Ortega y Gasset: "The metaphor alone furnishes an escape: between the real
things, it lets emerge imaaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands."
"The metaphor disposes of an object by having it masquerade as something
else."
Geoff C
From: William Conger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Metaphors and Categories
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:20:53 -0700 (PDT)
Holy cow! I even like what Frances said, especially her remarks re
metaphor...and that means I like the rest of her comment too because it
leads up to the metaphor conclusion. Or, I've been destabilized by
Miller's brilliant comment re painting.
WC
--- On Thu, 9/25/08, Frances Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: Frances Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: RE: Metaphors and Categories
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 1:17 AM
> Frances to Michael and Geoff...
> (1) You may wish to read some realist writings by
> angloamerican
> pragmatists from Peirce to Morris and Sebeok on the matter
> of
> categoric classes and semiotic signs. The classes as
> applied to
> signs, like the informative lingual grammar of verbal
> words, deal
> therein at least with many kinds of represented vehicles
> and
> referred objects and interpreted effects. These writings on
> phenomenal categories also deal with semiotic issues
> turning on
> objectivism and relativism and subjectivism, to include the
> role
> that mental visions and notions and nominations play in
> that of
> classes and signs. In regard to signs in particular, the
> specific
> writings relevant to this discussion are those on
> "types" of
> words in minds roughly as immediate or intermediate or
> mediate,
> and those on the "vehicles" of words as formally
> similar or
> causally contagious or conventionally arbitrary, and those
> on the
> referred "objects" of words as possible or actual
> or agreeable,
> and on the logical "effects" of words as abstract
> or concrete or
> discrete. Semiotics also posits a distinction between the
> general
> "tones" and special member "tokens" and
> universal class "types"
> of all signs. The writings that tend to define
> "factuality" as a
> material construct and "meaning" as a contextual
> construct and
> "reality" as a mental construct is also germane.
> Lastly, the
> pragmatist idea of logical "degeneracy" in regard
> to signs and
> senses and minds and thoughts are uniquely revealing. The
> categories therefore are indeed analogous surrogate signs
> to
> senses in minds, because the categories cannot be accessed
> generatively or directly. As with all things felt or known
> by
> humans in the world, they are phenomena that can only seem
> to be
> what they likely really are. All that normal humans can do
> is
> make a good guess at the truth of signs, and hope they are
> empirically right, but then optimistically that is what
> humans
> usually do so well.
> (2) In regard to the category of "art" as a
> typical class, the
> key issues to debate here in this forum is whether that
> group of
> all objects called artworks is found to be of objective
> matter or
> rather is made in the subjective mind. If some classes are
> agreed
> found to be objective aside from mind, then it may be found
> that
> "art" is one of them. The task then is to warrant
> and justify
> such a claim. On the other hand, if all categorical classes
> of
> generality are agreed found to be subjective constructs
> made only
> inside the mind, then it must be held that "art"
> is one of them.
> These issues appear as yet to remain unresolved.
> (3) By the way, in pragmatist semiotics
> "metaphors" along with
> "metonyms" and "models" are analogous
> iconic signs of formal
> similarity, whether the signs are nonlingual or lingual and
> then
> nonverbal or verbal. Anything found or held or deemed or
> called a
> "metaphor" is therefore simply a kind of mimetic
> sign that
> resembles an object. Icons under pragmatism are furthermore
> logically senseless in that they alone cannot be truly
> verified,
> but can be if they are further made into at least an
> abstract
> symbol.
>
> Geoff partly wrote...
> Could we agree that some words are or refer to
> "categories"? We
> might call "categories" "metaphors" (or
> not). In either case, we
> might
> agree that some words refer to members of
> "categories". Example:
> "art" is a "category" and possibly a
> metaphor. Perhaps we could
> agree to disagree regarding whether a category is a
> metaphor, but
> agree that names/categories are abstractions intended to
> facilitate communication.
>
> Michael partly wrote...
> 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.
> 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.
>
> William partly wrote...
> Whatever stands for something else can be a metaphor of it
> because it evokes the thing without being it by other
> means.
