Philosophy ETDs

Publication Date

7-13-1972

Abstract

Since Aristotle's time a close connection has been recognized between metaphor and cognition. The connection can be explained if the process of understanding is metaphorical. Such an explanation involves self-reference in two ways. First, the explanation will necessarily apply to itself. Second, metaphor, because it creates significance, must include directions for its own interpretation. Self-reference has been held to result in paradox or nonsense.

Self-referential inconsistency is a problem only if meaning is determinate. Theories of determinate meaning arc based on object-reference, or propositional equivalence. Both bases are shown to be unsatisfactory, and a non-referential theory of meaning based on convention and use is adopted.

A number of accounts of metaphor are considered in relation to the non-referential theory of meaning. Metaphor is shown to involve a comparison of word use which produces the algorithm for the interpretation of the expression which contains it. Thus, metaphor serves as the basis for the new projection of a predicate which it provides.

In addition to the qualities of "interaction" and "controversion" recognized by earlier accounts of metaphor, metaphor has been said to involve iconicity. Given a non-referential theory of meaning, metaphor remains iconic, but in the sense described by c. s. Peirce, rather than in the more familiar sense described by Paul Henle. Iconicity of the Peircean kind corresponds to the "picture11 theory of meaning, but vitiates the distinction drawn between discursive and presentational forms. Discursive forms are not necessarily determined by logic and the world, They are, therefore, on the same cognitive basis as presentational forms, and the same metaphorical process operates in both science and art. Metaphor, therefore, provides the ground for a uniform theory of cognition.

Descartes was an early advocate of the view that cognition is the same process regardless of its object. In his first efforts to formulate the process he recognized certain "simple natures," which have puzzled later commentators. The puzzles can be resolved if simple natures are interpreted as designations for the results of the metaphorical process. Understood in this way, Descartes• account of simple natures provides a useful explanation of how metaphor operates in cognition.

Degree Name

Philosophy

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Philosophy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Brian Edgar O'Neil

Second Committee Member

Paul F. Schmidt

Third Committee Member

Hubert Griggs Alexander

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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