Metaphor (Max Black essay)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"To draw attention to a philosopher's metaphors is to belittle him-like praising a logician for his beautiful handwriting. Addiction to metaphor is held to be illicit, on the principle that whereof one can speak only metaphorically, thereof one ought not to speak at all. Yet the nature of the offence is unclear. I should like to do something to dispel the mystery that invests the topic; but since philosophers (for all their notorious interest in language) have so neglected the subject, I must get what help I can from the literary critics. They, at least, do not accept the commandment, " Thou shalt not commit metaphor ", or assume that metaphor is incompatible with serious thought." --incipit "Metaphor" (1962) by Max Black |
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"Metaphor" (1962) is an essay by Max Black, published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.
The essay was followed in 1979 by “More about Metaphor”.
See also
- Metaphor in philosophy
- The Fortunes of Nigel
- I. A. Richards, chapter 5 (" Metaphor ") and Chapter 6 (" Command of Metaphor ") of his The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford, 1936).
- I. A. Richards, chapters 7 and 8 of his Interpretation in Teaching (London, 1938)
- W. Bedell Stanford's Greek Metaphor (Oxford, 1936)
- Chapter 18 of W. Empson's The Structure of Complex Words (London, 1951)