aspect of the concept of anger (and its equivalents) is largely understood in terms of a "pressurized container" metaphor. It was proposed that this cross-cultural similarity in the conceptualization of anger is in all probability attributable to similarities in the human body and its functioning in anger. These similarities can be clearly observed in the metonymies used in connection with anger. Most metonymies of anger - expressions that indicate physiological processes that are assumed to accompany anger — seem to be shared in the four languages. This generic-level "pressurized container" metaphor gives us a sense of similarity in the conceptualization of anger across the four cultures. However, we have also pointed out that at a less generic level there are significant differences in conceptualization, concerning especially the causal and the expressive aspects of the concept. It was suggested that the differences arise as a result of certain culture-specific concepts and networks of propositions of which they form a part. The culturespecific concepts create cross-culturally different (folk) understandings of anger. In the case of anger, human biology can be seen as constraining the cultural construction of the concept - especially the ontological aspect. Given this finding, it makes sense to believe that if we had different bodies, we would probably have a different conception of (at least the ontological aspect of) anger as well. We have seen furthermore that the expressive aspect can be taken to be at least partly determined by the particular conceptualization of the ontological aspect. Expression also seems to be dependent on cultural values. Finally, the conceptualization of the causal aspect seems independent of the

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way the ontology is constructed. This situation suggests that human biology influences the conceptualization of the different aspects of the concept in different ways; its influence seems to be strongest in ontology, less strong in expression, and least strong in causation. The converse seems to hold for the role of culture in the creation of the concept; it seems to be very powerful in causation, less powerful in expression, and least powerful in ontology. I am grateful to Catherine Allen, Susan Gal, Tony Graybosch, George Lakoff, Gary Palmer, Andràs Sàndor, and Linda Thornburg for their comments on an earlier version of his paper. I also gratefully acknowledge the help that I have received from my two Japanese informants: Kyoko Okabe and Noriko Ikegami.

References Averiii, J. R. (1982), Anger and Aggression: An Essay on Emotion, New York: Springer-Verlag. Doi, T. (1973), The Anatomy of Dependence, Tokyo: Kodansha International. Geeraerts, D. and S. Grondelaers (1991), "Looking back at anger: Cultural traditions and metaphorical patterns". Preprints of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, Preprint Nr. 133 (1991). Johnson, M. (1987), The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. King, B. (1989), The Conceptual Structure of Emotional Experience in Chinese, Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. The Ohio State University. Kövecses, Z. (1990), Emotion Concepts, New York: Springer-Verlag. — (1991a) "A Linguist's Quest for Love", Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 8:77-97. — (1991b), "Happiness: A Definitional Effort", Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 6/1: 29-46. LakofF, G. (1987), Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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LakofF, G. and Z. Kövecses (1987), "The Cognitive Model of Anger Inherent in American English"; in: D. Holland and N. Quinn (eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lutz, C. (1987), "Goals, events, and understanding in Ifaluk emotion theory"; in: Holland, D. and N. Quinn (eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 290-312. — (1988), Unnatural Emotions. Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Matsuki, K. (1989), "Metaphors of Anger in Japanese"; paper presented at the symposium Cognitive Grammar and Related Topics, LSA, University of Arizona. Reischauer, E. O. (1964), Japan: Past and Present, (3rd edition), New York: Knopf. Solomon, R. (1985), "Getting Angry. The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology", in: Shweder, R. A. and R. A. LeVone (eds.), Culture Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 238-254.

Part Three: A Cognitive Science Perspective

Earl R.

MacCormac

6. Neuronal Processes of Creative Metaphors

Introduction When Shakespeare writes "Macbeth does murther sleep", when the neuroscientist conceives of the brain as a computer, and when the particle physicist describes a quark as colored, all three thinkers shape language into creative metaphors. The cognitive process of formulating new and creative metaphors depends upon both similarity and dissimilarity, some parts of the new metaphor are analogous to our common experience and other parts stretch our imaginations toward new horizons and into new dimensions. I have attempted to provide a rational reconstruction in my A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor1 of how metaphors can be successfully comprehended. There I developed a quasi-mathematical semantic space of n-dimensions with words related to other words through vectors. The node for each word consisted of a fuzzy set. As words changed their meanings through the creation of new metaphors, memberships in the fuzzy sets changed and new vectors were created through new semantic associations. Mapped onto this fluid network of associations was a 4-valued logic. In constructing this explanatory theory of metaphor, I noticed that much if not all of the intellectual motivation for the creation of metaphors arose from perceptual experiences. Visual images and even the sounds of the words allows one to understand the similarity of the juxtaposed referents of a meta1 E. R. MacCormac, A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (Bradford Books), 1985, 1989.

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phor. M y cognitive theory of metaphor presumed three levels of explanation: (1) surface language; (2) semantics; and (3) cognitive processes. Further consideration of these cognitive processes especially those imagistic aspects of metaphor has led me to an exploration of those neuronal processes out of which mental constructs emerge. Hence, if one speaks about the deep explanatory structures of metaphor, then one must add a fourth level: (4) neuronal processes. A n d these four levels of explanation f o r metaphor are not linearly related. They are penetrated at different and varying points b y aspects of memory and b y consciousness. I present in this chapter an outline of a research program presently underway which seeks to the neuronal processes (patterns) b y which creative metaphors are formed. I presume that these patterns can be represented b y non-linear algorithms pictured in computer graphics and confirmed by mapping brain metabolism through the use of positron emission tomography (PET). I will first describe m y general presuppositions for this theory, then discuss recent experiments including evidence f r o m PET that provide initial confirmation, and then speculate upon how these algorithms if discoverable, could be expressed in silicon chips forming the basis for a genuine neural computer.

The Computational Metaphor In terms of research, the 1990s may well become the decade of neuroscience. Commentators as widely different as The Wall Street Journal and the National Science Foundation 2 predict that this decade will bring about a fundamental understanding of h o w the h u m a n brain operates. A variety of new research procedures fuel these hopes including advances in the biochemistry of neurotransmitters, patch clamp techniques of isolating ion channels of cells, molecular genetics, the measure2

The Wall Street Journal,"Business

Bulletin," January 2, 1992, p. 1.

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ment of electroencephalographic (EEG) and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) waves, and imaging of the brain including positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Although non-invasive imaging has been used with animals and humans, most of the invasive measures have been performed on animals like rats, cats, monkeys, snails, squid, and octupi. Perhaps the system most studied has been the visual system of the cat. The presuppositions underlying attempts to understand and simulate brain processes vary widely. Those neuroscientists who investigate cells and neurotransmitters tend to adopt a bottom-up deterministic building block approach. If one can discover the most fundamental activity of neurons, then one can build upwards from microprocesses to macroactivity. Non-invasive imagers work at the macro-level by mapping neuronal metabolism or blood flow thereby attempting to correlate behavioral activity with neuronal activity in various regions of the brain. Rarely do these two groups of investigators talk with one another; many in each group assume that the determinists building up will meet the imagers working down at a common point. A small group of researchers, however, have decided that the micro and macro investigators will probably never meet because of the non-linearity of neuronal activity. Walter Freeman correlated the EEGs with the activity of the olfactory bulb of rabbits and concluded: From these observations and from our mathematical models of them, we conclude that the olfactory system of the rabbit is a chaotic generator. The synaptic interactions of its millions of neurons causes ceaseless, life-long cooperative activity. The temporal waveform looks like noise, but it is widely shared. Its spatial pattern changes by sudden jumps like small explosions, and it is in these reproducible patterns that we find the perceptual information. We propose that chaotic neurodynamics solves the problem of information storage and retrieval in brains by mechanisms far removed from those of digital computers. A n act of perception is not the readout of dead bulk. It is a fresh creation in a sensory cortex of a generic pattern of activity, under the influ-

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ences of a familiar stimulus and the contexts of arousal and expectation mediated by other parts of the brain.3

Under the computational metaphor, the brain can be viewed as a computational device similar to a computer, and the mind emerges as a series of programs by means of which the brain functions 4 . Human thinking does not necessarily reduce deterministically to neuronal functions. Human thinking and neuronal processes combine to produce a computational process. And this computational process is interactive: the mind affects neuronal processes as demonstrated by phenomena like biofeedback. The brain affects the mind as shown by the effects of hallucinogenic drugs upon thinking. I recognize this interaction by referring to the "brain/mind." Rummelhart and McClelland, advocates of a parallel processing approach to modelling the mind, have argued that one should adopt the "brain metaphor" as representative of the mind5. Their argument against the computational metaphor rests upon the slowness of the mind to compute, a limitation of the number of algorithms that can be processed. Neurons are remarkably slow relative to components in modern computers. Neurons operate in the time scale of milliseconds whereas computer components operate in the time scale of nanoseconds - a factor of 10 faster. This means that human processes that take on the order of a second or less can involve only a hundred or so time steps. [...] Thus although a serial computer could be created out of the kinds of components represented by our units, such an implementation would surely violate the 100-step program constraint for any but the simplest processes.'

The Parallel Distributing Processing (PDP) objection to the computational metaphor that the slowness of neuronal activity 3 W. J. Freeman, "Searching for Signal and Noise in the Chaos of Brain Waves," in: S. Kresner (ed.), The Ubiquity of Chaos, Washington, D. C.: The American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1990, p. 47. 4 E. R. MacCormac, "Men and Machines: The Computational Metaphor," Technology in Sodety, 6 (1984): 207-216. 5 D . E. Rummelhart, J. L. McClelland, et al., Parallel Distributed Processing, Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press (Bradford Books), 1986. 6 Ibid., p. 76.

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restricts computations to less than 100 serial steps assumes that the algorithms employed are linear. The P D P researchers believed that the complexity of neuronal activity demanded the replacement of computational algorithms by an emphasis upon connections 7 . Recognizing that neurons activate nonlinearly according to the achievement of threshold levels of firing, PDP developed the following non-linear algorithm as follows: uv (t+l) = F[Z ll W vll G(u ll (t))]

where u v (t) denotes the activation of unit v at time t and W denotes the strength of the connection from unit v to unit |J.. DPP, however, linearizes this algorithm by projecting upon a three-dimensional hypercube which they call a "quasi-linear dynamical system." If one admits the full non-linearlity of neuronal processes as suggested by Freeman, then the computational metaphor can be retained. PDP are correct in claiming that the brain fires its neurons in massively parallel patterns; but they are incorrect in assuming that such requirements eliminate the possibility of a computational metaphor as a presupposition for mental activity. Under certain values, a non-linear algorithm will produce chaos and under other conditions, a stable pattern. The time limitation of 100 steps does not prevent those 100 steps from being executed in thousands of connections at once. N o r must the computations of algorithms be of "linear" systems; they can be fully non-linear with the computations executing iterations of different values of non-linear algorithms. My adoption of the computational metaphor for brain/mind assumes that the computations carried out in neuronal processes will be the iterations of numerous non-linear dynamical systems (algorithms). The neuronal processes of the brain are a complex series of patterns of self-organizing activity arising from the stimulus of perceptual behavior. 7 See E. R. MacCormac, "The Cognitive Beauty of Metaphorical Images," Revue Belge De Philologie Et D'Histoire, LXVII, 3 (1990): 646-657.

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A d o p t i n g the computational metaphor to explain the underlying neuronal processes necessary f o r the creation of new metaphors at first glance m a y seem to be a circular activity. B u t all theories depend u p o n the adoption of a basic metaphor, that is a fundamental assumption about the nature of what is being explained 8 . My conception of a basic metaphor finds its origin in Stephen Pepper's notion of a " r o o t metaphor" 9 . T h e acknowledgement of a basic metaphor, that of the brain as a computational device, underlying the creative process of metaphor produces a reflexivity rather than a vicious circularity. M y explanatory account of creative metaphors is a descriptive rational reconstruction rather than an axiomatic proof. A n d one species of non-linear dynamical systems, fractals, possess a built-in reflexivity in their self-similarity. A m o n g fractals, the same pattern appears at differnt scales.

T h e Interaction Between Mind and Brain Biofeedback provides perhaps the most dramatic evidence of h o w the mind can directly affect bodily processes. Although the yogis of India have known for many centuries that mental concentration could change bodily states, blinded b y the prejudices of modern western medicine, w e have reluctantly come to the same conclusion only relatively recently. B y thought alone one can lower one's b l o o d pressure, oxygen intake and heart rate. Conversely, we have k n o w n for much longer that bodily states, especially as affected b y drugs, can alter mental states. Recent investigations of the interaction of mind and brain, however, have concentrated u p o n the effects of perceptual behavior u p o n neuronal processes. O n e can provide controls for experiments b y studying c o m m o n perceptual tasks like look8 9

A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor, pp. 46-48 and 54-57. S. C. Pepper, World Hypotheses, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970.

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ing at the same word or the same pattern much more easily than one can control the thought alone of subjects. And these perceptual processes all involve cognitive processes; the visual preception of patterns and objects cannot be explained without presuming pyschopysical processes. Indeed, the development of cognitive neuroscience arises in large part from the explanatory failure of biochemistry and biophysics alone to explain processes like visual perception. Bart Kosko expresses this multi-disciplinary approach to behavior from different perspectives in the following passage. Several engineering and scientific disciplines study how aptive systems respond to stimuli. Electrical engineers study the topic as signal processing, nonlinear filtering, coding theory, circuit design, and adaptive control. Computer scientists study it as algorithm and automata theory, computer design, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Mathematicians study it as function approximation, statistical estimation, combinatorial optimization, and dynamical systems. Philosophers study it as epistemology, causality, and action. Biologists study it as neuroscience, biophysics, ecology, evolution, and population biology. Psychologists study it as reinforcement learning, psychometrics, and cognitive science. Economists study it as utility maximization, game theory, econometrics, and market equilibrium theory. Cultural anthropologists study it as culture.10

Perceptual processes (including their cognitive component) control neuronal processes. In the case of visual perception, when a subject sees an object, neurons are activated in the visual cortex and in other parts of the brain where memory and recognition functions occur. The pattern of these neuronal processes can also be expressed in a computer generated image. Hence, we can produce a neuronal image of the process of seeing a visual image, another indication of reflexivity. From another perspective, the interaction between brain and mind can be seen as evidence for the involvement of the human being in a coevolutionary process. Humans participate in both biological evolution and cultural evolution - the combination 10 B. Kosko, Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems: A Dynamical Systems Approach to Machine Intelligence, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1992. p. 12.

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of these parallel processes can be described as "coevolution." As a species, we have evolved biologically through mutations, adaptation to the environment and selective retention of the genetic traits which have survived. Cultural evolution proceeds through historical institutions. These two different processes, however, interact at many points. By changing the cultural institutions, we often directly affect our biological evolution. What and how we perceive affects both biological and cultural evolution. An inability to see certain phenomena as dangerous, may eliminate groups of people. As western Europeans colonized the Americans, Asia and Africa, they used ships (cultural evolution) to transport diseases to peoples little able to resist them and survive (biological evolution). As part of the body, the brain evolves biologically. The mind, however, emerges from neuronal processes and through consciousness, participates in cultural evolution. The mind exists in both camps, biological evolution as an expression of neuronal processes and cultural evolution as an expression of conscious intentional acts. When one creates a new metaphor, the creator employs neuronal processes to change the nature of the cultural institution of language. Changes in language as they are adopted by others cause new patterns of neurons to fire in other brains and through this corporate feedback, not only an interaction between mind and brain occurs, but this also indicates an aspect of the interaction between biological and cultural evolution.

Artificial Neural Networks and Neuronal Images of Metaphors My search for the creative underlying process of metaphor formation seeks to discover the internal pattern (image) of neuronal activation. Artificial Neural Newtorks (ANN) present an obvious candidate for an explanatory model. ANN's simulate the interrelationship of neurons and they

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learn to recognize patterns. A typical A N N looks like the fol-

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