1. Metaphor as a linguistic phenomenon, an object of stylistics and a phenomenon of “spiritual magnitude”
As Lichtenberg said, “everything has its depths,” so there are many aspects to this issue that require detailed consideration. The first aspect of metaphor is linguistic, since metaphor is a product of the speech-thought process. This is a two-component or one-component structure based on figurative identification, as Ph.D. I.A. Zheleznova-Lipets, “metaphor is a collapsed comparison.”
This definition is given to the metaphor by BTS: “The use of a word or expression in a figurative meaning, based on similarity, comparison, analogy.”
Metaphor has in its structure analogy, transfer by contiguity, affinity between the abstract and the concrete. For example, in the poetry of Charles Baudelaire we can find a combination of an abstract concept with a concrete one; such a combination helps to create a special metaphorical philosophical reality. The unearthly and the earthly, the beautiful and the terrible, where dualism forms a comparative trope: “the shore of Eternity”, “the shore of the abyss”, “the autumn of ideas”, “jewels of horror”, “death, old captain”, “alchemy of grief”, “precious metal of will” ”, “vulnerable by the spurs of hope”, “flute sigh”, “oasis of horror”, “disdaining the herds of people herded by fate” in one word “for mortal hearts divine opium”. Metaphor allows one to read the writer’s philosophy.
Metaphor is the result of the analytical process of finding correspondences between things. That is why the desire to understand borderline or otherworldly realities often occurs through the mechanism of metaphor. What is difficult to understand is modeled.
Few of us think about how indispensable metaphor is in everyday communication. “Erased” or “dead” metaphors, metaphorical cliches are often not noticed by us, but they exist not only in the language of poetry, but also in everyday life, in politics, in art. Where there is a sphere of emotional perception, there is a metaphor.
Dolinin K.A. in “The Stylistics of the French Language,” he writes the following about metaphor, defining it as a more significant phenomenon than just decoration: “In art, everything is significant, and metaphor is not decoration, but a means of expressing the inexpressible.” Further, Dolinin quotes V.V. Vinogradov. (Vinogradov V.V. Pushkin’s Style. M., Goslitizdat, 1945, p. 89): “a metaphor, if it is not stamped, is an act of affirmation of an individual worldview, an act of subjective isolation.”
There are many classifications of metaphor. Aristotle began to study the issue of its classification. If we consider the linguistic aspect of metaphor, we should talk about its typology. Here is one of the most common.
Let us present the typology of Aristotle's metaphor, supplemented by V.K. Tarasova. There are qualitative and relative comparative paths.
1. Qualitative comparative paths:
– tactile metaphor (“And we feed our kind remorse” Baudelaire)
– visual metaphor (“If passion, poison, dagger and fire / Have not yet embroidered their pleasant drawings, / The banal outline of our pathetic destinies” Baudelaire)
– auditory metaphor (“When we sigh, Death is in our lungs / Descends as an invisible river of dull complaints” Baudelaire)
– taste metaphor (“And your spirit is no less a bitter abyss” Baudelaire)
– high-quality combined metaphor (poem “Beacons” by Baudelaire)
2. Relative comparative tropes:
– functional metaphor (based on an unusual combination of verb and noun)
– a metaphor based on existence (a non-standard combination of an adjective and a noun)
- a metaphor built on the intersection of the meanings of two words (a play with the meaning of the same word, for example, “a hot sob that rolls / rumbles from century to century,” “cet ardent sanglot qui roule d’âge en âge.” Verb “ rouler" can be interpreted in two ways: to rumble and roll).
A metaphor can be characterized by two types at once: for example, a tactile-functional metaphor from the poem “Carrion” by Baudelaire (“Une charogne”): “a worm that will eat you with kisses” (“la vermine \ Qui vous mangera de baisers”).
In “The Stylistics of the French Language” Dolinin K.A. defines the following types of metaphors: one-member (where only the image is presented) and two-member (contains two noun phrases). A two-term metaphor: an address, an application, a phrase with an inconsistent definition - they are all predicative constructions. Single-member metaphor has its own subtypes: verbal, adjective, nominal. Single-term and double-term metaphors can be complex and detailed. A two-term metaphor is the unity of the abstract and the concrete; semantic contradiction is almost always contained in it. The “multi-layeredness” of a metaphor is a polyphony of meanings, an important feature of a metaphorical structure. An expanded metaphor models an abstract concept through “expanding and concretizing” metaphorical details.
Speaking about the structure of metaphor, it should be noted that it has a certain relationship to antithesis. The internal antagonism of metaphor was evidenced by X. Ortega y Gasset in the article “Two Great Metaphors”; metaphor is “a shortened opposition”, because it “works on a categorical shift”. The confrontation between the characters of phenomena within a metaphor makes it similar to antithesis, but it is more complex than ordinary antithesis.
When exploring a metaphor, it is necessary to pay special attention to its structure. Zheleznova-Lipets I.A. in her dissertation “Comparison and metaphor as a means of creating an artistic image in Russian translations of Baudelaire’s poetry at different times”, she distinguished between the concepts of metaphor and figurative comparison, saying: “metaphor is a figurative identification,” whereas in comparison we are talking about “figurative similarity” . The researcher emphasizes that “when analyzing tropes, special attention must be paid to their structure.”
The above metaphors from the poetry of Charles Pierre Baudelaire help us penetrate into the problems of existence; they are of a metaphysical nature. In the article “Salon of 1846”, Charles Baudelaire based his creative position in close connection with the use of metaphors: “I always strive to find in the nature around us examples and metaphors that will help me characterize impressions of a spiritual order.” It follows that metaphor is not only a fact of language, but also a phenomenon of “spiritual magnitude”.
The writer's metaphor is engaged in creating his own poetic metaphorical universe. The metaphor tells us about the expressive capabilities of the poet’s consciousness, about the level of development of his emotional intelligence.
2. The mental aspect of metaphor
If a metaphor is an artistic means of a prose writer or poet, it takes on an emotional and semantic load.
Since metaphor is an expression of the writer’s aesthetic inclinations, clothed in a two-component figurative structure—identification—it illuminates the psychology of the poet’s feelings. What is a metaphor an indicator of? A catalyst for the abilities of the writer’s soul, mind, and emotional intelligence.
In his work “On the Physiology of Emotional-Aesthetic Processes” Salyamon L.S. writes that “The writer’s verbal signals are designed to evoke an emotional image in the reader’s central nervous system (...) the artistic word resorts to special means, uses the techniques of hyperbole, metaphors and t p" .
Dolinin writes that “in every metaphor that can be interpreted rationally, one can identify some common core of meaning that is valid for everyone, beyond which lies the area of subjective associations.”
Metaphor is a friend of creative thinking, focused on two phenomena by similarity, it reveals the logic of the writer’s thoughts, and even the type of representative perception of the world by a person: auditory, visual... we recognize who he is, the writer, by figurative techniques.
Metaphor is a way to awaken a feeling with a statement constructed by analogy with some other object, it is an encoding of the reaction of the reader’s consciousness, a mysterious language that deciphers human consciousness and the logic of the friendship of ideas, it is the secret writing of feelings and thoughts. Metaphor is an expression of the poet’s personality, a mirror of consciousness and mentality. If Baudelaire believes that music should fill the images of a poem from within, this will be reflected in metaphors: Bienheureuse la cloche au gosier vigoureux.
3. Metaphor, as a consequence of our experience and actions
American scientists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have studied many theories of metaphor to create their theoretical framework; to do this, just look at the list of used literature at the end of their book “Metaphors We Live By.” The main goal of their book is to prove the connection of metaphors with our conceptual system. The main idea is metaphor - an extralinguistic phenomenon, the result of our experience, culture and daily impressions. Scientists show that our actions and reasoning are metaphorically organized. Using the example of a metaphor existing in Western culture, “Dispute-War,” Lakoff and Johnson trace the metaphorical “strategy” of conducting an ordinary dispute, where the opponent is the enemy, we attack, gain positions with arguments, or surrender them. All this represents a single metaphorical model of behavior: “If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.” “He shot down all of my arguments.” When we argue, we “win and lose” our arguments. We can “plan and use strategies” because there is a “verbal battle” going on.
By stringing metaphor after metaphor as a chain of evidence for this idea, Lakoff and Johnson come to the conclusion of a metaphorical conceptual system that guides our actions in a certain way. The concept of “dispute” cannot be equated with the concept of “peaceful discussion” without losing a special model of behavior. If in another Eastern culture the metaphorical model is “argument - dance”, most likely this will be a replacement of the concept of “argument” with the concept of “conversation”. The tactics of behavior when dancing loses its aggressive, military, aggressive character. The metaphorical model will be “discussion - dance”, where the tactics of conducting will correspond to smooth and uniform steps, where there will be no element of war. Those. There are different metaphorical models in different cultures that govern our behavior. Corresponding cultures form corresponding metaphorical models.
Metaphor is a concept that surrounds us: “metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature." we think and behave, deeply metaphorical in nature”, translation by A. Mantsevod).
4. Metaphor, as a consequence of the culture of the people
The metaphor is mediated by the culture of the people in whose language it was born. Cultural background is one of the most important components that creates a metaphorical expression. Traditions established by culture are associated with a person as a social being and determine the manner of his behavior, determine the way of thinking, that is, they control and form a metaphorical system. The conceptual system is a mirror of the cultural background. American researchers Lakoff and Johnson have proven that Western “spatial metaphors” (“orientational metaphors”) are in conflict with Buddhist traditions, which form other metaphors-models of behavior.
To quote Lakoff and Johnson: “We are not claiming that all cultural values coherent with a metaphorical system actually exist, only that those that do exist and are deeply entrenched are consistent with the metaphorical system.” associated with the metaphorical system exist, only those that really exist and are deeply anchored are consistent with the metaphorical system”, translation by A. Mantsevod).
There are various cultures where “having less is better”, and the metaphorical concept of “more is better” or “more is up” does not function there. The West and the East have very different priorities and values. Further, Lakoff and Johnson write:
“Relative to what is important for a monastic group, the value system is both internally coherent and, with respect to what is important for the group, coherent with the major orientational metaphors of the mainstream culture.” communities, the value system is internally linked to respect for what is important to that group of people, consistent with most spatial metaphors of the dominant culture").
Spatial metaphors are different because of the different logics of thinking of different cultures.
5. Metaphor as an object of study by philosophers, linguists and literary scholars
Aristotle, Rousseau, Cassirer and Hegel were interested in metaphor. Recently, the angle of view on metaphor has changed, and it began to be studied not only as a stylistic feature of the author, but also as a key to everyday speech and thinking processes. The connection with logic has strengthened. Due to the fact that the sphere of use of metaphor is not only artistic and literary, R. Hoffman creates a number of studies on metaphor, he writes about its practicality and that it can be applied in various areas: “in psychotherapeutic conversations and in conversations between airline pilots , in ritual dances and in programming language, in artistic education and in quantum mechanics."
Metaphor makes human speech richer in many ways, but still in some areas it is absent, for example, in the judiciary, where double understanding is impossible. Where emotional impact is emphasized, metaphor is possible. When, with frequent use, a metaphor turns into a dead one, it becomes invisible in speech. “Sooner or later, practical speech kills metaphor,” writes Arutyunova in the introductory article to the collection “The Theory of Metaphor.” Metaphor reveals to us the secrets of the process of meaning formation, how unconventional metaphors become traditional. “The result of the process of metaphorization, which ultimately outlives metaphor, are the categories of linguistic semantics. The study of metaphor allows us to see the raw material from which the meaning of a word is made.”
It is interesting that English philosophers and representatives of rationalism had a negative attitude towards metaphor in speech, because Thomas Hobbes believed that in speech, words should convey the direct meaning of the word, this is the essence of language, which is interfered with by metaphors. John Locke also condemned “fallacies of reason” and double meanings.
Friedrich Nietzsche, on the contrary, in his work “On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense” (1873) believes that metaphor is the only key to understanding the imagination, because the process of cognition is metaphorical. “What is truth? A moving crowd of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms - in short, the sum of human relationships...; truths are illusions that have been forgotten that they are such, metaphors that have already worn out and become sensually powerless.”
X. Ortega y Gasset believes that metaphor helps to capture “objects of a high degree of abstraction.” The fact is that our consciousness, the processes occurring in it and our idea of the world are closely connected; they determine our morality and the moral laws by which we live. Art and politics are also determined by our concept of the world. Ortega concludes that “the entire huge edifice of the Universe, full of life, rests on the tiny and airy body of metaphor.” Which in itself is a metaphor.
Soon (1923-1929) a book by Cassirer appeared, dedicated to the study of symbolic forms in culture: Cassirer E. Die Philosophie der Symbolischen Formen. This book contains a chapter “The Power of Metaphor,” where Cassirer explores pre-logical thinking and the primary forms of representation of the universe, mythological thinking. Cassirer did not distinguish the concept of metaphor from metonymy and synecdoche.
Symbols used in religion, art and mythology provide access to consciousness. However, all of Cassirer’s ways of thinking cannot be reduced to metaphor. He divided them into two types of mental activity: metaphorical (mytho-poetic) and discursive-logical thinking. Arutyunova writes that a very important thing happened: “From the thesis about the introduction of metaphor into thinking, a new assessment of its cognitive function was derived. Attention was drawn to the modeling role of metaphor: metaphor not only forms the idea of an object, it also predetermines the way and style of thinking about it.”
M. Minsky in his work “Wit and Logic of the Cognitive Unconscious” reveals the connection between analogy and metaphor. He creates the theory of frames. Analogies, in his opinion, allow us to see one phenomenon “in the light” of another. It “allows you to apply knowledge and experience acquired in one area to solve problems in another area.” Thus, metaphor allows the formation of unforeseen inter-Freudian connections between different objects. The concept is conceptualized by analogy with another system of concepts.
U.O. Quine wrote that "nothing is more fundamental to thought and language than our sense of similarity." The feeling of similarity gives rise to metaphors.
Poetry and fiction primarily deal with metaphors. The author of a literary text, for example, a poet, has a different view of the world; if he is a good poet, he does not think in stereotypes. His artistic means must be fresh in order to awaken unexpected feelings in us, and make his thoughts work. Garcia Lorca wrote about this: “Anything, just not to look motionlessly through the same window at the same picture. The poet’s light is confrontation.” The poet directs his steps towards the truth through the struggle with everyday language, he breaks the familiar in order to feel new knowledge about the world through the new and non-standard: “When they resort to an old word, it often rushes along the channel of reason dug by the primer, while metaphor breaks out a new one for itself.” channel, and sometimes breaks through."
Arutyunova interprets metaphor not so much as an “abbreviated comparison,” as many researchers explained it (Aristotle), but as an “abbreviated opposition.” We are talking about a categorical shift in concepts, a confrontation of ideas within the framework of one metaphor. A. Wierzbicka and Ortega y Gasset illuminated this nature of metaphor in their works: “Comparison - gradation - metaphor” by A. Wierzbicka and Ortega y Gasset “Two Great Metaphors”. Truth and lies can be within the same metaphor, giving rise to a new meaning.
Metaphorical expression is more effective when the concepts are more distant. The establishment of distant connections characterizes metaphor.
Arutyunova comes to the following conclusions regarding metaphor:
“Metaphor is related to poetic discourse by the following features: 1) the merging of image and meaning in it, 2) contrast with the trivial taxonomy of objects, 3) categorical shift, 4) actualization of “random connections”, 5) irreducibility to a literal paraphrase, 6) syntheticity, diffuseness of meaning, 7) allowing for different interpretations, 8) absence or optionality of motivation, 9) appeal to imagination rather than knowledge, 10) choosing the shortest path to the essence of the object.”
6. Metaphor and symbol
We know that the basis of a metaphor, as well as a symbol, is an image. The image has a double structure - a plane of expression and a plane of content. Both metaphor and symbol refer to the image, as a result of which, there are researchers who do not distinguish between symbol and metaphor when characterizing the author’s style. The concepts of “metaphorical image” and “symbolic image” are often equated and identified. Metaphor and symbol have a number of similar features, which is why many critics merge them together. However, Arutyunova believes that from the point of view of semiotics, “metaphor and symbol cannot be identified.”
The criterion of metaphor and symbol is their spontaneous emergence. Metaphor and symbol are objects of interpretation, that is, interpretation of a phenomenon. However, according to Arutyunova, if a metaphor is based on a categorical shift, the symbol is characterized by stabilization of form. The symbol is simpler, its structure is simpler.
Also, Arutyunova distinguishes symbol and metaphor as follows: “The schematization of the signifier in a symbol makes its connection with the meaning less organic. This fundamentally distinguishes a symbol from a metaphor, in which the relationship between the image and its meaning never reaches full conventionalization.”
The researcher mentions that symbols “do not have the dual subjectivity of metaphor.”
Moreover, metaphor is often used to designate something concrete and abstract, and the symbol tends to be “eternal and unearthly,” only abstract. The symbol is understood as revelation. Arutyunova claims that “a symbol often has vague transcendental meanings,” and in it one can find a “sense of transcendence.” A metaphor concretizes and expands the concept of reality, a symbol leads away from the real. A symbol usually stands for general ideas.
Further, Arutyunova writes about another very important, “and fundamental” difference between symbol and metaphor:
“If the transition from an image to a metaphor is caused by semantic (that is, intralinguistic) needs and concerns, then the transition to a symbol is most often determined by factors of an extralinguistic order.” The symbol gravitates toward symbolism. A symbol can be someone or something for someone. You can rise to a symbol, you can rise to it. A metaphor cannot become something for someone; it is a linguistic fact, an expression.
7. The relationship of metaphor with comparison, metamorphosis and metonymy.
We know that the formal distinction between comparison and metaphor is the use of conjunctions “as, like, as if, as if.” These can be predicates “similar, reminiscent, similar.” When this connective is excluded from comparison, this figurative device turns into a metaphor. Similarity is transformed into identity, i.e. the logic of the relationship between two objects changes. We can talk about the brevity of the structure of the metaphor. The metaphor is based on the reduction of lexical units; the comparison expands the metaphor. “If in the classical case the comparison is three-term (A is similar to B in attribute C), then the metaphor is normally two-term (A is B).”
Arutyunova points out that “a metaphor expresses a stable similarity that reveals the essence of an object, and, ultimately, its constant attribute.”
Further, Arutyunova writes about the need to distinguish between metaphor and metamorphosis. She quotes excerpts from the article “On the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova” by V.V. Vinogradov, who created the book “The Poetics of Russian Literature” (1976): “In metaphor there is no shade of thought about the transformation of an object. On the contrary, “two-planeness”, the consciousness of only verbal equating one “object” to another - sharply different one - is an integral part of metaphor. As a result of this, one should separate from metaphors and comparisons in the proper sense that the verb instrumental case, which is a semantic appendage to the predicate (with its objects), a means of reviving it, revealing its figurative background. Metamorphosis is reflections of the mythological type of thinking, this is an ancient way of perceiving the world. Metamorphosis provides us with a transformed world as a result.
“Metamorphosis is an episode, a scene, a phenomenon; metaphor permeates the entire development of the plot. Penetration into the area of semantics is characteristic of metaphor, but is not characteristic of metamorphosis, which, pointing to a particular coincidence of substances."
A very interesting and extremely difficult case for studying metaphor and metamorphosis is their hybrid - autometaphor, a unique phenomenon of the author's stylistics. “At the “crossroads” of metaphor and metamorphosis, an autometaphor arises - the poet’s metaphorical self-identification, which sheds some light on the psychology of creativity.”
When explaining the differences between metaphor and metonymy, Arutyunova refers to R. Jacobson, who carried out a study on this topic in the work “Two aspects of language and two types of aphasic disorders.”
The main difference is that metonymy cannot be like a metaphor used in a predicate, since it gravitates towards a subjective position. Semantic compatibility also distinguishes between the concepts of metaphor and metonymy. Metonymy defines the whole by its part. Metaphor strives to expand meaning. Arutyunova comes to the precise conclusion that “metaphor is, first of all, a shift in meaning, metonymy is a shift in reference.”
In circulation, however, they can merge into one figure. So, for example, when addressing “hey, hat!” At the same time, both metaphorical characterization and transfer of properties occur.
8. Cashier. The power of metaphor
Ernest Cassirer addresses the issues of the connection between mythological thinking and linguistic thinking, where spiritual ideas play a leading role. The scientist is looking for the starting point of the development of language and myth. He finds it and calls it nothing more than metaphorical thinking. Cassirer notes that “it is metaphor that creates the spiritual connection between language and myth.” Cassirer refers to Schelling and Herder and says that mythology was considered a “product” of language. “The “basic metaphor” underlying any myth-making was considered a linguistic phenomenon proper, subject to research and interpretation.” Cassirer makes us understand that the use of metaphors and the habit of metaphorical thinking are much more ancient than myth, that personification and animation were born not in poetic language, but in everyday speech. This “was necessary for the growth of our language and consciousness. It was impossible to master the external world, to cognize and comprehend it, to comprehend and name its realities without this basic metaphor, this universal mythology, this blowing of our own spirit into the chaos of objects and recreating it in our image.” Trying to unravel the mystery of the connection between myth and metaphor, Cassirer turns to Werner and his magic of words, to the taboo of secret meanings: “In his evolutionary psychological study of the origin of metaphor, Werner showed extremely convincingly that in this type of metaphor, in the replacement of one concept by another, The decisive role is played by very specific motives rooted in the magical worldview, especially certain types of taboos of words and names.”
Those. Mythological thinking and language from the very beginning are in unity of connections, their isolation occurs in stages. “They are different shoots of the same branch of symbolic formation, arising from the same act of spiritual processing, concentration and elevation of simple representation.”
9. Ivanyuk: the problem of metaphor and literary text
In his book “Metaphor and Literary Work” (1998) Ivanyuk B.P. explores various aspects of metaphor: pragmatic, historical-typological and structural-typological. The researcher is interested in the form of a metaphor poem and analyzes its types in detail: simile poem, symbol poem, allegory poem. The work is considered as an artistic whole in the context of metaphor, as well as the metaphorical type of integrity of the work. The material for practical research was poetry of the 19th century.
The scientist clearly understands that the topic is not new, but “despite the enormous experience of studying metaphor presented to humanity, it remains even for the diachronic collective mind an irresistible object of reflection: the actualization of its virtual properties only pushes back the mental horizon of its internal content.”
Metaphoricity has an image-generating function, which is why the problem of studying consciousness has always entailed the study of metaphorical thinking; the process of “self-identification of consciousness” is affected.
Ivanyuk raises the question of the emergence of an entire field of scientific knowledge - metaphorology, and speaks of the need to combine the efforts and achievements of various disciplines for the development of metaphorology, whose goal is to understand the processes of metaphorical myth-making thinking. Ivanyuk gives the following arguments in favor of the significance of the new discipline: “Indirect evidence of the recognition of the role of metaphor in various life manifestations of consciousness can serve as such definitions as “basic” (E. McCormack), “orientational”, “ontological” (J. Lakoff and M .Johnson), “therapeutic” (D. Gordon), etc. In other words, metaphor has long acquired the right to be an object not only of philological interests itself, and its comprehensive study has led to the near likelihood of the formation of an independent discipline - metaphorology."
Due to his interest in studying metaphor through a literary work, the author of the monograph offers his own methodology; he writes about the main condition when analyzing metaphor - “detachedness”: “The study of metaphor through the prism of a work presupposes a special, defamiliarized attitude to this story, an attitude in which, first, the previous experience of its comprehension is integrated into the mnemonic image of a metaphor, equal in size to the entire theoretical volume of this concept in its modern, established understanding, and secondly, an a priori, projective image of a metaphor as an object of cognition arises, containing a contour forecast of its optimal possibilities and meanings ".
Further, Ivanyuk discusses the heuristic benefits of such cognition, which involves both metaphorical and scientific thinking in comparison: “Comparison allows us to form an understanding that a “simplified” object-metaphor, as if once again becoming a “thing in itself,” creates a field around itself virtuality, which makes it possible to intensify the content of a metaphor until its typological similarity with the work is revealed.”
Metaphor and work of art represent an indivisible whole of metaphorical meaning.
10. Metaphor - the path to the unreal (based on materials by Emmanuel Adatt)
In Emmanuele Adatte Les Fleur du mal et Les Spleen de Paris. Essai sur le dépassement du réel (1986) has a section devoted to stylistics. In the fifth chapter, which is a description of “aesthetic techniques for escaping the real,” there is a subsection of “analogy.” It is of particular interest to us, since many French researchers, including Emmanuele Adatte and Dominique Rince, present metaphor as a tool of analogy. Analogies are “associations of images,” says Adat, and immediately sets out to explain the metaphor. For example, “a passage from Baudelaire’s prose poem Thyrsus” can be interpreted as an excellent metaphor for an aesthetic device, which we will call analogy.
J. P. Richard, in Poesie et profondeur (1955), defines analogy as follows: “The law of universal analogy may be interpreted as a kind of eternal invitation to travel: it invites the imagination to follow through a sensory network of correspondences.”
Emmanuele Adatte writes that “it is not difficult to see how the analogy allows Baudelaire to bypass the determinism of reality.” Emmanuel Adatt says that “poems based on analogy are most marked by happiness, because... in them sliding from one world to another in the continuous transformation of the creator."
Baudelaire's poem “The Lighthouses,” which domestic literary scholars would interpret as a system of metaphors, is called by Emmanuele Adatte “an example of analogy.” "Baudelaire's Lighthouses" are metaphors or analogies leading to the comprehension of the abstract essence of suffering and "death on the shore of Eternity." The Shore of Eternity denies earthly death, metaphors again lead us to the knowledge of the unreal.
The book by the French researcher Dominique Rincé Baudelaire et la modernité poétique (1984), dedicated to Baudelaire and poetic modernity, has a section “Analogies, symbols and correspondences”, where the author links them together. Dominique Rince interprets metaphor as a tool of correspondences or analogies. Rinse pays attention to the philosophy of Swedenborg and Lavater, where correspondences between different entities were considered as the key to being. Rinse combines the “abstract concept of analogy” and the “poetic concepts of “symbol” and “correspondence””.
So, to summarize our thoughts, we can say that metaphor is a linguistic, emotional, cultural and stylistic phenomenon that has been studied for hundreds of years in many countries. Different scientists interpret it differently. Some consider it as a tool of analogy, some as an independent artistic means, others consider it as a fact of the psyche, experience and culture. Many works are devoted to the distinction and comparison of symbol and metaphor, since metaphor is a symbolic structure.
The distinction between metaphor and comparison, metamorphosis and metonymy also occupied the minds of scientists. Some points remain controversial to this day, for example, autometaphor - a crossing of metonymy and metaphor, sometimes very difficult for literary analysis. The origins of metaphor and its connection with mythological thinking, discussed by Cassirer, help to better understand our conceptual system. Metaphor is the path to the unreal, as Emmanuel Adat said about it.
First of all, of course, metaphor is a linguistic-stylistic phenomenon. Speaking about the metaphorics of a literary text, it should be said that the writer models his metaphorical and philosophical picture of the world, consistent with his own aesthetics, experience, intellect, philosophy, each time creating a “psychological dictionary” of sensations.
Jean-Paul Sartre, in his essay “Baudelaire,” quotes Charles Baudelaire’s following discussion of metaphor and analogy: “What is a poet (I use this word in the broadest sense) if not a translator, not a decipherer? Among outstanding poets you will not find such a metaphor, such an epithet or comparison that would not fit with mathematical precision into the given circumstances, because these comparisons, metaphors and epithets are drawn from the inexhaustible treasury of universal analogy and because there is nowhere else to get them from.”
Next, Sartre quotes from Novalis - “Man is the source of analogies in the Universe.” We can conclude that all metaphorical insights and discoveries originate from the idea of the great ocean of universal analogy. Charles Pierre Baudelaire develops the idea of the importance of imagination as a creative force: “It is thanks to imagination that man has comprehended the spiritual meaning of color, contour, sound, smell. At the dawn of history, it created analogy and metaphor... Imagination is the queen of truth, and one of the areas of truth is the sphere of the possible. Verily, imagination is natural to the infinite."
Modeling of metaphorical meaning is a boundless area of experimentation by the poet with the compatibility of words, the collision of meanings, the phonetic grid of metaphor, psychological effect, symbolism, intertextuality, with metaphorical details, meaning-forming rhymes, internal rhymes, metaphorical epithets, with the entire arsenal of what can produce in our minds the poet's intended response and send our thoughts in the direction of what the metaphor symbolizes.
Alexandra Mantsevod
List of used literature:
1 Adatte Emmanuele. Les Fleur du mal et Les Spleen de Paris. Essai sur le dépassement du réel. Librairie José Corti, 1986, 187 p.
2 Hoffman R. Some implications of metaphor for philosophy and psychology of science. - In: The ubiquity of metaphor. Amsterdam, 1985, p.479.
3 Lakoff George and Johnsen Mark. Metaphors we live by. London: The university of Chicago press, 2003, 193 p.
4. Richard J-P. Poesie et profondeur. Editions du Seuil, 1955, 258 p.
5 Rincé Dominique. Baudelaire et la modernité poétique. Presses universitaires de France, 1984, 128 p.
6 Baudelaire Sh-P. Salon 1846. Articles about art. http://bodlers.ru/salon-1846-goda.html
7 Large explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. / Comp. and ch. ed. S.A. Kuznetsov. – St. Petersburg. : “Norint”, 1998. – 536 p.
8 Dolinin K.A. Interpretation of the text. - M.: Education, 1985. – 288 p.
9 Dolinin K. A. Stylistics of the French language. L., “Enlightenment”, 1978. – 344 p.
10 Zheleznova-Lipets Irina Arkadyevna. Comparison and metaphor as a means of creating an artistic image in Russian translations of the poetry of Charles Baudelaire at different times: author's abstract. dis. Ph.D. Phil. Sci. Kazan, 2011. – 26 p.
11 Ivanyuk B.P. Metaphor and work (structural-typological, historical-typological and pragmatic aspects of the study). – Chernivtsi: Ruta, 1998. – 252 p.
12 Nietzsche F. On truth and lies in an extra-moral sense (1873). http://bookucheba.com/pervoistochniki-filosofii-knigi/istine-lji-vnenravstvennom-8171.html
13 Salyamon L. S. On the physiology of emotional and aesthetic processes. – In: The Commonwealth of Sciences and the Secrets of Creativity.” M., Art, 1968., 303 p.
14 Sartre Jean-Paul. Baudelaire. Per. from French Korsikova. Moscow: URSS, 2004. – 184 p.
15 Theory of metaphor: Collection: Trans. from English, French, German, Spanish, Polish. language / Intro. Art. and comp. N. D. Arutyunova; General ed. N. D. Arutyunova and M. A. Zhurinskaya. - M.: Progress, 1990. - 512 p.
METAPHOR IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
The term “metaphor” is of ancient Greek origin. It is derived from the verb “metajerw” (“to transfer”) and means in translation “a transferred word”, “a word in a figurative meaning” and was introduced into the dictionary of rhetoric and philosophy by one of the students of the sophists Gorgias and Prodicus - Isocrates(436-338 BC), famous Athenian orator, publicist and teacher of eloquence.
The first philosophical interpretation of metaphor was proposed Aristotle(384-322 BC), an ancient Greek philosopher who formulated the classic definition of metaphor in the treatise “Poetics”. Aristotle's understanding had the greatest influence on ideas about metaphor over subsequent centuries and determined the attitude of philosophers towards it. Aristotle's understanding of metaphor is closely connected with the main provisions of his philosophical teaching. Aristotle made a strict division between rhetoric and logic, which was merged with the Sophists, who often used purely rhetorical techniques in the process of logical proofs, playing on the polysemy of words and the uncertainty of meaning. For Aristotle, logic and poetics represent completely different spheres.
Metaphor was attributed by Aristotle exclusively to the sphere of rhetoric and poetics. In his work “Poetics,” Aristotle defines metaphor, where he interprets it as a phenomenon of a kind of replacement of words, as an exchange that takes place at the level of vocabulary. For Aristotle, “a metaphor is an unusual name transferred from genus to species, from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy.” According to Aristotle, we are dealing with a metaphor if a thing is given a name that does not belong to it, but is transferred from some other thing. (Poetics 1457)
Aristotle laid the foundation for another important feature in the understanding of metaphor, carried through the entire history of rhetoric and philosophy and consisting in the fact that the principle of similarity or likeness is recognized as the basis of metaphor. Aristotle believed that the basis for the possible transfer of words from one area to another is similarity between objects. According to Aristotle, “to come up with good metaphors means to notice similarities well.”
THEORIES OF METAPHOR OF THE XX CENTURY
The changes in philosophy that took place in the twentieth century, consisting of a retreat from the line of classical rationalism and the emergence of a number of irrationalist teachings (philosophy of life, existentialism), proceeding from the recognition of principles that are not subject to logic as the basis of the world, led to a significant change in ideas about metaphor. This emergence of new, non-traditional views on metaphor is, in our opinion, a direct consequence of changes in fundamental philosophical ideas. The change in attitude towards metaphor is also largely due to the “linguistic turn”, meaning that, unlike classical philosophy, where language did not represent a special philosophical problem, but was understood only as a shell in which pure thinking is embodied, the philosophy of the twentieth century turned to language as such. Language came to the center of philosophical analysis; it appeared inseparable from human consciousness and experience. In the twentieth century, the relationship of positions in relation to metaphor also changed: the dominant line of “rhetoricians” - “logicians”, which sets the attitude towards metaphor throughout the history of philosophy and goes back to Aristotle, became secondary, and, conversely, the position, which is less influential, associated with the names of Vico, Rousseau and Nietzsche, began to define a new understanding of metaphor. It should, however, be noted that in the twentieth century, along with new views, the views of positivism, continuing the tradition of the “logicians,” were quite strong, and a new, non-traditional understanding of metaphor coexisted for a long time along with the traditional, positivist model. Until the 50s of the twentieth century, metaphor models created under the influence of positivist sentiments were very influential.
In non-traditional theories of metaphor, which began to prevail in the second half of the twentieth century, a new level of understanding of the metaphorical process was achieved. They took a serious step from studying the phenomenon of linguistic metaphor to considering the deeper processes of consciousness behind it. Metaphor began to be considered in close connection with the process of consciousness, and, moreover, in relation to the formulation of epistemological and even metaphysical problems. This new discovery of metaphor took place primarily in English-language philosophical literature and was closely associated with the names of A. Richards, M. Black, M. Beardsley, J. Lakoff, M. Johnson and other theorists, as well as with the name of the profound French philosopher P. Riker.
The most important achievements of modern theories of metaphor in philosophical terms are, in our opinion, the following:
I. Indication of metaphorical nature thinking. According to proponents of the new views, metaphor is not just a linguistic phenomenon, as traditionally assumed before, but it is a form of thinking. Modern theories argue that the metaphors of language are derived from deeper processes occurring in thinking. So, A. Richards(1898-1979) - English philosopher, literary critic, linguist, founder of the interactive approach to metaphor writes: “Thought itself is metaphorical, it develops through comparison, and from here metaphors arise in language.”
Representatives of the non-traditional position understand by metaphor not so much the external form of language as the deep structures of thought behind it. Figures and turns of language are considered by them as an external manifestation of fundamental semantic processes.
Consideration of metaphor as a form of thought became possible, in our opinion, with the advent of broader views on thinking, which began to be understood not only as formal-logical, but also as having a creative character. On the other hand, the understanding of metaphor as a mental form has greatly contributed to changing the usual views on consciousness and destroying existing stereotypes.
Within the framework of the new model, metaphor is primarily understood as interaction ideas. Here are typical quotes: “Metaphor is the interaction within one word of two thoughts about two different things” (A. Richards). “The secret of metaphor lies in the connection, in the interaction of two thoughts hitting one point. The meaning of a metaphor is the result of such interaction” (M. Black). Such theories are called interactive models metaphors(from interaction(English) - interaction) - the dominant direction in the theory of metaphor of the twentieth century, interpreting metaphor as the interaction of ideas
According to A. Richards, the action of a metaphor is carried out according to the following principle: in a metaphor, two ideas are distinguishable: the first is characterized as “content” (“tenor”), the other appears as a kind of “shell” (“vehicle”). “Content” is the implied idea, while “shell” is the idea that is intended to express this content. The meaning of metaphor as a result is the result of the simultaneous coexistence of the “shell” and “content”; it arises only in their interaction. It is assumed that the “shell” is not simply an expression of the content, which remains unchanged, but that the “shell” and “content” in their interaction give a meaning much richer than each of these components separately. In addition, the role of the “shell” and “content” may differ: the main subject of the metaphor, depending on the situation, can be either one or the other component.
In contrast to traditional views, according to which metaphor is a kind of comparison and is based primarily on similarity, A. Richards shows that in metaphor similarity is not always assumed. The meaning of a metaphor, on the contrary, is the result of a specific interaction between different contexts. “To bring things together in an unexpected and striking unity” - for the effect of metaphor, according to Richards, this is no less significant, and often more significant, than the presence of similarities between things.
M. Black, the largest representative of the non-traditional model, suggests considering metaphor as special kind of filter. By analogy with smoked glass, which paints us a completely definite picture of the starry sky, M. Black also interprets metaphor. He asks the question: “Is it not possible to consider a metaphor as the same glass, and the system of generally accepted associations of the focal word as a network of drawn lines?” M. Black argues that we, as it were, “look” at the main subject through a metaphorical expression, or, in other words, the main subject is “projected” onto the area of the auxiliary subject.
M. Black argues that the comprehension of metaphor is not simply a way of comparing objects. Instead, we use one holistic system of characteristics (for example, in the metaphor “man is a wolf” - the characteristics of a wolf) to filter or organize our understanding of some other system (“man”). Interaction involves the demonstration of one system of features by means of another in order to create a new conceptual organization or a new perspective of seeing an object.
The idea that metaphor is a special form of thought has been played up in various kinds of interaction theories that explore the mechanism of action of metaphor. Representatives of these theories concluded that the mental activity behind the metaphor is, predominantly, the activity imagination. Metaphor began to be understood as a product of a special, cognitive-imaginative activity.
Theories of interaction that actively involve the activity of the imagination have been proposed, for example, by modern English-speaking philosophers, including W. Alridge, M. Hester, and P. Hance. Indeed, research into the processes behind metaphor has shown that imagination plays a crucial role in the implementation of metaphor. Therefore, M. Black’s central idea that when creating a metaphor, a system is used as a filter or screen through which another system is perceived, was interpreted by some English-language authors in terms of “aspect vision” by L. Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The meaning of this theory of “aspect vision” is that the action of the metaphor is carried out according to the principle of Gestalt switching, which allows you to see a certain configuration as an object. “Aspect seeing” is that the same given structure (such as “duck-rabbit”) can be seen initially as one thing, and then as another. This activity was understood by L. Wittgenstein as including the play of the imagination. In his opinion, a person perceives in this case only a formal configuration, but in order to represent one aspect (for example, a duck) or another (a rabbit), the activity of the imagination is necessary.
The conclusion that must be drawn from modern models of metaphor is that the mental activity behind metaphor is imagination, activity of imagination. Moreover, imagination should be considered primarily not from the perspective of psychological characteristics, but under the prism of its semantic meaning.
The hermeneutic approach to the theory of metaphor was carried out by a French researcher P. Ricoeur(b. 1913). Ricker suggested hermeneutical model of metaphor- a model based on the ideas of philosophical hermeneutics and connecting metaphor with the deepest view of the world hidden by our everyday life. P. Ricoeur argues that there cannot be an adequate theory of metaphor without taking into account the processes of imagination and sensation, but at the same time, he insists on semantic , rather than a psychological understanding of these processes. Having set the task of improving the theory of metaphor and relying on the semantic understanding of imagination, P. Ricoeur identifies three stages in the implementation of the metaphorical process:
The first stage represents a certain schematized measurement. At this stage, Ricoeur interprets imagination as a kind of “vision” that influences the logical convergence of various ideas.
The second stage of imagination is its pictorial dimension. P. Ricoeur shows that in order to carry out predicative assimilation, the appearance of images becomes simply inevitable, because new connections will be read in them. He believes that image and imagination represent a concrete medium, like fluid streams of images, in and through which similarities can be seen; through images, in addition, a convergence of ideas and a change in logical distances is carried out. According to Ricoeur, to imagine means to manifest connections through images. P. Ricoeur shows that it is images that lead the metaphorical process to a concrete conclusion. The meaning of metaphor here allows you to read yourself in the image.
At the third stage of P. Ricoeur’s theory of metaphor, where the everyday reference inherent in literal language is abolished, the imagination is also given an extremely important role. The function of the imagination here is to give the suspension of literal meanings a concrete dimension.
Modern researchers, in this regard, are busy searching for the most optimal definitions metaphors. One can name a number of such definitions, between which, at the same time, some similarities are observed. Thus, in various theories, metaphor is defined either as similarity between the areas of “theme” and “carrier” (A. Ortoni, A. Tversky), or as interaction between these areas (M. Black, R. Sternberg), or as trait attribution from the media area to the topic area (D. Gentner, D. Lakoff and M. Johnson), or as a statement inclusion to some class (S. Glaksberg). It should also be noted that the main number of definitions of metaphor is semantic by nature as opposed to pragmatic definitions that deprive it of any cognitive meaning and consider metaphorical meaning either nonsense or a replacement for direct meaning for pragmatic purposes (D. Davidson).
The modern study of metaphor, in addition, is based on the hypothesis put forward by American researchers D. Lakoff and M. Johnson, according to which metaphor, considered as the understanding of one phenomenon in the terminology inherent in other phenomena, is the most important way of creating a linguistic picture of the world. Metaphors understood in this way, which are called conceptual, are considered as deep foundations that form a person’s ideas about reality.
As a result of the latest research on metaphor, its most important functions, among which should be mentioned: the function of creating similarities between two different areas of objects (S. Glucksberg), the function of providing a way to understand a new little-studied area (G. Roediger), as well as the function of forming special interpersonal relationships between the speaker and the listener (T. Cohen).
The last stage of metaphor research, which began in the last 20-30 years of the twentieth century, is interdisciplinary : It is characterized by considering metaphor not only from the point of view of linguistics and philosophy, but also psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, neuropsychology and other sciences. It should be noted that almost all researchers (linguists, philosophers, psychologists) agree that metaphor represents special cognitive schemes that were previously considered unique to poetic language, and which are central to the functioning of language and speech.
In order to study metaphor and its cognitive value, the use of data plays an important role. psychology. In psychological research, metaphor is considered as a distinctive feature of human intelligence in comparison with artificial intelligence (B. Beck; in many areas of modern psychology, the high cognitive status of metaphor is experimentally confirmed. Psychologists also search for the neurophysiological substrate of metaphorical thinking.
Of great interest is the position of L. Mark and M. Bornstein, who consider the phenomenon synesthesia, which is understood as the innate ability to intersect the flows of information received by a person from various senses (the ability to “hear colors”, “see sounds”). Moreover, metaphors in psychology are beginning to be viewed as a reflection of the connections of neural structures formed in entire generations of human society (E.R. McCormack), which allows them to be correlated with the archetypal basis of the psyche, once discovered by K.G. Jung. An important point in the study of metaphors is also the establishment of their connection with the work of the predominantly right hemisphere (R.E. Gaskell). In psychology, the study of metaphors is also carried out in relation to the area of the unconscious and in connection with the treatment of mentally ill patients (R.H. Brown, R.M. Billow, J. Rossman).
In connection with the recognition of the high cognitive status of metaphor, research was carried out, as a result of which its role in the field of cognition, and, mainly, in the field of science, was sufficiently fully illuminated. Modern philosophers, including the majority of English speakers, study the functioning of metaphors in almost all fundamental and applied sciences: mathematics (R. Jones), particle physics (M. Hesse), R. Hoffman, biology (Gruber), psychology (D. Bruner, D. Grudin, E. Cochran), sociology (R. Brown), historiography (White), paleontology (S. Gould).
The result of the study of scientific metaphors was the identification of their most important functions (R. Hoffman), a description of the relationship of metaphors with models and analogies (R. Hare), the approval of the significant heuristic capabilities of metaphor in the situation of scientific research (G. Kuliev), as well as the constitutive role of metaphor in relation to to scientific theories (G. Gentner).
The last decade has been marked by the appearance of a kind of final works that examine the phenomenon of metaphor as fully as possible, from illuminating the general mechanism of its action to analyzing its specific use in texts of various natures (scientific, artistic, political). Here we should mention, first of all, the works of A. Goatley “The Language of Metaphor” and R. Gibbs “The Poetics of Consciousness”.
It should be noted that in parallel with the scientific (linguistic, neuropsychological) analysis of metaphor and the research of linguistic philosophy based on it, metaphor was mastered by representatives of the philosophy of postmodernism. In accordance with the thesis about the inevitable poetry of all thinking, postmodernism defends the idea of the essential metaphorical nature of any language, including philosophical and even scientific language. Within the framework of the postmodern tradition, for example, in the work “Philosophical Marginalia” by J. Derrida, attempts were made to present philosophy as a special literary genre and describe its metaphors.
In Russian philosophical literature (both academic and postmodern), metaphor has clearly not been studied enough. Domestic studies of metaphor were largely secondary, they were carried out within the framework of theoretical principles formulated by English-speaking authors, among which the most important were the Richards-Black interaction theory and the theory of Lakoff and Johnson about the ability of metaphors to structure the image of reality. In addition, in the works of domestic authors, among whom it is necessary to name first of all the works of Arutyunova N.D., Gak V.V., Teliya V.N., the prevailing interest was not so much in conceptual as in linguistic metaphor. As original works devoted to metaphor, we should mention, first of all, the studies of Yu.M. Lotman, who considered metaphor and other paths in connection with the holistic nature of creative thinking. Some researchers, for example, Petrov V.V., Gusev S.S., Kuliev G.G., contributed to the study of the functioning of metaphors in science, which consisted in their study of the most important functions of scientific metaphors, as well as highlighting the role of metaphors in the formation scientific terminology and in the situation of making scientific discoveries. Unfortunately, in the Russian literature there has been almost no significant research on the role of metaphors in philosophy.
In addition, in the domestic literature there are still virtually no works representing an interdisciplinary study of metaphor and integrating the results of various sciences. Here we can only mention the works of V.V. Nalimov, who considers the presence of metaphors in science as a requirement of the principle of complementarity formulated by N. Bohr. One of the few attempts to use the results of modern science to understand the nature of metaphor is the work “Introduction to Linguosynergetics” by German I.A. and Pishchalnikova V.A., which proposes an understanding of metaphor using the conceptual apparatus of the theory of self-organization of complex systems.
madrace.ru› philosophia - m etafori/kurs-philosophes kaya...
Migurenko R.A. 2008ON THE ROLE OF METAPHOR IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE OF DESCRIBING CONSCIOUSNESS
R.A. Migurenko
Tomsk Polytechnic University E-mail: [email protected]
The influence of natural language on the formation and solution of the problem of consciousness, the role of metaphor in scientific knowledge, the description of consciousness and its mythologization, the dependence of models of consciousness on the language of description are analyzed.
Keywords:
Natural language, modeling language, descriptive language, metaphorical language, consciousness, myth-making.
To describe such a phenomenon as consciousness, not only philosophical categories and concepts are used, not only the scientific terminology of special disciplines whose subject is consciousness, but also the capabilities of natural language. Participation in the description of consciousness of natural language creates a specifically philosophical problem, the essence of which is the need to create a language for describing consciousness that would be adequate to its subject. The paradox is that the subject itself is specific and difficult to describe through concepts and categories. For those cases when integration in a single conceptual structure of the natural science and socio-humanitarian description of consciousness is required, there is a problem of logical connection between the categories and concepts used. In the conditions of an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of consciousness, a logically correct connection of concepts belonging to different types of research is a relevant task for the philosophy of consciousness. Expresses the idea that the language of interdisciplinary communication can be situationally changing, that is, both strictly logical and metaphorical.
Philosophy, which combines rational and sensory-intuitive principles, is forced to use logical and symbolic forms of knowledge. The formal-logical, rational principle appears in the concept; a metaphor is associated with the intuitive principle. Priority in the philosophical language of describing consciousness belongs to metaphor, since there is no other, more powerful way to grasp and meaningfully define an object of such a high degree of complexity.
On the question of the place that metaphors occupy in cognition, positions have been determined. According to one, the less developed the theory, the more figurative its language. The scope of metaphors is undeveloped theories, developed theories have a strict and special description language. Metaphors are used when a discipline or theory is in its infancy. The second position is as follows: the existence of a theory “on the verge of metaphor” indicates that the entire possible potential of strictly logical thinking is involved and other means are needed
plan, i.e. concepts based on images, symbols. What these two positions have in common is the recognition that metaphor is a kind of indicator of the state of science. One can point out another position, the essence of which is that in the process of cognition, periods when the world of thoughts turns out to be richer than the linguistic reserves that a given area of knowledge has and the need for an appropriate metaphor arises are natural. “We need metaphors because in some cases it turns out to be the only means of expressing what we think, since the available linguistic resources ... turn out to be inadequate for expressing our thoughts.”
However, while solving one problem, metaphorical means of expressing our thoughts create another - the problem of their adequate understanding. At the same time, there is no unambiguous criterion for “metaphoricalness” - one or another linguistic expression is perceived as a metaphor only in a certain context. The “pragmatic” metaphor is most dependent on the context, the “epistemological” metaphor is less dependent on the socio-cultural context. The “ontological” metaphor is relatively resistant to changes in context, since it is closest to the conscious content of consciousness.
The metaphorical nature of language is determined by the subject of knowledge. The more complex the subject of research, the more metaphorical the language of its description. An example is quantum mechanics. The metaphorical nature of quantum theory is due to the powerlessness of rational thinking and language: it does not have a description language adequate to the complexity of the world, and a complex of special metaphors has appeared to describe quantum objects and processes. This example can be strengthened by reference to the fact that her metaphorical language has come to be used in philosophy of mind. In the philosophy of consciousness, quantum metaphors serve to describe an object that does not belong to the quantum world, is not a quantum object, and does not obey the laws of quantum mechanics. The purpose of using quantum metaphors in the philosophy of consciousness is to describe the phenomenon of consciousness in a different paradigm.
Metaphors in the philosophy of consciousness, as its history shows, have always played a leading role.
J. Locke, who had a negative attitude towards metaphor, actually thanks to it, created a new European model of consciousness. One can name not only the well-known metaphor “consciousness is a blank slate”, but also a number of others: “repository of ideas”, “reception room of the mind”, “Chinese lantern”, etc. The philosopher was unable to describe his ideas about consciousness in strictly logical language, and this is not because , that he was inclined towards artistic expression, but because the subject obliged him to do so.
Regarding the inevitability of symbolic forms of expression of our ideas about consciousness, M. Mamardashvili states: within the framework of any conscious experience, consciousness is always at least one order of magnitude higher than the content that makes up this experience. But “if consciousness is always one order higher than the order of the elements of content that makes up the experience of consciousness, then we have no other way to talk about this higher order than to talk about it indirectly, symbolically.”
Metaphors of consciousness express not only how we talk about consciousness, but also how we understand it. They not only structure our perceptions and thinking, but also our ideas about consciousness itself. In this sense, metaphors of consciousness reveal certain aspects of the basic concept. Since philosophical knowledge about consciousness is complex, philosophy of consciousness attracts diverse information to develop its content. The philosophical vocabulary for describing consciousness includes concepts of various kinds: scientific concepts, strictly philosophical concepts and concepts of everyday language. Their connection with metaphor is different: scientific concepts try to avoid any similarity with it, philosophical concepts have great difficulty in doing so, and the concepts of everyday language in relation to consciousness are predominantly metaphors.
It is believed that the enrichment of the vocabulary for describing consciousness, the change in the categorical apparatus of the philosophy of consciousness indicates an increase in knowledge about this phenomenon. However, there is a certain meaning in the questions: Do we understand consciousness better, does our knowledge about it deepen in the process of replacing one metaphor with another? What, besides the socio-cultural context, has changed in our knowledge of consciousness with the replacement of the New Age metaphor (“Chinese lantern”) with the modern (computer) metaphor?
Metaphors of consciousness in the field of psychotherapeutic practices do not play an ontological or epistemological role, but are used in a pragmatic aspect. Here they are constructed, since experience suggests that metaphors of consciousness can be constructive and destructive - depending on whether they solve certain psychological problems or create them. In this area, notes A.V. Khitrov, do not try to theoretically define the nature of consciousness with the help of metaphors; The issue being addressed here is not whether
how adequate the metaphor is to consciousness as an object of study, but how effective it is in “practical application” in relation to consciousness. However, the practical “work” of metaphors of consciousness suggests that consciousness as an object of study is created by its description (metaphorical or conceptual). This idea, in different variations, functions steadily in the vast problematic field of the philosophy of consciousness and is the basis for doubts regarding the solution to the problem of consciousness.
Thus, A.G. Maksapetyan asserts the existence in the natural languages of any culture of special modeling zones (metaphorical-metaphysical bases), which represent primary, i.e., literal, unambiguous, languages for describing certain systems (ontologies). The mechanism of metaphorization is the arbitrary extrapolation of the primary language of description of one ontology to another. As a result, features valid for the system are projected onto another or other systems. The metaphysical use of an unambiguous language as a model leads to the loss of the literal terminological meaning; the primary language is endowed with new meanings - it turns into a metaphorical language. The choice of modeling language and metaphorical creativity is determined by the native speaker of the primary language.
The transition from one semantic level to another is possible, since metaphor has the necessary specific properties - discontinuity, spontaneity, unpredictability. Based on these properties, I.V. Polozova describes the metaphorical mechanism, asserting the similarities between metaphor and a quantum leap and using the apparatus of quantum theory to understand the nature of metaphor. The basis for this comparison was that metaphor belongs to both consciousness and the unconscious. In other words, metaphor is born and functions in the realm of nebula - where “fact combines with thought.”
Metaphor by A.G. Maksapetyan is the result of extrapolation of the primary, unambiguous language of description to the surrounding world, a cultural and social phenomenon, an objectively subjective phenomenon. Metaphor I.V. Polozova is a rather natural, physical phenomenon. The idea of metaphor as a semiotic mechanism for modeling the world through extrapolation and further globalization of the language of description and the holographic model of metaphor, combined with the idea of the identity of metaphor and quantum phenomena, deepening the understanding of metaphor, further mythologize this phenomenon. They mythologize in the sense that rationality in these theories merges with myth and in this merger the mythological (psychology “knowledge that does not need proof”) prevails. At the same time, to debunk the myth is to prove the inadequacy of the proposed version, it is not the same
ownership of the object is difficult, since the interpreter of a mythological text is the bearer of “knowledge that does not need proof.”
The search for “pure” logical and symbolic forms of interpretation of consciousness leads to the conclusion: philosophical definitions of consciousness are metaphorical, and symbolic forms of description of consciousness perform the function of definitions; that in terms of their status, both logical and symbolic methods of describing consciousness are fundamentally equivalent (if we apply the criterion to them - the presence of meaningfulness). However, the synthetic nature of philosophical language gives descriptions of consciousness a logical
contradictory character. When our thought encounters a difficult fact, a “nebula zone” is formed. Let's call it a zone of potential myth-making, based on the fact that the language of the “nebula” is the language of metaphors, the language of “small myths”, predisposing to numerous interpretations.
The philosophy of consciousness, without solving the problem of an objective definition of consciousness, without establishing the boundaries and structure of consciousness, objectively produces interpretations of a subjective, mythological property both in relation to consciousness and in relation to its phenomena.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Surkova L.V. Consciousness in the quantum world: a new dialogue between philosophy and science // Bulletin of Moscow University. Ser. 7. Philosophy. - 2007. - No. 6. - P. 50-68.
2. Petrov V.V. Scientific metaphors: nature and mechanisms of functioning // Philosophical foundations of scientific theory. - Novosibirsk: NSU, 1985. - P. 196-220.
3. Mamardashvili M.K., Pyatigorsky A.M. Symbol and consciousness.
M.: School “Russian Culture”, 1999. - 216 p.
4. Khitrov A.V. John Locke, Laurence Sterne and metaphors of consciousness in philosophical psychology of the 18th century. // Philosophy of consciousness:
classics and modernity / Second Gryaznov Readings. - M.: Publisher Savin S.A., 2007. - P. 45-54.
5. Maksapetyan A.G. Languages of description and models of the world (posing the question) // Questions of Philosophy. - 2003. - No. 2. - P. 53-b5.
6. Polozova I.V. Deep foundations of metaphor // Bulletin of Moscow University. Ser. 7. Philosophy. - 2004. - No. 3.
Received 11/19. 200S
UDC 101.1:316.7
THE SYSTEM-FORMING ROLE OF SYNERGETICS IN READING TEXT AND INTERPRETING MEANING
T.V. Konyukhova
Tomsk Polytechnic University E-mail: [email protected]
Certain aspects of the application of a synergetic approach to reading and interpreting the meaning of a text in a modern information and communication context are considered. The dual nature of the text is shown. The application of the bifurcation mechanism to the study of expanding the range of emergent interpretations of text in a nonlinear reading model is revealed.
Keywords:
Reading the text, models, semiosphere, bifurcation mechanism, meaning generation, polysemantic phenomenon, emergent, synergetics, postmodern discourse.
In modern scientific knowledge, the application of interdisciplinary research methods to the study of various phenomena and phenomena is a generally accepted trend. One of the reasons for this state of affairs can be called the rhizomism and fundamental uncertainty of any knowledge in postmodern discourse. Various sciences are increasingly influencing each other, which determines the blurring of the boundaries between them, their interpenetration and even integration in some aspects, the borrowing and application of similar methods, concepts and approaches. Similar
mutual influence allows the formation of complex theories based on the use of interdisciplinary methodology and the study of various objects. One of these methodologies is synergetics.
Synergetics, as one of the leading directions at this stage of the evolution of modern science, plays a system-forming role as the main basis of a new and in many ways revolutionary concept of knowledge. It represents “the natural scientific vector of development of nonlinear dynamics in modern culture.” Integrating with various
METAPHOR
METAPHOR
Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2010 .
METAPHOR
METAPHOR (Greek μεταφορά - transfer) - the use of not the literal (direct), but the figurative meaning of words. The doctrine of metaphor, coming from Aristotle, treats it as a purely rhetorical figure. In his Poetics, Aristotle defined metaphor as the transfer of a name from gender to, or from species to, or from species to species, or by analogy. Later, J. Vico saw in it “the transfer of expressions to inanimate things from the human body” (J. Vico. Foundations of a new science of the general nature of nations. L., 1940, p. 146). In literary criticism, a metaphor is understood as a type of trope in which words are connected on the basis of the similarity of certain characteristics of the objects denoted by these words (for example, “sickle of the month” or “fire of dawn”).
In European philosophy of modern times, there was a purely negative attitude towards the use of metaphors, since the statements that included them could not be assessed from the point of view of their truth or falsity. The idea of the then thinkers about philosophy and science as a means of obtaining and expressing absolutely true knowledge about the surrounding reality determined metaphors as an unnecessary embellishment of speech, generating only errors and misunderstandings.
In the history of the study of metaphors, three main stages can be distinguished: 1) understanding of metaphor as a special type of comparison; 2) interactionist concept; its representatives believe that the collision of different levels of meaning possessed by the linguistic means used gives rise to a special context that allows a new look at all the objects included in it; 3) the concept of “semantic shift”, new ways of seeing the world that arise as a result of the collision of different linguistic meanings.
In general, metaphor is considered as allowing a semantic shift in the meanings of linguistic expressions, through which various intellectual processes are carried out related to the identification and description of new characteristics of objects that interest a person, as well as new connections between them. Lit.: Metaphor in language and text. M., 1988; Metaphor theory. M., 1990.
S. S. Gusev
New Philosophical Encyclopedia: In 4 vols. M.: Thought. Edited by V. S. Stepin. 2001 .
Synonyms:
See what "METAPHOR" is in other dictionaries:
Type of trope (see), use of the word in a figurative meaning; a phrase that characterizes a given phenomenon by transferring to it the characteristics inherent in another phenomenon (due to one or another similarity of the related phenomena) to a swarm of so. arr. his… … Literary encyclopedia
- (transfer, Greek) the most extensive form of trope, rhetoric. a figure representing the likening of one concept or representation to another, the transference of significant features or characteristics of the latter to it, its use in... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies
- (Greek metaphora transfer, meta, and phero I carry). Allegorical expression; trope, which consists in the fact that the name of one concept is transferred to another based on the similarity between them. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language.... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
Metaphor- METAPHOR (Greek Μεταφορα transference) is a type of trope based on association by similarity or analogy. Thus, old age can be called the evening or autumn of life, since all these three concepts are associated by their common feature of approaching... Dictionary of literary terms
METAPHOR- METAPHOR, metaphorical (Greek metaphorá), type of trope, transfer of the properties of one object (phenomenon or aspect of being) to another, according to the principle of their similarity in some respect or contrast. Unlike comparison, where both terms are present... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary
metaphor- METAPHOR (from the Greek metaphora transfer) is the central trope of language, a complex figurative semantic structure, representing a special way of cognition, carried out through the generation of images arising as a result of interaction... ... Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science
Metaphor- Metaphor ♦ Métaphore Stylistic figure. Implicit comparison, the use of one word instead of another based on some analogy or similarity between the things being compared. The number of metaphors is truly endless, but we will only give... ... Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary
Allegory in a figurative sense of what is said. Wed. "Head!" clever (as a container for the mind): this is a metaphor, but the head in the Duma is understood in the sense of the main (from the head) and, sometimes, has nothing in common with the “head” in the first sense. *** Aphorisms. Wed... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)
Cm … Synonym dictionary
Moscow State University named after. V. M. Lomonosova
Specialized Council D. 053.05.72.
as a manuscript
Polozova Irina Vladimirovna
The role of metaphor in philosophical knowledge
Specialty 09.00.01 - dialectics and theory of knowledge
dissertation for the degree of candidate of philosophical sciences
Moscow 1993
The work was carried out at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University. V.M. Lomonosov
Scientific supervisor - Doctor of Philosophy,
Professor S. A. Lebedev.
Official opponents:
Doctor of Philosophy, Associate Professor A. V. Kezin Candidate of Philosophy, A. B. Tolstoy.
The leading organization is the Department of Philosophy of the Moscow State Technical University
University named after N. E. Bauman.
Defense will take place “L” 1993. at 15 o'clock
at a meeting of the Specialized Council D. 053.05.72 for philosophical sciences at Moscow State University. V.M. Lomonosov at the address:
119899, Moscow, Leninskie Gory, Building I of the Humanities, Faculty of Philosophy, auditorium £
The dissertation can be viewed in the reading room of the Scientific Library named after. M. Gorky Moscow State University (I building of humanities faculties).
Scientific Secretary of the Specialized Council, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences
V. V. Mironov
General description of work.
The relevance of the research topic is due to the need for a deeper understanding of the nature of philosophical knowledge and, in particular, the analysis of its logical-semantic means. Among these means, metaphor occupies an important place, the study of which, until recently, has received clearly insufficient attention both in the world and in domestic philosophical literature. Turning to metaphor allows us to take into account the personal-expressive principle in philosophy, which is the most important component of philosophical knowledge.
The degree of development of the problem. The study of the role of metaphor in philosophy essentially depends on a certain
understanding the concept of “metaphor”, its logical-semantic nature, the general mechanism of its functioning in language. Currently, there is a sufficient amount of research on this topic, especially abroad. Since the 60s, metaphor has become one of the most significant themes in Western philosophy1.
In the modern study of metaphor, a number can be distinguished. directions. First, the construction of metaphor models. Currently, the most common in English-language literature is the logical-semantic (interactionist) model of metaphor, which interprets metaphor as interaction at the level of meaning. Its founders are considered to be the American philosophers A. Richards and M. Black.2
1 Metaphor and thoght. Cambridge, 1979; Metaphor: problems and perspectives. Brighton, 1979: Theorie der Metapher. Darmstadt, 1983.
2 I. A. Richards. The philosophy of Rhetoric. N.Y. 1950 M. Black. Models and Metaphor. Ithaca-London, 1962.
The subsequent tradition complements and develops the initial provisions of the concept without changing the basic postulates (see, for example, the works of V. Alridge, M. Hester, etc.)3. The second model, pragmatic (expressive-personal), is characterized by the introduction of a human, subjective factor. It specifies the consideration of metaphor at the level of pragmatics, that is, in connection with the use of language (J. Searle, J. Apter, D. Davidson)4. Secondly, an important place is occupied by the study of the relationship between the metaphorical and the literal (O. Barfeld, A. Clark, J. Manns)5. Within the framework of this direction, a comparative analysis of the cognitive capabilities of metaphor and concept is carried out. Thirdly, the effect of metaphor in texts of various natures is studied. Thus, along with traditional studies of metaphors in everyday language and poetic speech, there are a number of works devoted to the metaphors of science (see work. Hoffman R.)6. Metaphors are explored in particle physics and classical mechanics, mathematics and biology, cognitive psychology and historiography. Finally, a very important, although still developed to a much lesser extent, is the direction of studying metaphor, where the latter is studied in connection with the specifics of philosophical knowledge as well as with the formulation of philosophical problems. Here you can point to
s Aldrich V. Visual Metaphor // The Journal of Aestelic Education, 2 no 1, 1968, p.73-86: Hester M. Metaphor and aspects seeing // Journal of Aestetics, 25 no 2 /1966.
4 Searle I.R. Metaphor // Express, and Meaning, pp. 76-116, Cambridge, 1979; Davidson D. What Metaphor Means? // Critical Inquiry, 5 no 1, p.31-47.
5 Barfield O. The meaning of the word “literal” // Metaphor and Symbols, London, I960; Clark A. Metaphor and Literal Language, // Thought, 52 no 207 /1977/, p. 366-380; Manns J. Metaphor and Paraphrase. Br., 1975.
6 Hoffman R. Some implication of metaphor for philosophy of science // The ubiquity of Metaphor. Amsterdam, 1985.
the already classic works of J. Lakoff and M. Johnson, where metaphors are considered as the most important means of defining the structuring of the image of the world7. It is necessary to point out the work of Art. Pepper's "Hypotheses about the World", in which metaphors are placed at the basis of metaphysical systems, thereby defining philosophical pictures of the world8. D.M.Emmet and D.Berggren9 also worked in this direction. Separate works of J. Ortega y Gasset and J. Derrida are devoted to metaphors in philosophy.10
Unfortunately, this direction has not received its coverage in the domestic literature, although we also have a number of studies on metaphor of a general linguistic nature. Among the works of domestic authors, it is necessary to mention, first of all, the works of N.D. Arutyunova, V.V. Gak, V.V. Petrov, V.N. Telia, S.S. Gusev11. Their works are devoted mainly to the genetic function of metaphor, its impact on the formation of new lexical units, as well as the study of the functional dependence of metaphor on the content of the text, scientific and artistic. The study of metaphors in philosophy remains outside the scope of domestic research.
Speaking about the degree of development of the problem, it should be noted that from the general formulation of the question of the significance of metaphor for
7 Lakoff D. Johnson M. Metaphors by which we live // Theory of metaphor. M., 1990, p.387-415
8 Pepper St. World Hypotheses/California, 1942.
"Emmnet D.M. The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking. London, 1949; Berggen D. The use and abuse of Metaphor / Review of Metaphysics, vol. 16, /1962-63/.
10 Derrida J. White Mythology // Margins of Philosophy. Chicago, 1982; Ortega y Gasset X. Two great metaphors // Theory of metaphor. M., 1990, p68-81.
11 see collection Metaphor in language and text. M., 1988; Arutyunova N.D. Language metaphor C Linguistics and poetics. M., 1979; Petrov V.V. Scientific metaphors. Novosibirsk, 1985; Gusev S.S. Science and metaphor. L., 1984, etc.
philosophy (positively resolved in the works of foreign philosophers) it is necessary to move on to a more specific study, that is, to the study of the structure and functions of metaphors in the system of philosophy.
Purpose and objectives of the work: The main goal of the dissertation is a multidimensional study of metaphor in philosophical knowledge and creativity, analysis of the structure and functions of philosophical metaphors. Achieving the goal involves solving the following tasks:
Carrying out the reconstruction of the main approaches to metaphor in the history of philosophy, comparing their cognitive capabilities;
Justification of the significance of metaphor for philosophy as a special type of knowledge;
Development of a methodology for analyzing the role of metaphor in philosophy, highlighting the main stages in the approach to philosophical metaphors;
Identification of different levels of philosophical metaphors that perform different functions in the system of philosophy;
Analysis of the functions of philosophical metaphors.
Theoretical and methodological basis of the study.
The material presented by the research of prominent foreign and domestic metaphor theorists and a number of historical and philosophical texts serves as the theoretical and factual basis of the dissertation work. The methodological basis of the work is a systemic-historical approach, that is, a combination of historical and systemic methods in the analysis of metaphors in philosophical texts.
The scientific novelty of the study is to analyze the role of metaphor in philosophical cognition, consideration of the structure and functions
philosophical metaphors. More specifically, the novelty of the dissertation can be formulated in the following provisions:
1. Two approaches to metaphor in the history of philosophy are reconstructed: a) traditional, limiting the scope of metaphor to language and b) non-traditional, which interprets metaphor as
A semantic unit as a special form of thinking. It is shown that the non-traditional approach has a higher heuristic potential.
2. The importance of metaphor for philosophy as a special type of Knowledge has been proven. It is shown that metaphor represents a pole in the system of philosophy that opposes and complements the logical-conceptual principle.
3. A methodology has been developed for analyzing the role of metaphor in philosophy. Three main stages have been identified in the approach to philosophical metaphors: a) “quantitative”, which studies metaphors from the point of view of the dependence of their frequency on the orientation of the philosophical system; b), “qualitative”, which analyzes the content of specific metaphors depending on philosophical issues, the historical context of philosophy, and the characteristics of the creative individuality of the philosopher; c) system-hierarchical, considering metaphors depending on their role and functions in the holistic system of philosophical knowledge.
4. It is shown that it is possible to consider the whole variety of philosophical metaphors as a system with the identification of basic and derivative metaphors. Three types (levels) of metaphors in the system of philosophical knowledge are identified, each of which performs specific functions: a) basic metaphors; b) middle level metaphors; c) metaphors-illustrations.
5. The most important functions of philosophical metaphors are analyzed: a) structuring, ordering concepts within the framework of a philosophical system; b) epistemological, promoting figurative and intuitive comprehension of abstract meanings; c) illustrating, further clarifying the content of logical-conceptual constructions.
Theoretical and practical significance of the research.
The conclusions and results of the work are important for the methodology of philosophy, since they are closely related to the problem of justification. specifics of philosophical knowledge. The dissertation is also of interest to historians of philosophy, as it offers an unconventional model for describing the historical and philosophical process. The results of the dissertation can be used in lecture courses when considering topics related to the nature of philosophy, as a justification for the irreducibility of philosophy to science, as well as in presenting historical and philosophical issues.
Approbation of the work: The dissertation was discussed at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov and recommended for protection. The results of the dissertation are presented in publications: 1) Lebedev S.A., Polozova I.V. "Metaphor as a means of cognition: traditional and non-traditional models." Bulletin of Moscow State University, 1993, No. 4; 2) "Metaphor and the nature of philosophical knowledge" dep. in INION No. 48379 dated July 26, 1993, as well as in the abstracts for the conference “Philosophy and Methodology of the Humanities” / Orel, 1993/.
Structure and main content of the dissertation. The dissertation consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.
The introduction substantiates the relevance of the topic, examines the degree of its scientific development, formulates the goals and objectives of the research, shows the scientific novelty, methodological basis and practical significance of the work.
In the first chapter, “Genesis and philosophical foundations of ideas about metaphor,” an analysis of metaphor as a form of language and thought is carried out: the formation of views on metaphor in the historical and philosophical tradition is considered, and the philosophical foundations of the most general approaches to metaphor are highlighted. It is shown that the consideration of all subsequent issues significantly depends on the choice of a certain interpretation of metaphor.
The first paragraph, “Metaphor in history and philosophy,” presents the main results of the study of metaphor by philosophers, starting from the appearance of the term in ancient Greek sophistry to the theories of metaphor of the twentieth century. The starting point here is an indication of the significance for the further understanding of metaphor (mainly as a linguistic form) of the Aristotelian division between poetics and logic, words and thought. According to Aristotle, metaphor was understood as a form that is outside the sphere of logical laws and belongs only to poetics (rhetoric). Therefore, starting from Aristotle, metaphor is interpreted as an extra-logical phenomenon, located outside the sphere of human knowledge. Two lines in the understanding of metaphor trace their history back to Aristotle: “rhetorical” and “logical,” united by the idea that metaphor belongs only to linguistic structures. According to the “rhetoricians” (Theophrastus, Cicero, Quintillian), metaphor is a form of language that performs a number of significant functions in it, including aesthetic, axeological, and nominative. The basis
for the metaphor of "rhetoric" one considers the sensory ability of a person. According to “logicians” (T. Hobbes, J. Locke, G. Leibniz), who describe metaphor from the standpoint of thinking, metaphor is an incorrect use of words that leads away from the truth and distorts the picture of rational constructions. Metaphor is considered especially unsuitable for science and philosophy, where its use leads to nonsense. According to the "logicians", the only adequate means of expressing thoughts is literal language, and metaphor, as a deviation from proper expressions, should be eliminated from the language of science and philosophy. The history of philosophy in the understanding of metaphor bears the mark of the confrontation between “rhetoricians” and “logicians”. It is shown that these two lines are, in essence, an expression of one common position, which considers language to be the sphere of action of metaphor.
The dominance in the history of philosophy of the traditional Aristotelian theory of metaphor is associated with the dominant ideas about thinking, about the connection between thought and language. Thus, language was traditionally interpreted as a means for expressing thoughts, abstract thinking acted as the highest intellectual ability, and the role of sensory cognition was downplayed. Such ideas contributed to a low assessment of linguistic forms that have a basis in the sensory experience of humanity - metaphors.
The dissertation notes that already in Antiquity, positions of a different type were emerging, capable of representing a worthy alternative to the understanding of metaphor coming from Aristotle. These include the philosophical and semantic theory of metaphor of Hermogenes of Tarsus. According to Hermogenes, metaphor has two levels of its action (level of words, level of ideas), metaphor belongs to
both language and thinking. It is shown that the extreme position of such an unconventional understanding of metaphor was expressed by Fr. Nietzsche, who reduced almost all human thinking to metaphor, pointing to the metaphorical nature of thought and all pictures of the world. It is noted that such “traditional” concepts of metaphor in the history of philosophy were extremely few, since they did not correspond to the prevailing ideas about thinking and language.
The second paragraph, "Metaphor: A Modern Solution to the Problem" (Twentieth Century Theories of Metaphor), talks about the radical changes that have taken place in the understanding of metaphor in the twentieth century. Such changes are associated, first of all, with a change in traditional philosophical views, which include a) the emergence of constructivist models of cognition, recognition of the creative nature of thinking; b) assertion of the independent significance of sensory experience, the emergence of ideas about a priori feeling; c) recognition of the significance and independent value of linguistic reality. It is shown that under the influence of such changes a new level of understanding of the metaphorical process was reached. The most important achievements of modern theories of metaphor are the following: 1) metaphor is a principle of thinking, and not just a figure of language (A; Richards); 2) metaphor is a special form of thought, not reducible to rational operations, representing the interaction of ideas (M. Black, A. Richards). Behind a metaphor, according to modern concepts, there is a special cognitive-imaginative activity; in a metaphor there is the activity of imagination (Alridge, F. Hans, P. Ricoeur). 3) Modern theories of metaphor have addressed epistemological problems (Lakoff J.,
Johnson M,). Metaphor is considered as a means of organizing conceptual structures, as a form capable of defining a certain categorization of the world. The dissertation emphasizes that the question of the epistemological significance of metaphor could arise only in connection with the emergence of constructivist models of cognition, where the object is “not given, but given”; In theories of cognition of the constructivist type, metaphor can be considered as the basis of a grid of categories, through which a description of a particular subject area or the world as a whole is specified. 4) Modern theories recognize the ontological significance of metaphor, discovered within the framework of philosophical hermeneutics. According to the hermeneutic understanding of language as the most universal reality, metaphor is associated with the fact of a person’s presence in existence and characterizes his primary attitude to the world, a person’s direct sense of existence. Metaphor is understood here as a fundamental linguistic form that correlates with the deep potential possibilities of reality hidden in our everyday life, associated with the fundamental structures of existence.
It is proposed to understand meggaphora based on the listed provisions of the theory of metaphor. A brief definition of metaphor is given, which includes a number of the most significant aspects. Metaphor is defined not only as a description of an object through another term that is not its own, but as an understanding of an object through an idea, the characteristics of another object or phenomenon, as well as cognition of an object that occurs by attracting the properties of another object.
In the second chapter, “The Nature of Philosophy and Metaphor,” a comparison is made of the essential features of philosophical knowledge, on the one hand, and the nature of metaphor, on the other. The purpose of this
The purpose of this chapter is to show that metaphor is a form that corresponds to the essence of the philosophical attitude towards the world.
First, the nature of philosophy is determined based on reference to both the historical development of philosophy itself and its understanding in the works of philosophers. It is indicated that philosophy, in the course of its history, has realized itself both as a holistic human vision and as a science, combining two opposing principles: the sensory-intuitive and the rational. It is proposed to dwell on the fundamental duality in defining the nature of philosophy. It is pointed out that neglecting any of the aspects of philosophizing can distort the real picture. The fundamental ambivalence of philosophy is convinced by the appeal made in the second chapter to the definitions of the nature of philosophy (F. Schelling, G.W.F. Hegel, A. Schopenhauer, M. Heidegger, N.A. Berdyaev).
It is argued that the duality of the nature of philosophy requires, accordingly, the duality of the means used by philosophy. It is proposed to consider the concept (1) and metaphor (2) as such means. The concept, as is known, represents a formal logical principle, therefore in philosophy the concept symbolizes the rational pole. Metaphor is considered as realizing in philosophy the opposite, sensual-intuitive principle,
The second chapter also proposes a substantiation of the statement about the ability of metaphor to fully represent the sensory-intuitive pole, to be the embodiment of the human dimension of philosophy. To do this, the understanding of the sensory-spiritual is initially clarified, which is interpreted as the embodiment of a holistic, full-blooded image of being provided by such
how it reveals itself to a person. It is argued that this principle is present in philosophy along with the constructions of reason and expresses the direct unity of existence, the connection between the world and man. It is proved that metaphor is a means capable of expressing such a non-rational attitude of a person to the world, because in myth, religion, art, i.e. in all forms of spiritual life, where the sensual-intuitive principle predominates, it is metaphor that is the main means of language. Metaphor is considered as an authorized representative of a holistic, syncretic worldview, carrying within itself the essential features of all sensory-intuitive forms (mytho-poetic principles). Thus, for G. Vico, a metaphor was a “little myth”; for I. Kant, it was a “miniature work of art.” According to E. Cassirer. metaphor is mythology's own conceptual means.
The second chapter provides a detailed understanding of the “sensory-intuitive” beginning of philosophy. It comes down to four main principles: a) comprehension of the world in its reality, continuous heterogeneity; b) the transfer of a holistic image of being in its concrete unity; c) affirmation of inextricable unity, deep identity of subject and object; d) the implementation of internal, unconditional knowledge of all things. It is proved that all these aspects find their most adequate expression in metaphor; Thus, metaphor is a means that can recreate a picture of reality, present reality as continuous heterogeneity. For a metaphor, there are no boundaries between concepts; they are seen as conditional and easily surmountable. Metaphor brings together things that are separated by reason and attributed to different spheres.
Metaphor can also express the real unity of things. Through rational thinking one can only come to an abstract, meaningless understanding of unity (everything, whole, one). Metaphor represents qualitative unity in philosophy, where, as in art, the whole is comprehended through a separate phenomenon, each individual product represents infinity. The metaphor here realizes the comprehension of “Everything in everything,” where it is possible to consider any of the fragments of being as a substitute for the whole.
Through metaphor in philosophy, the unity of subject and object is realized, which is constitutive for philosophical knowledge. The subject-object relationship in philosophy is primary and cannot be deduced from anything. Metaphor is a form that represents such an inextricable unity of man and being, because It is metaphor that allows us to describe the universe under the prism of any of the human qualities (“The World is Reason”, “The World is Will”, etc.).
Metaphor is in philosophy an expression of the unconditional internal knowledge of things, possible due to the internal connections of the knower and the knowable. It is the metaphor that represents a special intuitive comprehension of existence, which cannot be rationalized; To describe unconditional knowledge, Vl. Solovyov’s scheme is proposed: “faith - imagination - creativity "The metaphor represents all three stages of unconditional cognition."
The second chapter, therefore, is devoted to substantiating the thesis that metaphor in philosophy expresses a deep, intuitive comprehension of existence, consisting in a vision of the unity of all things, awareness of the identity of man with the world.
In the third chapter "Philosophical metaphors. The structure and functions of metaphors in philosophy" the question of the role of metaphor in philosophy from
the plane of the general formulation of the problem goes into the mainstream of its specific study. Describes the whole picture
the action of metaphor in philosophy, shows the specific character
functioning of metaphors in the system of philosophical knowledge.
The distinctive features of philosophical metaphors themselves and their specific characteristics are pointed out. It is shown that interaction, which is the essence of metaphor, in a philosophical metaphor carries a peculiar coloring associated with the specifics of the philosophical sphere. The metaphor of philosophy is the interaction, on the one hand, of “eternal”, constant philosophical “themes” (Universe, World, Man, Cognition) and, on the other hand, of changing sociocultural images (“containers”, “shells”). Philosophical metaphor is further defined as the interaction of an “eternal” theme and a culturally determined “container.” It is indicated that a philosophical metaphor is also characterized by a fundamental
the heterogeneity of the objects connected in it: on the one hand, the metaphor contains the most abstract ideas, on the other, very concrete images. It is shown that such a connection allows, with the help of the properties of specific objects, to comprehend abstract philosophical content and to master new semantic spaces. Due to this circumstance, metaphor is a kind of cognition tool for the philosopher. It is shown that many fundamental philosophical terms owe their origin to metaphor ("substance", "matter", "idea", "accident", etc.). Other features of philosophical metaphors are also indicated, including their coexistence with the concept and, due to this, conventionality.
The work highlights the types of metaphors in philosophy, among which ontological metaphors are important, representing an understanding of certain properties of objects as independent entities.
The dissertation proposes three stages in considering the question of the functioning of metaphor in philosophy. Among them are 1) “quantitative”, 2) “qualitative”, 3) systemic-hierarchical.
The first stage involves considering the problem from the point of view of the frequency of use of metaphors in various philosophical systems, among individual philosophers, in different eras. The pattern of this stage is to establish the dependence of the number of metaphors on a certain orientation of the philosophical system. When a philosopher is oriented toward science, the number of metaphors in his texts decreases; when he gravitates toward myth or poetry, it increases. If we consider the historical development of philosophy, the largest number of metaphors is observed in periods when the dominant form of spirit was myth or religion (Antiquity, the Middle Ages); in modern times, with the predominant orientation of philosophy towards science, the number of metaphors decreases. It is shown that the weak point of quantitative research on metaphors; is the impossibility of taking into account the heterogeneity of metaphors, their differences in status, in the degree of imagery.
The second, “qualitative” stage, is a description of metaphors from the standpoint of their content, their specific coloring. Here the question is asked what specific metaphors are used in philosophy, which is divided into three more specific aspects: a) historical, where the content of metaphors is considered depending on the historical period of the existence of philosophy; b) thematic, where
the dependence of the choice of metaphors on certain problems of philosophy (ontological, epistemological, ethical) is shown; c) personal, which describes the characteristic metaphors used by an individual philosopher (school), bearing the imprint of the philosopher’s creative individuality.
The historical approach shows that metaphors in philosophy are predominantly borrowed from the forms of spirit that dominate the life of society in a given period. Thus, the metaphors of ancient philosophy have a mythological origin, the metaphors of the philosophy of the Middle Ages have roots in the Holy Scriptures, the philosophy of modern times borrows metaphors from science. Metaphors conditioned by historical, sociocultural realities are also common in philosophy. Thus, in antiquity we find metaphors associated with the life and management of the polis; In the Middle Ages, the metaphor of hierarchy, a ladder, which had its basis in the subordination, hierarchical structure of feudal society, was extremely common. In modern times, characterized by an increasing role of economic life, economic metaphors appear.
The thematic approach is a study of philosophical metaphors depending on the problems of a certain section of philosophy. In the dissertation, as an example, an analysis of metaphors of epistemology is carried out, which define a certain understanding of the processes of cognition; an example of a personal approach is the consideration of metaphors of existentialism.
The third, system-hierarchical stage represents the most in-depth stage of research into the problem. Here there is a transition from a phenomenal description of metaphors to a more serious analysis. Metaphors are considered here as
having different status in the system of philosophy. This stage consists of identifying the hierarchy of metaphors, highlighting various levels of the metaphorical, as well as studying the specific functions of each layer of metaphors in philosophy.
There are three levels of philosophical metaphors: 1) a layer of metaphors-illustrations;
2) a layer of middle-level metaphors; 3) layer of basic metaphors. Each level carries out its own special functions and at each of them there are special relationships with the concept.
Thus, metaphors-illustrations lie on the “surface” of a philosophical text. Here they exist in parallel with philosophical constructs; Metaphors of the first level contribute to the understanding of the text; they further clarify the meaning of rational constructions.
At the second level, metaphor is already an immanent form of expression of philosophical views. Metaphor here is primary in relation to rational descriptions. Metaphor at this level performs an epistemological function, realizing the comprehension of new semantic spaces inaccessible to the means of reason. With the help of metaphor, non-conceptual comprehension of abstract meanings is carried out here.
The most essential for philosophy is the third level of the metaphorical. Here are metaphors that underlie philosophical systems and set a certain image of the world (for example, “The World is Fire”, “The World is Reason”, “The World is Will”). It is argued that philosophy is based on such basic metaphors. They form the basis of rational constructions, i.e. a projection of a grid of categories is carried out, describing the origin (the “shell” of the metaphor, for example, in Heraclitus, Fire) onto
image of the World as a whole. The basic metaphor thus sets a way of describing the Universe in a philosophical system, thereby performing a structuring function.
The third chapter also provides a description of the action in the history of philosophy of basic metaphors, among which, according to the source of origin, natural, anthropic and cultural ones are distinguished, and according to the nature of the action - the Protean metaphor and the mosaic metaphor. The greatest attention is paid to anthropic methods that describe being in the “image and likeness” of a person. The third chapter examines the transformation of such metaphors throughout the historical development of philosophy. It is shown that the original metaphor “The World is Man,” which underlies mythological, religious and pre-philosophical systems, is transformed in philosophy by a series of anthropic metaphors that work on the principle “The World is a human function.” The likeness here is more hidden. In Antiquity, such human properties as Soul, Spirit, Mind, Love, Hate, Eros, etc. were used to describe the world. Such comparisons were cast into the most classical formulations in modern times, when the basic metaphors “The World is Reason”, “The World is Feeling” appeared ", "The World is Will", defining, respectively, rationalistic, sensationalistic and voluntaristic views.
At the conclusion of the dissertation, the general results of the study are summed up and theoretical conclusions are formulated.
1) Lebedev S.A., Polozova I.V. Metaphor as a means of cognition: traditional and non-traditional models / Bulletin of Moscow State University, 1993, *4.
Loading...
