I use the term metaphor in the broad sense, to encompass analogy, associative, comparative, as types of metaphor. Thus I accept Saul's remark by subsuming it under metaphor.
The as-if metaphor is first in your head. It is the idea of the thing sensed. If you make something it is to imitate that idea in your brain (and there is always some conscious idea/s, always evolving) whether it's choosing a word or color or shape. So Miller is lost (metaphor). a To say something is as-if, it does not need to be imitative in the sense that Miller describes the portrait painting. One could take a bent tin can, or almost anything else, including pointing to the empty air, and say, "Here is a portrait of Ms. Wolf". To take one thing for another, including to propose something ridiculous as a stand in for another is the very stuff of thought, including imaginative or creative thought, I mean creative as going beyond the most conventional as-if. There is no escape from our metaphorical consciousness. If we knew enough about the brain functions of other animals, we'd likely discover the same process. This is so simple and obvious, I am amazed that Miller doesn't get it. How can he possibly experience art or, really, anything at all without first imagining it, forming an idea of it; that is, recalling or shaping a metaphor of it in his brain. I agree that mostly we use conventionalized metaphors, those we learn in society, those embedded in words, etc., but any painting, certainly, no matter how imitative, even a photograph, is a stand in and is therefore a metaphorical proposal of what it purports to show. Going back to Ms. Wolf, a portrait of her, if I cut a big round hole in the forehead area of her head, I could claim her as a cousin of anybody I choose. Who? WC ________________________________ From: Saul Ostrow <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Chris Miller <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 1:06:05 PM Subject: Re: inevitable and resolved Other than metaphor, we also tend to use associative, analogous and comparative - thus something may indexed to, be like or comparable to the look of the inevitable and resolved - as opposed to being said to represent it On 6/13/09 1:36 PM, "Chris Miller" <[email protected]> wrote: If one were trying to paint (or buy) a portrait of Mrs. Wolff, for example, and the portrait was considered finished when one could say "aha - that is Mrs. Wolff, and nothing could make it any more so" ---- that would seem to me to be an unequivocal example of "metaphorical thinking" as William has presented it. Mrs. Wolf is part of the real world - and the artist is trying to make something that will stand-in for her. But what if someone were also trying to determine whether, at last, a "painting can present the" ? Where is the metaphorical thinking ? What are the "as-if imaginings" ---- and for what, in the real world, are they stand-ins ?. Absent some non-tortuous explanation, this is why I believe that something other than metaphorical thinking can be involved: Thinking that tries to achieve and identify a quality without reference to anything else in the world.(i.e. issues of similarity or stand-in-ability are irrelevant). ____________________________________________________________ Get an Unsecured Loan - Fast and Low Cost. Click here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxUQ99SZwvXAWKvsYLAx1Bfro eFAVFjkNuNTINGhMIFBhACEbH1LKA/ --
