Life is a Journey
Part II:
Communication Beyond the Literal Level
Symbols carry a life-enhancing ability, and when one is tuned in to what these symbols have to offer, the symbol becomes “pregnant with meaning” and shapes one’s reality
~ Anthony Stevens, Ariadne’s Clue: a Guide to the Symbols of Humankind
Introduction
Human societies communicate abstractly through the use of facial expressions and bodily gestures, as well as through the use of tropes, non-literal verbal extensions. Metaphor (a literary figure of speech that uses a tangible object to represent some intangible quality of one idea, in terms of another) is a major trope humans perceive and act in accordance with. Humans have the ability to communicate about abstract and intangible experiences because there is such a close-knit relationship between metaphors and human cognition. Metaphors help to synchronize mind and body, which is necessary for the conceptualization of the real; metaphors are necessary to render the unfamiliar more familiar. This higher level of cognition and intelligence keeps us free and fully human.
Metaphors may actually be people’s primary mode of mental operation. Because the mind experiences the world through the body in which it resides, people cannot help but conceptualize the world in terms of body perceptions. For example, physical and emotional states are entities within a person: “He has a pain in his shoulder;” “My cold has gone from my head to my chest;” and “Her fears keep coming back.” [1] Metaphors create individual realities and therein shape human communication. Without metaphors humans would not be able to reason, create, and explore; Humans would lose full ability to perceive, interpret, and enhance understanding of the unfamiliar. Without metaphors human minds would remain empty vessels, and would be unable to survive.
In this second section of my project, I will first explain two different theories of metaphor. The first theory is Max Black’s; the second, Donald Davidson’s. After I have presented both metaphorical accounts, I will explain why I believe Black presents a better analysis of metaphor and the function it serves in human communication. Then, I will transition from here into a detailed explanation of how the mind and body, the physical and mental essences, work together to shape the way humans think and act. The discussion will begin with Kant’s epistemological concept of “schema,” which is his method for applying pure concepts (categories) to sense impressions. Through an understanding of Kant’s theory, we can understand the rules that guide the construction of perceived and imagined images. After looking at Kant’s rules that guide visual perception, this paper will examine psychologist George Kelly’s construct theory, a theory of human cognition, which states that people develop constructs as internal ideas of reality in order to understand the world around them. They are based on individual interpretations of individual observations and experiences. Kelly’s theory informs us of why we need to have a way to construct meaning of the world around us. After Kelly’s theory has been assessed, I will explain the evolution of metaphor. This will begin with looking at the first theory of metaphor, which was proposed by Aristotle. Then, the relationship between abstract concepts, and perception and action will be explained by looking at the accounts of metaphor set forward by Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. The analysis of this philosophic account will demonstrate how metaphor underlies every mode of thought. The analysis of these different areas of thought should help in showing the role and importance of metaphor in human communication.
Analysis of Black and Davidson
There are multiple theories of metaphor, both in analytic philosophy and continental philosophy. This first section of Part II analyzes how metaphor has become of interest in analytic philosophy, specifically, the philosophy of language. The reason for this interest in metaphor is because metaphor does not conform to accepted truth-conditional semantics, the conditions that determine whether or not a statement is true. One theory of metaphor, the comparison theory, asserts that the truth value of metaphor can be expressed by listing every respect in which the two terms being compared are alike. For example, John-Donne wrote in his famous work, “The Sun Rising,” “She is all states, and all princes, I.” If one interprets this line literally, then it is false and nonsensical. However, interpreted metaphorically, it is meaningful and may be true. This line demonstrates the speaker’s belief that he and his lover are richer than all states, kingdoms, and rulers in the entire world because of the love they share.[2] However, by using comparison theory to try and fully explain the function of a metaphor, metaphor is recast as simile; metaphor ends up acting as a substitute for a formal comparison, rather than being recognized for having distinctive capacities.[3]
This is the criticism other analytical philosophers have given. Two accounts worth analyzing are contemporary accounts of philosophers, Donald Davidson and Max Black. While both philosophers believe it is a mistake to try and find truth conditions of a metaphor, they disagree in terms of what metaphor means. First, I will look at Donald Davidson’s theory of metaphor. Then, I will shift gears, and look at Max Black’s theory of metaphor. Then, I will propose both Black’s criticism of Davidson’s theory and Davidson’s criticism of Black’s theory. After both metaphorical accounts and both sets of replies have been given, I will explain why I believe Black presents a better explanation of what metaphor means and the function it serves in human communication, but I will emphasize why I believe this metaphorical account is not the best explanation of the role metaphor plays in human communication.
Donald Davidson defines metaphor as “the dreamwork of language” and believes that like all dreamwork, its interpretation reflects as much on the interpreter as on the originator.[4] Davidson claims there is no manual for determining what a metaphor “means” or “says” because metaphor “implies a degree of artistic success” (Davidson, p.31). The main argument Davidson makes is that metaphors are strictly literal and nothing more. He believes it is false to say metaphor has, in addition to its literal sense or meaning, another sense or meaning (Davidson, p.32). He objects to the idea of metaphor being an added form of communication alongside ordinary communication, because he does not believe a metaphor holds special meaning (Davidson, p.32). Davidson does not deny the idea of metaphor serving a purpose in language. He recognizes how a metaphor can be used to emphasize a point, but a metaphor depends on the original, literal meaning of a word whether or not it depends on new or extended meaning (Davidson, p.34). He claims metaphor is simply a linguistic device used to help people make comparisons. He uses T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Hippopotamus,” to show how while the church resembles a hippopotamus, “imitation is not meaning” (Davidson, p.41). Metaphor is just used to get a message across. This does not mean it carries some second figurative meaning; “metaphor says only what shows on its face” (Davidson, p.43). The words in Eliot’s poem do not have special meaning, a specific cognitive content (Davidson, p.46). In summary, a “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” (Davidson, p.46).
Now, turning and looking at Max Black’s philosophy, Black also criticized the comparison theory of metaphor by stating that metaphors are too open-ended to be able to function as referring expressions, and so metaphors cannot be expressions that have truth conditions.[5] A theory of metaphor must include more than matching similar features between two concepts. Metaphor actually creates insight or new meaning. Black’s theory, the interactionist theory, asserts that at the heart of a metaphor is the interaction between its two subject terms, where the interaction provides the condition for a meaning which neither of the subject terms possesses independently of the metaphorical context. The primary subject in a metaphor is colored by a set of ‘associated implications’ normally predicated of the secondary subject (Ortony, p.28). From the number of possible meanings which could result, the primary subject sifts the qualities predicable of the secondary subject, letting through only those that fit. This interaction process Black terms an ‘implication-complex’, a system of associated implications shared by the linguistic community as well as an impulse of free meaning, free in that it is meaning which was unavailable prior to the metaphor’s introduction (Ortony, p. 28). Black holds the idea that metaphorical statements are not a substitute for a formal comparison, but rather they have their own distinctive capacities and achievements (Black, p.284).
Black claims his interactionist view is free from the defects of substitution and comparison views and offers some important insight into the uses and limitations of metaphor (Black, p.285). He states in order for the receiver of a message to understand the metaphor being communicated, one must be aware of the extension of meaning. Black gives the example of the statement, “Man is a wolf.” Here there are two subjects – the principal subject, man, and the subsidiary subject, wolf (Black, p.286-87). Now, what is not important is the standard dictionary definition of wolf. Rather, what is important is what Black refers to as the system of associated commonplaces (Black, p.287). Interpretation in the literal sense would force the speaker to accept a certain speech community’s set of standard beliefs about wolves, which would not allow the metaphor to have an effect on the listener (Black, p.287). In order for the metaphor to be effective, the commonplaces must be freely and readily evoked. In the example of “man is a wolf,” the wolf-system of related commonplaces is evoked, which organizes the hearer’s conception of man – fierce, dangerous, and aggressive. In summary, metaphor, in Black’s view, should not be thought of as reducible to a comparison between two things. Metaphors have the power of providing one with insight that a simple literal statement is unable to provide.
In response to Black’s interactionist theory of metaphor, Davidson thinks Black is wrong when he says, “The rules of our language determine that some expressions must count as metaphors” (Davidson, p.31). Davidson does not believe that our language contains any instructions for interpreting metaphors. Black claims that a metaphor makes us apply a system of commonplaces associated with the metaphorical word to the subject of the metaphor. Then, if paraphrase fails, it is not because the metaphor does not have cognitive content, but rather because the literal paraphrase fails to give the insight that the metaphor did (Davidson, p.44). Davidson does not understand how this can be right. He claims that if metaphor has a special cognitive content then it should not be so difficult to decode it; the metaphorical effect should not be weak (Davidson, p.44). In summary, Davidson does not disagree with the overall effects of metaphors, but rather with how metaphor is supposed to produce these effects. He does not believe metaphor has any kind of cognitive content. He finds Black’s view of metaphor working through other intermediaries to be a wrong interpretation. He thinks metaphors can help us appreciate some fact, but the metaphor itself does not express the fact (Davidson, p.46).
Black replies to Davidson’s account of metaphor, and states how he believes Davidson’s account can be reduced to the comparison theory.[6] Black claims that Davidson fails to explain how strong metaphors work to express and promote insight. While Davidson makes the point that he does not think extended metaphors can be complete, Black replies that he is not trying to claim that they are complete. Black does not disregard the fact that the interaction theory has weaknesses. In fact, he points out what he believes to be the theory’s chief weakness, which is the lack of clarification of what it means to say that in metaphor one thing is thought of as another thing (“How Metaphors Work,” p.142). Black recognizes that we lack an adequate account of metaphorical thought. However, he thinks we can come close to translation, and for this reason, he finds it wrong to reduce the meaning of metaphor to simile.
After looking at both Davidson’s and Black’s theories of metaphor, and looking at their replies to one another, I favor Black’s interaction theory over Davidson’s account of metaphor. I agree with Black that in thinking about metaphor, it is important to look at language and recognize there is a shift in meaning. Metaphors have some cognitive content, and therefore metaphors cannot be reduced to the literal level. Metaphors are often used when there is, in fact, no literal equivalent; they help “[plug] the gaps in a literal vocabulary” (Black, p.280). However, we are left without much clarification as to how metaphors work in this way. Black’s focus/frame explanation appears to make common sense, but yet we are unable to unpack the theory enough to explain how the focus directs which associated commonplaces are left to fall and which remain in the hearer’s “lens.”[7] It is important to acknowledge how metaphor gains its power through the effect it has upon the hearer by the speaker’s use.
Black’s theory proves to be a better account of metaphor than Davidson’s, but I do not believe Black’s interactionist theory is the best metaphorical account. If I had to state whose theory of metaphor I favor the most, I would say George Lakoff’s, because Lakoff’s account of metaphor, specifically his account of conceptual metaphor, demonstrates how humans perceive and act in accordance with metaphors. However, I do not want to dive into Lakoff’s full account of metaphor at this point, because I will discuss his theory later in this section. For now, it is only necessary to acknowledge that metaphors create individual realities, which shape human communication. Metaphors cannot be reduced to literal paraphrasing, because this is to dismiss their unique ability to express and promote insight. Without metaphors humans would not be able to reason, create, and explore. They would lose full ability to perceive, interpret, and enhance understanding of the unfamiliar. Without metaphors, human minds would remain empty vessels.
Synchronization of Mind and Body
Now, we need something more profound than Black’s interactionist theory to gain a greater understanding of how metaphors influence our thoughts and actions. Trying to understand material that is metaphysical in nature while we as humans exist as part of a seemingly empirical reality proves to be a struggle, but an understanding of Kant’s work can help. Immanuel Kant was among the most influential philosophers in the history of Western Philosophy who sought to answer some of the most fundamental metaphysical questions. His three fundamental questions were: “What can I know?” “What ought I to do?” and “What may I hope for?”[8] Kant believed that our knowledge is limited to mathematics and the science of the natural, empirical world. Kant’s basic problem was how to connect abstract concepts, the categories, with human knowledge, which was restricted by space and time. He needed a mechanism that would unify the categories with the empirical world, and he devised to this effect what is called the theory of transcendental schemata. [9] We can see in this theory the metaphysical foundation for a cognitive theory of metaphor.
It can be difficult to grasp the real meaning Kant intends to get across when analyzing his language and arguments, so in order to understand his schema theory, it is important to first give Kant’s conception of his critiques of metaphysics as a science, and then demonstrate how transcendental philosophy is the foundation of this critique, in that it provides an analysis of the nature and limits of human experience. It is from these two conceptions that Kant’s doctrine of schemata is developed.
Kant begins to explore his problem of defining knowledge by first describing certain claims as “a priori” (a claim that cannot be established by appeal to sensory observation or past experience, and a claim that is necessary and universal) and other claims as “a posteriori” (a knowledge claim based on the evidence of the senses, and hence is neither necessary nor universal).[10] An example of an a priori claim would be: “I am conscious of walking.” Such a claim needs to be proven by an a posteriori claim, a claim dependent on empirical evidence. The claim in this situation would be: “I am actually walking.” The proposition is proven in space and time by appealing to someone’s sensory experience of actually walking and not just being conscious of walking.
For Kant, the duality of these two claims marks the duality of the human situation. A priori claims without a posteriori confirmation remain noumena. A priori claims with a posteriori confirmation are phenomena. Phenomena are the appearances, which constitute our experience; noumena are the matters of pure consciousness, whose nature we do not really know. Phenomena and noumena are important concepts because for Kant, our knowledge can only come from sensory objects and our way of knowing objects, hence our knowledge is only of phenomenal objects; we cannot know anything of noumenal objects: “Without an object the concept has no sense and is completely empty of content, although it may still contain the logical function for making a concept from what data may come up” (Kant, A239).
Kant suggests that our conceptual thinking should be connected to sensory reality and that our sensuous experience should be subject to the organizing principles of the intellect. He claims that both understanding and sensibility are necessary for experience. These two faculties can yield objectively valid judgments of things only in conjunction with one another. It is in Kant’s chapter titled, “On the Schematism of the Concepts of the Understanding,” in his Critique of Pure Reason, where he explores how the conceptual framework of the categories is related to reality and how reality (as appearance) is organized and determined as the possible object of experience.
Kant lays a foundation for metaphorical theory by showing a connection between the categories and reality by means of the transcendental imagination. This type of representation, Kant’s schema theory, refers to rules the imagination follows to construct images. These images can be images we perceive, imagine, or remember. The schemata are thought to establish the homogeneity that is required between the categories and intuitions. It is through this process that we can ensure the categories have sense and significance. Think about this in terms of the analogy of a hand and a lump of clay. The hand represents the imagination; the lump of clay represents an image. How the hand shapes the clay, the rule that it follows in shaping the clay, is the schema.[11] The categories after having been “schematized” by the imagination are what apply here (Kant, B 179). Once schematized, concepts and sensory intuition share a common feature, which Kant calls homogeneity. All of our perceptions are composites of what is really there and what we expect to be there. By means of transcendental schemata, we experience a spatio-temporal world and the categories obtain an objective reality. For example, when it comes to time, the schema develops rules, that translate the concept of time into a forward moving line, and as I will later expand on with examples from Lakoff and Johnson, this form of representation can be credited with making human cognition possible.
If Kant’s theory can be called a metaphysical theory of cognitive constructivism, we can then explore the structure he laid out in more contemporary psychological empirical terms. Continuing with the exploration of human cognition, we now can turn and look at psychologist George Kelly (1905-1967), who developed a theory of personality known as personal construct psychology, which focuses on the ways in which individuals construct and reconstruct meanings of their lives.[12] Both the theory and its associated methods help to provide novel means of conceptualizing, assessing, and treating psychological difficulties, which are defined as ways in which one’s constructions failed to provide a meaningful framework for anticipating events or articulating with the perspectives of others.
At the base of Kelly’s theory is the image of the person-as-scientist, a view that emphasizes the human capacity for meaning making, agency, and ongoing revision of personal systems of knowing across time. This means individuals, like scientists, are seen as creatively formulating constructs about their lives in attempt to better understand and even predict them to a certain extent.[13] It is easy to become overwhelmed by life’s continual flow of events, and it is by breaking down the endless flow of experience into coherent units that allows people to determine similarities and differences of events in terms that are both personally significant and shared by relevant others.
Meaning becomes a matter of contrast – an individual attributes meaning to an event by not only recognizing what it is, but by differentiating it from what it is not (Bridges). For example, one can think about constructs such as ‘liberal vs. conservative,’ ‘pro-life vs. pro-choice,’ pro-death penalty vs. anti-death penalty.’ These constructs provide a basis for self-definition and social interaction (Bridges).
Personal Construct Theory also places a strong emphasis on emotional experiences. These experiences are understood as signals of actual or impending transitions in one’s fundamental constructs for anticipating the world (Bridges). For example, an individual may experience depressive symptoms when there is change in their core structure of identity, which could happen in a situation where one faced rejection from their peer group.
In thinking about this theory, we recognize the complexity of our language system. Our language system is a symbolic one, which allows for us to communicate about abstract and intangible ideas. It is not a simple, one layered, linear process. Humans, in addition to communicating at the literal level, have the ability to transmit signals by means other than spoken or written words. They achieve this non-verbal communication through the use of facial expressions and bodily gestures, as well as through non-literal verbal extensions with a logical component, called tropes (Salzmann, p.265). Human beings appear to unconsciously use these non-literal methods of communication. In many instances, it appears evident that the body communicates more strongly than the mind, without the mind even being aware of the body’s innate power over reason. Human societies need this form of communication in order to represent the ways things in the world are; communication in the non-literal sense is a process of rendering the unfamiliar more familiar.
There are various forms of non-verbal communication Some forms include: paralanguage, which refers to sounds that sometimes do not have a written form (e.g. uh-huh means Yes, or I am listening); kinesics, or body language (e.g. eye contact); proxemics, which refers to how humans organize space (e.g. the intimate distance for embracing, touching or whispering); haptics, which refers to the sense of touch (e.g. in Spain, people greet each other with two kisses on the cheek); chronemics, which refers to time (e.g. when in a relationship to say, I love you); and artifacts, or communication with objects (e.g. jewelry, bumper stickers, food, etc.) (Salzmann, p.265).
To begin to understand this non-literal sense of communication it helps to first analyze the role kinesics plays in human societies. This powerful form of communication involves body language, and the way this is used to portray moods and emotions. “Ritualized gestures – the bow, the shrug, the smile, the wink, the military salute, the pointed finger, the thumbed nose, sticking out the tongue, and so on – are not really nonverbal communication, because such gestures are just a substitute for the verbal meanings that are associated with them” (Clark, p.57). However, there are many spontaneous gestures and actions that are unconscious, and communicate a great deal; sometimes what a person is saying unconsciously by his actions directly contradicts what he is saying consciously with his words (Clark, p.57). The best way to understand how this form of non-verbal communication works is to think about how body language is interpreted when one goes into an interview. There are various types of body movement one can conduct, which can portray a person as confident or insecure, enthusiastic or lazy. For example, something as simple as a handshake with an interviewer says a lot. A good firm hand shake is associated with an open-minded, less neurotic and shy personality in comparison to a weak handshake.[14] Words prove to not be the only way to effectively communicate; body movement has interpretative meaning as well.
Now, looking beyond body language, it is important to also look at the use of tropes in human societies. Tropes include: metaphor, a literary figure of speech that uses and image, story or tangible object to represent a less tangible object or some intangible quality or idea (e.g. Life as journey: some of us travel hopefully, others seem to have no direction, many lose their way); simile, a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, using the words like or as (e.g. life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get); metonym, a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept (e.g. the White House stands for the President); synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a term denoting one thing is used to refer to a related thing (e.g. executives being referred to as suits), myth, a traditional or legendary story; and metamorphosis (abrupt change in an animal’s body structure through cell growth and differentiation).
While the other types of tropes play important roles in human communication, metaphors can be viewed as people’s primary mode of mental operation. This is because of the major role metaphor plays in human reason. “Reason is not disembodied, as the tradition has largely held, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experience” and this reason is “not purely literal, but largely metaphorical and imaginative.”[15]
The Evolution of Metaphor: Aristotle to Lakoff and Johnson
To figure out how metaphor evolved into a concept with multiple interpretations, it is necessary now to look at the first theory of metaphor, which was proposed by Aristotle.
Aristotle first confronts the issue of metaphor in the Poetics. The use of a metaphor livens up language. Aristotle expresses his account of metaphor in the following way: “Metaphor is the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion”[16] Aristotle uses metaphor as a generic term: his first two types of metaphors are in fact synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a term denoting one thing is used to refer to a related thing (e.g. executives being referred to as suits). His third type of metaphor appears to more closely resemble a metaphor that later theorists choose to represent. However, Aristotle shifts gears when he reaches the explanation of his fourth type of metaphor. It is in this fourth type where he explains what a metaphor enables us to know.
Here, Aristotle’s entire classification system of metaphor will be looked at in order to fully understand the origin of metaphor. Once the origin of metaphor is understood, there will then be an exploration of what Aristotle reveals about more general conceptions of rhetoric and language.
The first type of transfer, from genus to species, is expressed in the example, Here lies my ship, where standing is the genus that contains among it the species lying at anchor (Poetics, 1457b1).[17] A general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class. This first type of account does not seem very acceptable because two things are being named ‘synonymous,’ when, in fact, a genus is not sufficient to define a species. Here is a clearer example. Think about using the word animal to stand in for man. It seems insufficient to use the word animal in place of man because one could use the word animal to stand in for horse, dog, tiger, monkey, etc. The metaphor is rhetorically acceptable, but not logically acceptable (Eco, p.92).
Aristotle’s second type of metaphor appears more logically sound, but from the stand point of natural language, it sounds unconvincing (Eco, p.91).The example Aristotle gives of this type of metaphor is, Verily ten thousand noble deeds hath Odysseus wrought (Poetics, 1457b). Here, ten thousand stands in place for the word, many. The phrase has a hyperbolic tone in that it clearly emphasizes that ten thousand is considered a large quantity in this instance of human actions. This is why the phrase should not be taken literally. The problem with this type of metaphor is the fact that there are instances where the particular term used for exaggeration in one instance is actually scarce in quantity in another. For example, think of the common phrase, “This bag weighs a ton!” In this instance, the word ton is being used to make the point that the bag is very heavy. However, if one was to say, “This elephant weighs a ton,” the word ton is actually a small amount, since adult elephants can weigh between six to eight tons. It is for this reason that this type of metaphor is logically correct, but rhetorically insipid (Eco, p.92).
In regards to the third type of transfer, Aristotle gives this two-fold example: Then he drew off his life with the bronze and Then with the bronze cup he cut the water (Poetics, 1457b). Another translation would, in the second case, have a bronze sword cutting the flow of blood, or life (Eco, p.92). Here there are two examples of a passage from species to species: drawing off and cutting are both cases of the more general phrase, taking away. This is the way in which metaphor is typically explained by theorists today. Features are being shared between two typically unrelated subjects.
The metaphors of the fourth group are built from analogy. An analogy is given if the second term is to the first as the fourth to the third. Correspondingly, an analogous metaphor uses the fourth term for the second or the second for the fourth. This principle is illustrated by the following example: “the cup is to Dionysus as the shield to Ares. The cup may, therefore, be called 'the shield of Dionysus,' and the shield 'the cup of Ares'” (Poetics, 1457b). Aristotle clearly demonstrates how a play of similarities can mingle with dissimilarities. Cup and shield become similar because of their property of roundness, and dissimilar because of their functions; Ares and Dionysus are similar because they are both gods, and are dissimilar because of their respective domains of action (Eco, p.95). Here, in this fourth type of metaphor, Aristotle changes his game without any awareness that he is doing so (Eco, p.99). It is here where we gain an understanding of how metaphors are a tool of cognition (Eco, p.100). In his first three types, Aristotle explains how a metaphor is produced and understood, but in the fourth type, he explains what metaphor enables us to know. He explains how metaphor increases our knowledge of the relations between things. He states how through metaphor we are able to gain an understanding of new ideas, because metaphor brings together words that are puzzling and words we already know.[18] This is in contrast to what a simile does. When one uses a simile, and states one thing is like something else, the idea is less active and less interesting to the hearer (Rhetoric, III.10.3). When a metaphor is carefully crafted, it is lively, and surprises the hearer, who expected something different. “His acquisition of the new idea impresses him all the more. His mind seems to say, ‘Yes, to be sure; I never thought of that’” (Rhetoric, III.11.6). In other words, the listener experiences an aha moment, a moment of clarity and insight. It is here where we gain a better understanding of Aristotle’s thoughts on learning. Here, we can see how Aristotle has assigned a cognitive function to the metaphor. Creating metaphors “is a sign of a natural disposition of the mind,” because knowing how to distinguish a good metaphor from a bad one means being able to perceive or grasp similarities between two or more things (Poetics, 1457b). So, now what is the importance of this? What does this teach us about rhetoric and language? It teaches us how in communication, one must be aware of one’s style and clarity. Style and clarity can be secured by using words that are current and ordinary, but ordinary words do not help in the explanation of new ideas. “Metaphor, moreover, gives style clearness, charm, and distinction as nothing else can: and it is not a thing whose use can be taught by one man to another” (Rhetoric, III.2.8). When they are fitting (not “ridiculous” or “too grand and theatrical”), metaphor can successfully render the unfamiliar more familiar (Rhetoric, III.3.3). For example, “somebody calls actors ‘hangers-on of Dionysus’, but they call themselves ‘artists’: each of these terms is a metaphor, the one intended to throw dirt at the actor, the other to dignify him” (Rhetoric, III, 2.10). It takes careful reasoning to decide which metaphor appropriately achieves in getting the intended message across to one’s audience. One must have a good understanding of the resemblances between what is being signified.
Since the primary role of language is to express and communicate basic truths about the world, metaphors are proven to be necessary, specifically metaphors that create proportions between two or more ideas. According to Aristotle, metaphors bring about understanding. In order to understand a metaphor, the hearer has to find something common between the metaphor and the thing the metaphor refers to. Think about the metaphor, life is a journey. To understand this metaphor we have to find a common genus to which life and journey belong; we cannot grasp the very sense of the metaphor until we find that both life and journey share the act of traveling some distance. Therefore, a metaphor does not only refer to a thing, but simultaneously describes the thing in a certain respect. This is why Aristotle says the metaphor brings about learning. As soon as we understand why someone uses the metaphor journey to refer to life, we have learned at least one characteristic of living.
In summary, Aristotle was the first to show us how using metaphors helps to make thoughts truly meaningful; they help to build ideas into structured wholes (Bickerton, p.4).
Now, we can turn and look at what goes on inside individuals’ brains that allows for them to conceptualize in such an abstract manner. To understand what is going on it helps to look at a study done by the German-American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. In 1929, Köhler demonstrated that the human brain is able to extract abstract properties from shapes and sounds.[19] When he showed islanders two shapes, one round and amoeboid and the other sharp and spiky, and then asked them to associate the words “takete” and “baluba” with the shapes, he discovered the majority of participants associated “takete” with the sharp, spiky shape and “baluba” with the round, amoeboid shape (Geary, p.80). It is the instinctive ability to make associations like this that helps explain why metaphors typically “take the commonly shared world of physical sensation as their source and the private, abstract world of ideas, feelings, thoughts, and emotions as their target” (Geary, p.82). For a further example, think about the words “light” and “dark” and how they affect one’s opinion when associated with someone’s personality: a sunny person is typically characterized as someone who is happy and cheerful. In contrast, someone who is gloomy is characterized as being sad and depressed. These types of metaphors begin to create consistent patterns. The words we use for everyday experiences, physical things, and sensations become used to describe abstract thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ideas (Geary, pp.78-79).
It is with this understanding that we can now turn and look at how George Lakoff and Mark Johnson reveal the metaphorical structure underlying each mode of thought and show how the metaphysics of each theory flows from its metaphors. It is through this revelation that we can come to understand what it means to be human.
There is such a close-knit relationship between human cognition and metaphor because mind and body are not separate metaphysical entities. For this reason, everything appears to come down to human reason and the duality between mind and body. Physical experience and perception are both basic and shared between humans and human mental states are less readily communicable than physical ones. [20] To better understand the synchronization of mind and body, it helps to unravel what conceptual metaphors are. Conceptual metaphors allow us to “conceptualize one domain of experience in terms of another” (Flesh, p.91). Because of their literal, basic level- entailments, conceptual metaphors allow us to conceptualize and comprehend our experiences, and then communicate them.
Take for example the abstract concept of time. Time is not a concept that can be conceptualized on its own terms; it must be conceptualized metaphorically. Think about how humans orient themselves in space and time. “The most basic metaphor for time has an observer at the present who is facing toward the future, with the past behind the observer” (Flesh, p.140). From this conceptualization, humans can talk and reason about the here and now because the observer’s physical location serves as a reference point for the words preceding and following (Flesh, p.143).
One commonly used conceptual metaphor is argument is war. “Words are weapons in this verbal combat: sharp-tongued people make cutting remarks, for example, and sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me seems to be a formulaic attempt to assert the metaphorical rather than literal status of such weapons” (Sweetser, p.713).
Humans perceive and act in accordance with the metaphors. Continuing with the theme of argument is war, one can see the parallel made between combat and conversation; “one may verbally and psychologically, without physical intervention, push someone into something, drag someone unwillingly into a situation, pull someone out of trouble, give someone a (verbal) nudge (= a reminder) slap someone’s wrist (= reprove someone mildly), and so forth” (Sweetser, p.718). Humans plan and use strategies in order to try and win verbal arguments. It is hard to imagine a culture where the metaphorical concept argument is war is not used to structure what humans do and how humans understand what they are doing when they argue; try and imagine a culture where no one ever wins or loses, where there is no sense of attacking or defending. These people would view arguing differently, if they even had a perception of argumentation at all. American culture has a form of discourse structured in terms of battle, and this discourse demonstrates how metaphors allow for the perception of one thing in terms of another. These conceptual arguments serve the purpose of shaping understanding; the construction of these arguments shows the connections between things that are and things that are not obvious by putting ideas together.
These various defining concepts (e.g. journeys, war, health, etc) emerge from the interactions between human beings, and the concept they metaphorically define (e.g. love) is understood in terms of interactional properties (Lakoff, p.132). This clarifies how metaphors are grounded in human interactions within the physical and cultural environment. Reason and concepts therefore are not transcendent – not utterly independent of the body (Flesh, 128). Metaphors are imaginative and creative, but the irony is that they are necessary for the conceptualization of the real (Flesh, 14). Truth is always relative to a conceptual system that is defined by the metaphor (Lakoff, 3). Therefore, since the primary role of language is to formulate, express and communicate basic truths about the world, these metaphors are proven to be necessary.
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Metaphor: Making the Abstract Concrete and Visual 