Borislav Mikulić
Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu
Odsjek za filozofiju
Ul. Ivana Lučića 3
10000 Zagreb
Email: bmikulic@ffzg.hr
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Defining metaphor.
On two early accounts on metaphor by Aristotle and Hermogenes of
Tarsus and their reception by modern interactionists*
Forthcoming in: u:
Synthesis philosophica 55-56 (1-2/2013)
Abstract
The article discusses linguistic and epistemological presuppositions of the thesis, raised
by the Irish classicist W. B. Stanford (1936), that the rhetorician Hermogenes of Tarsus
(ca. 170 A.D.), in his definition of metaphor, provided—in contrast to Aristotle’s “mere
linguistic” description—a radically new, dynamic and reference-based conception of
metaphoric speech, which he called tropé. For Stanford, it was a historical pre-figuration
of his own “stereoscopic” account of metaphor, which later on, with Max Black and Paul
Ricœur, inspired the so-called interactionist view of metaphor in various areas of
philosophy of language and science, and in linguistics. In the article, Hermogenes’ idea of
metaphor as a “common” name for different things has been related throughout the text
to a three-level (linguistic, logical and epistemological) analysis of transference in
Aristotle’s Poetics and other parts of his work. The paper points, through brief references
or more extended comments, to systematic relations between the two ancient theories
and some contemporary, interactionist and cognitivist, contributions on metaphor theory
(Ricœur, Lakoff and Johnson, Kittay). As a result, the supposed interactionist
explanation of metaphor in Hermogenes turns out to be rather continuous than hostile
with respect to Aristotle’s analysis, which appears no less conceptual than linguistic.
Moreover, both accounts clearly call for further analysis on more complex systematic
levels, which modern writers on metaphor scarcely acknowledged neither in Hermogenes
nor in Aristotle.
Key words: Aristotle’s and Hermogenes Tarseus’ definition of metaphor, interaction vs
substitution, linguistic vs conceptual analysis, double reference, naming vs transference
of names, assertive logos, referring and speech act
The present paper goes back to a draft I first delivered for Forschungsstätte der
Evangelischen Studiengemeinschaft, Heidelberg, in the spring 1995, as an outcome of the
research project in historical philosophy of language and concept history “Rhetorizität des
Logos”. The research was made possible by a grant of Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
in the period 1992-94 at Philosophisches Seminar in Tübingen. The paper is related to,
but not dependent on, my other publications on metaphoric speech in scientific discourse
as well as to seminars in ancient and contemporary philosophical semiotics and
epistemology.
*