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Importance of metaphor
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Metaphors
With the possible exception of completely formal exercises in logic, philosophy is thoroughly metaphorical and largely conditional. Moreover, the purposes served by metaphors and conditionals in it are similar. Metaphors ask us to imagine the world in a new way, while conditionals may ask to imagine a new world. Yet some conditionals and metaphors are incompatible. There are limits to how metaphors can occur in conditionals, and how conditionals can themselves be metaphors. Specifically, only certain kinds of metaphors can be accommodated in the antecedents of conditionals, and even then only within a restricted class of conditionals. This paper focuses on the linguistic tension between metaphors and conditionals. I argue that this echoes a tension at the heart of philosophy between two modes of philosophizing: a speculative-revisionary mode that is metaphorical and an analytic-explanatory mode that is conditional. The tasks are generally complementary so that the difference can be ignored with impunity. However, if we do not respect that difference, we may find ourselves analyzing metaphors and seeing logical analyses as metaphorical, and thus missing the point on both fronts.
Life is not really a bowl of cherries, and kangaroos do have tails. We know this full well, and yet are willing to entertain their negations in one way or another--the former as metaphor, the latter as counterfactual hypothesis. These are common moves to make in trying to understand the world — indeed, characteristically philosophical moves — but they are very different in kind. Their similarities, differences, and conflicted interaction reveal something about metaphors and conditionals, but mostly about philosophy itself.
Specifically: (1) "Philosophy" is a term that covers an extraordinary array of discourses, but with the possible exception of completely formal exercises in logic, philosophy is thoroughly metaphorical and largely conditional. (2) Some conditionals and metaphors, however, are incompatible. There are limits to how metaphors can occur in conditionals, and how conditionals can themselves be metaphors. Thus, (3) there is a tension at the heart of philosophy between two moments to philosophy or modes of philosophizing, a speculative, radical-revisionary mode that is metaphorical, and an analytic-explanatory mode that is conditional. Philosophers have special reason not to mix their metaphors (at least not with their conditionals). In this paper, I will focus on that linguistic tension.
§1. Metaphors in Philosophy: Metaphors are invitations to see things in a new way — Communism as a spectre haunting Europe, philosophy as a series of footnotes to Plato, or all the world as a stage.
Maus tells a story of Spiegelman’s, Vladek, and his experience as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus gives us a detailed look at the ways Jews were persecuted in German-occupied territories during World War II. The Jews were seen as inferior, disposable and deprived of the most basic human rights. Instead of drawing the characters as human, Art Spiegelman, in his graphic novel Maus, chooses to merge the different identities and draw each character through a definitive scope of animals: Mice were used to represent the Jewish people, cats to represent the Germans, pigs to represent the people of Poland and dogs to represent Americans. He uses metaphors which are figures of speech that is used to make a comparison between two things that aren't alike but do have something in common, in this instance animals. Mr. Spigelman strategically chose the animal characters and had a stereotypical relation to the character the animals depicted in the story. Mr. Spiegelman convincingly argues that he was using “Hitler’s pejorative attitudes against themselves,” and that using animals “allowed me to approach otherwise unsayable things” (Gardner 2011, p 2). There are many times throughout the text
Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, Kourtney K. and Scott Disick broke up due to finding out that their relationship wasn't working.This shows that being in love is difficult and has a downside at times.The authors of "Love's Vocabulary", "My Shakespeare",and Romeo and Juliet use metaphors,allusions and again metaphors to illustrate how confusing love is. In "Love's Vocabulary" Diane Ackerman uses metaphors to describe how love can be a struggle when you're in a relationship.In line 1 she says "love is the great intagible" which sums up the idea
Free Will and the Rhetorical Situation Lloyd F. Bitzer’s article, “The Rhetorical Situation”, is an account of what he calls the “rhetorical situation” as what he believes to be the conditions necessary for compelling a rhetorician to engage in rhetoric (35). It is Bitzer’s position that a work of rhetoric comes into existence as a response to the call for a certain state of affairs in the world (32). Furthermore, Bitzer claims that when we find ourselves in such “situations”, we are compelled to engage in rhetoric in order to restore the balance that we find lacking (34). He identifies three interconnected elements of situational rhetoric: implication, audience, and constraints (35). Bitzer argues that a rhetorical discourse, which consists of an engagement with an audience for the purpose of compelling that audience to modify the world so as to repair the problem which is presented (35), is required to solve the problem as the world presents it (34).
Metaphors can be defined as those concepts where a term is used to portray a different meaning in a phrase than what it literary means. Additionally, metaphors are also used to make rhetorical statements where one is speaking of something else but by the use of words that do not have the same meaning. Moreover, metaphors can be used when one is trying to compare two different items with different meanings to portray the same meaning in describing something (Arduini 83). The book “Their eyes were watching God” has several metaphors, which have different analyses.
Control, Empowerment, and the Fake World: Converging Metaphors. "Metaphors not only structure the way we think about school, they also help create the world of the school" (Cunningham, "Metaphors of Mind" handout). This quote speaks the truth! Metaphors are the tools we use to structure thinking about our culture and to create culture at the same time. An excellent example of this dual and interconnected role of metaphor is Marshall's belief that "the dominant metaphor in many schools is SCHOOL IS WORK" (Cunningham, "MOM" handout).
Imagination and reality are often viewed as opposites. People are told to stop playing pretend and to face reality like an adult. However, in Alison Gopnik’s short story, “Possible Worlds: Why Do Children Pretend,” she discusses counterfactuals and how humans of all ages experience these counterfactuals. Gopnik’s definition of a counterfactual is the product of hope and imagination, also known as the woulda-coulda-shouldas of life. These counterfactuals include all the possible scenarios that could have happened in the past and all that could happen in the future.
"U.S. Government Lists of Bioterrorism Agents and Diseases." Biosecurity and Biodefense Resource - Federation of American Scientists. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2014.
Some kinds of utterances which have an indicative grammatical form seem, for different reasons, to be unable to say something true of the world. Logical contradictions are only the prime example of something the author baptizes impossible descriptions. So-called performative contradictions (e.g., "I do not exist") make up another kind, but there are at least two more such kinds: negating affirmations and performatives which cannot be explained within the philosophy of language. Only philosophical anthropology can explain their feature of "impossibleness," and a distinction between unreflective and reflective consciousness is central to the explanation. Particularly important here is G. H. Mead's distinction between two aspects of the self: the "I" and the "me." Each of the four kinds of impossible descriptions distinguished has its own contrary opposite. These are, in turn, logical tautologies, performative tautologies, affirming negations, and omissive performatives. The last three types as types have not received the philosophical recognition that they deserve. All four fit a general characterization which is given as a definition of the concept of superfluous description.
Symbolism is a symbol of whatever the object or subject is about. Every little object can be used as a symbol of whatever. Like in math, for example shapes and numbers symbolize anything it can be. Also, the American flag, It has fifty stars, representing 50 states. Also, colors may be used as a symbol. Especially in the person, you can see their true color on how they are or act. Like red angry, blue sad, green happy, black dark, purple love, anything represents something. This is most likely your tone of mood. Also, signs outdoors have symbols. Like signs you see on the road, express way, ditches, restaurants, stores, etc. Most likely everywhere, you just got to pay more attention in what is outdoors and what’s around you.
A metaphor can be defined as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison” (dictionary.com). We use metaphors in our everyday language more than most people realize. But metaphors are also vital in the field of Information Systems, especially in the design of user interfaces. To the “Average Joes” of the world, or those people who have difficulty understanding the complicated concepts of digital storage, information transmission, and processing, metaphors provide them with relevant concepts to which they can easily relate. Therefore, metaphors allow a significantly larger amount of the worldly population to use many of the common technologies that we take for granted today.
The metaphor reveals the reader’s continual search for meaning within the text and the subsequent inability to make sense of
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig. 5th Compact ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2012. 136-41. Print.
The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, brought to light the need to enhance the security of the United States and brought about the spending of billions of government and private spending to defend the U.S. against a possible future act of bioterrorism. Congress passed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Respons...
In conclusion, Shirley Jackson used many literary devices throughout the entire story. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson, uses symbolism, irony, and imagery to appeal to readers that read this story. Other literary devices such as characterization were identified in this story but the three that were elaborated on were the ones that stood out. The emphasis on religious traditions and symbols make “The Lottery” one the darkest and most mysterious
Schaub, Danielle. "Shirley Jackson's Use of Symbols in 'The Lottery..'" Journal of the Short Story in English 14 (Spring 1990): 79-86. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 187. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Jan. 2014