The Enigma of Metaphor: Philosophy, Pragmatics, Cognitive Science (UNIPA Springer Series)

This book deals with the complicated realm of metaphor, an enigma deeply embedded in language and cognition. There has been much discussion of metaphor in the past, but it was characterized by a certain fragmentation and lacked interdisciplinarity. In this field of study, the dominance of Cognitive Linguistics, epitomized by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, has caused the marginalization of alternative perspectives. To fill this gap, this book embarks on an interdisciplinary journey, inviting different theoretical frameworks to engage in a fruitful dialog. It navigates the labyrinth of theories and illuminates the nuanced facets of metaphor. At the center of this exploration are three central questions: whether metaphor belongs to the realm of style or thought, the intricate interplays between literal and metaphorical meanings and the integration of propositional and non-propositional elements in the construction of metaphorical meaning. Through a careful blend of historical analysis and contemporary hypotheses, the book unravels the complexities of metaphor, considering its evolution across the centuries and the myriad interpretations it evokes. By bringing together work from different fields, it ultimately shows that a definition of metaphor is theory-dependent and that metaphor is not a natural kind, but a complex and multifaceted philosophical concept whose study requires a multi-dimensional approach that transcends narrow theoretical boundaries. In this way, the book explores these considerations’ most important philosophical consequences and offers new insights into this fundamental aspect of human language. Preface References Acknowledgements Contents 1 The Enigma of Metaphor 1.1 The Grammatical Forms of Metaphor 1.2 Semantic Properties of Metaphor 1.3 The Pragmatic Dimension: Metaphor as a Matter of Use 1.4 Metaphor Identification Procedures 1.5 The Roles of Metaphor 1.6 Conclusions References 2 Metaphor in the History of Philosophy: A Matter of Style or Thought? 2.1 Aristotle: One, None and a Hundred Thousand 2.1.1 The Meaning of Metaphorá in the Aristotelian Corpus 2.1.2 Metaphor and Simile: An Inverted Relation 2.1.3 Learning with Pleasure: Putting Things Before the Eyes 2.1.4 The Post-Aristotelian Tradition 2.2 The Seventeenth Century: A Century of Contradictions 2.2.1 Thomas Hobbes: On Leviathans, Metaphors and Other Deceits 2.2.2 John Locke: Figurative Language Between Eloquence, Pleasure and Deceit 2.2.3 The Parallel Seventeenth Century: Emanuele Tesauro 2.3 The Eighteenth Century: Giambattista Vico and the Origins of Language 2.3.1 Heroes, Men and the Spices of Language 2.3.2 The Concept of “Metaphor” in Vico’s Thought 2.4 Between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Genealogies and Metaphors 2.4.1 Friedrich Nietzsche: From Metaphor to Concept 2.4.2 Hans Blumenberg: From Concept to Metaphor 2.5 The Twentieth Century: The Century of Metaphor 2.5.1 Between Neopositivism and Generative Grammar: The Cover-Up of Metaphor 2.5.2 The Rediscovery of Metaphor: The Interaction View 2.6 Conclusions References 3 Metaphor as a “Matter of Thought”: Conceptual Metaphor Theory 3.1 Cognitive Linguistics 3.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory 3.2.1 Love and Discussions, Journeys and Wars 3.2.2 Metaphors and Metaphorical Expressions: A Typology 3.2.3 Catachresis and Novel Metaphors 3.3 Are We Metaphorical Beings? Some Criticism Towards Conceptual Metaphor Theory 3.3.1 Metaphor in Language, Metaphor in Thought: Some Observations 3.3.2 From Metaphor to Metaphors 3.3.3 Literal or Metaphorical? 3.4 Conclusions References 4 Metaphor in Pragmatics: Literal Meaning, Metaphorical Meaning and Other Dangerous Things 4.1 Direct Versus Indirect Access to Metaphorical Meaning 4.2 Graded Salience Hypothesis 4.3 Relevance Theory 4.3.1 Metaphor as an Implicature: Sperber and Wilson [11] 4.3.2 Metaphor as an Explicature: Carston [12] and the Ad Hoc Concept Hypothesis 4.3.3 The Deflationary Account of Metaphor: Sperber and Wilson [14] 4.3.4 Two Ways to Metaphor Comprehension: Carston [15] and Carston [16] 4.4 Conclusions References 5 Metaphor and Mental Imagery: The “Visibility” of Figurative Language 5.1 Proposition Theories of Metaphor 5.2 Image Theories of Metaphor 5.2.1 Metaphor as the Dreamwork of Language 5.2.2 Rorty: Metaphors as Unfamiliar Noises 5.2.3 Lepore and Stone: Metaphor as Perspective 5.3 Proposition Theories and Image Theories: An Evaluation 5.4 A Middle Way: Carston and Green 5.5 Cognitive Linguistics, Embodied Cognition and Image Metaphors 5.6 Psycholinguistics, Mental Imagery and Metaphors 5.7 Conclusions References 6 From Metaphor Studies Back to Metaphor 6.1 Is Metaphor a Natural Kind? 6.2 Which Future for Metaphor Studies? References Conclusions