Philosophy of Language U73126
Lecture 10
Communication: Metaphor
1. Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech in which (roughly) some thing, action or property is said to be some
other thing, action or property.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Juliet is the sun.
I’ll chew on it.
Ben is an ice cube.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York [Shakespeare, Richard III]
As highlighted by Monroe Beardsley (1962), there are two (almost) paradoxical aspects of metaphor.
First, metaphors involve a clear conceptual tension. Given our understanding of Juliet and
our understanding of the sun, Juliet cannot be the sun. Likewise, an idea or thought isn’t the sort of
thing that can be chewed, Ben is the sort of thing that could be an ice cube, and York isn’t the sort of
thing that can have its own sun by which a winter (which cannot be of discontent) could be made a
glorious summer.
Second, metaphors can nonetheless be informative, illuminating and even insightful.
Certainly, (1), (2) and (3) are informative and illuminating; and (4) is plausibly insightful, expressing
a feeling or state of mind that could not so easily be expressed literally.
This paradox at the heart of metaphor gives rise to an obvious question: how could something
that involves such a conceptual tension be informative and even insightful? How do metaphors work?
Before we proceed, there are four things to bear in mind.
 Some metaphors are complex in the sense that they involve multiple layers of metaphor.
Consider (3): we understand it as saying that Ben is cold and hard. But Ben may not be
literally cold and hard – rather, he may be emotionally inexpressive and insensitive.
 There appears to be metaphorical truth. For a simple example, “the future lies ahead”
appears to be (metaphorically) true, even if it is not particularly informative. Perhaps “some
metaphors involve multiple layers of metaphor” is a more informative example.
 While there is some latitude in how one may interpret a metaphor, there appear to be clear
misinterpretations. Someone who understands Romeo’s utterance of (1) as implying that
Juliet is liable to burn people has clearly misinterpreted the metaphor.
 Metaphors can die. A dead metaphor is one that has been used so often so that its
‘metaphorical meaning’ has been incorporated into its literal meaning – e.g. “the mouth of the
river” or “cold-hearted”. This is a matter of degree; as Lycan writes, “fresh metaphors get
picked up and become current, and then only very gradually – sometimes over centuries –
sicken, harden, and die” (p. 176).
2. Metaphor as simile
A simile, in contrast to a metaphor, tells us what some thing (or action, property, etc.) is like. E.g.:
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(5) Juliet is like the sun
(6) I’ll think about it as I might chew on something.
2.1 The naïve simile theory
Both metaphor and simile invite you to attend to a comparison: metaphor implicitly and simile
explicitly. Inspired by this similarly, the naïve simile theory claims that a metaphor is an abbreviated
simile (where the simile is understood literally). For example, on this view, (1) might be an
abbreviation of (5) and (2) might be an abbreviation of (6).
At face value, the naïve simile theory might look plausible. It can perhaps explain why
metaphors are informative (because they are abbreviated, explicit comparisons), and it can perhaps
account for metaphorical truth (because explicit comparisons can be true).
Objection. The naïve simile theory doesn’t seem capable of both capturing the conceptual
tension at the heart of metaphor, and giving us metaphorical truth, at the same time. In the sense of (5)
in which there is a conceptual tension, it is straightforwardly false!
Objection. The naïve simile theory seems to fail spectacularly with complex metaphors.
Consider (3): on this view, it would perhaps abbreviate
(7) Ben is like an ice cube
with (7) understood literally. But the sense in which Ben is like an ice cube – solid, principally
composed of H2O – is emphatically not what the metaphor conveys.
2.2 The figurative simile theory
Fogelin (1988, Figuratively Speaking) developed a more sophisticated version approach. He claimed
that metaphor is an abbreviated simile, where the simile is understood figuratively. So (1), (2) and (3)
may abbreviate (5), (6) and (7), but with a figurative understanding of (5), (6) and (7).
Fogelin understands literal similes in terms of his similarity relation. He claims that a is
literally similar to b if a has a sufficient number of b’s salient properties. So Harry Potter is like Ron
Weasley because HP has RW’s salient properties – a young, male wizard at Hogwarts, aligned against
Voldemort. But RW isn’t like HP because RW doesn’t have HP’s salient properties – being the boy
who lived and being the wizard that defeated Voldemort. So, (5), understood literally, is true if Juliet
has enough of the sun’s salient properties – i.e. if she is a burning ball of gas at the centre of the solar
system that lights and warms the earth. (She isn’t.)
For Fogelin, a figurative simile involves an inversion of the role of salience. To understand “a
is like b” figuratively, we ignore b’s salient features, instead looking for whichever features of b
match the salient features of a. So, understanding (5) figuratively, we look for the features of the sun
that are (from Romeo’s perspective) salient features of Juliet – perhaps being beautiful and worthy of
worship. Understanding (7) figuratively, we look for features of an ice cube that are salient features of
Ben – perhaps being emotionally inexpressive and insensitive.
The figurative simile theory can perhaps then deal with complex metaphors. Likewise, it
seems to be able to give us conceptual tension and metaphorical truth at the same time: Juliet cannot
be literally like the sun, but it may be figuratively true that Juliet is like the sun.
Objection. It is unclear that the figurative simile theory gets the right results. Searle gives us
the example:
(8) Richard is a gorilla.
Plausibly, (8) conveys that Richard is fierce, prone to violence and not very bright. But a gorilla does
not in fact possess those properties at all – so, for Fogelin, (8) cannot have that interpretation.
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Objection. This applies to all simile theories: it is unclear that all metaphors can be
paraphrased as similes. Consider (4). What simile does that abbreviate? Perhaps: the present is like the
end of a winter during which people have been discontented, where there is someone who is like the
sun (and appropriately connected with York) who is doing something like turning a winter into
summer? Perhaps you can do better. (Moreover, if a metaphor is an abbreviation of a simile, surely we
should be able to work out which simile the metaphor is abbreviating?) [See e.g. Camp 2006.]
3. Metaphor as implicature
Searle (1979) and Martinich (1984) follow Grice in developing an account of metaphor in terms of
conversational implicature. We will focus on Martinich’s version.
For example, Martinich suggests that most metaphors flout the maxim of quality: when
someone utters (1)–(4), she appears at face value to be saying something false. As such, Martinich
claims that the hearer should use Grice’s maxims to determine what the speaker is conveying.
Martinich gives the following constraints: an uttered metaphor should be assumed to be relevant to the
speaker’s aims; it should ascribe properties that are salient; it should be assumed to be true. So
consider (1). A hearer might reason as follows: Juliet is clearly not actually the sun, so Romeo must
be conveying something else; given Romeo’s state of mind, he must be saying something
complimentary (and perhaps romantic); salient properties of the sun along these lines are that it is
beautiful and worthy of worship; Romeo plausibly believes that Juliet has these properties; so Romeo
is conveying that Juliet is beautiful and worthy of worship.
The hope is that a similar story can be told for all metaphors.
This approach does pretty well on most of the criteria: the conceptual tension is reflected by
the obvious (literal) falsity of the metaphor; what is conveyed may nonetheless be informative; due to
the open-ended nature of Gricean reasoning, there seems to be no problem with complex metaphors;
as Gricean mechanisms involve a proposition being conveyed, there can be metaphorical truths; etc..
Objection. On the Gricean picture, it is always a proposition that is conveyed. So, if this
picture is correct, then an utterance of each of (1)–(4) will ultimately involve the expression of a
single proposition. In which case: the speaker intended precisely one proposition to be conveyed,
there is precisely one correct interpretation of the metaphor, and the metaphorical meaning is
straightforwardly true or false. But all of these consequences are questionable: one might coin a new
metaphor without completely deciding what it is supposed to convey (“philosophy is the mathematics
of the non-mathematical”), in which case there might be multiple ‘maximally correct’ interpretations
of the metaphor, and it may not be straightforwardly true/false.
4. Metaphor as non-linguistic effect
Finally, we consider Davidson’s causal view. For Davidson (1979, What metaphors mean), a
metaphor only has its literal meaning; but it “makes us attend to some likeness, often a novel or
surprising likeness, between or more things” (p.31). A metaphor ‘nudges’ us, perhaps like a ‘bump on
the head’, into viewing things differently. The idea, ultimately, is that a metaphor works through a
causal but non-linguistic mechanism.
Objection. For Davidson, it seems that there can’t be misinterpretations of metaphors; there is
simply the effect that the words have on the hearer.
Objection. For Davidson, there is no sense in which “the future lies ahead of us” is any more
true than “the future is a doormat”.
Objection. It is unclear how Davidson can account for the death of metaphors.
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