On Sep 24, 2008, at 4:58 PM, William Conger wrote:
Whatever stands for something else can be a metaphor of it because
it evokes the thing without being it by other means
"Can be." Not "always is." There is some ambivalence in that statement.
In any event, your assertion above means that a metaphor is no
different from a sign. But as I use the term, a metaphor is a
significantly different kind of verbal device. A sign points to the
thing, it's the name that points to the substance (to use Montaigne's
terms). But a metaphor asks the reader to compare two dissimilar
things and imagine that some quality of B can be found in A, either in
some explicit way or in some indirect, i.e., "metaphorical," way.
If I say, "I am John," nothing metaphorical happens. I merely say that
"I" and "John" name the same person (a true statement, btw).
If I say, "William is a tiger in an argument," then something
metaphorical happens. Unless I do some great disservice to truth and
knowledge, I do not claim that you and a tiger are the same thing, but
only that there is some quality in "tiger" that can be attributed
analogically to you "in an argument."
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
