Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy [1 ed.] 9789057181849

Citation preview

Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy

Metaphors.indb 1

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 2

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken (eds)

Metaphors.indb 3

3/07/13 09:54

The GPRC label (Guaranteed Peer Review Content) was developed by the Flemish organization Boek.be and is assigned to publications which are in compliance with the academic standards required by the VABB (Vlaams Academisch Bibliografisch Bestand)

Published with the support of the University Foundation of Belgium Uitgegeven met steun van de Universitaire Stichting van België

Published with the support of the Research Council of the University of Antwerp

Cover design: www.frisco-ontwerpbureau.be

Cover image: M.C. Escher Ascending and Descending

Book design: Maarten Deckers, Hasselt Print: Flin Graphic Group, Oostkamp

© 2013 Uitgeverij UPA (University Press Antwerp)

UPA is an imprint of ASP nv (Academic and Scientific Publishers nv)

Ravensteingalerij 28 B-1000 Brussels

Tel. + 32 (0)2 289 26 50 Fax + 32 (0)2 289 26 59

e-mail: [email protected]

www.aspeditions.be

ISBN 978 90 5718 184 9

NUR 730

Legal deposit D/2013/11.161/047 All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior

written permission of the publisher.

Metaphors.indb 4

3/07/13 09:54

Table of Contents

Philosophy in its Metaphorical Guises. An Introduction

7

Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken

Part I: Systematic Studies

17

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

19

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

37

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

53

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

83

Ralf Konersmann

Walter Van Herck Frédéric Cossutta

Filip Buekens

Part II: Metaphors in Modern Philosophy

101

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

103

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

123

Guido Vanheeswijck

Edit Anna Lukács



Metaphors.indb 5

 5

3/07/13 09:54

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

137

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

149

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

167

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

187

Vanessa Albus Eric v.d. Luft

Koenraad Verrycken

Falko Schmieder

Part III: Metaphors in Contemporary Philosophy

205

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming 207 Benjamin Biebuyck

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

227

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

243

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

259

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

279

Contributors

295

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Arthur Cools

Frans van Peperstraten

Erik Meganck

6

Metaphors.indb 6



3/07/13 09:54

Philosophy in its Metaphorical Guises. An Introduction

Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken

I

t seems that human life starts out in the company of metaphors. In child’s play a wooden stick can become a sword or a rifle, a doll becomes a baby, a cardboard box can turn into a boat or a tank. Before reality presents itself to the human being in its solid directness, its first modus is indirectness. Strangely enough, the complexity of indirectness precedes the simplicity of directness. Before we see things for what they are, the child tends to see things for what they are not. The cognitive process involved is undoubtedly metaphorical. The ‘imaginative’ child creates its own reality, which unlike solid reality allows trial and error, success and failure, passion and indifference. Man’s making and using of tools (compare Heidegger’s account of ‘das Zuhandene’) also points to a visionary capacity: a capacity to see more in things than what they are. A branch that fell off a tree is not just a branch, but a stick, a weapon, a lever, a mast, a fishing rod, an instrument of some kind. Notoriously, language is called a tool. Language is the kind of tool with which one becomes fused. Some tools when often used become natural extensions of the body or the self. The metaphorical use of language therefore resembles the alternative use of a specific tool, like using books to stand on to reach something high or using a cork screw as a hook to pick up something in a hole or using a broom to block a doorway. This alternative and creative use is based on a similarity to the appropriate instrument (if there is one). Furthermore, it cannot be excluded that an alternative use turns out to be a kind of misuse or abuse. Metaphor as a pervasive, ubiquitous phenomenon of thought and language cannot be absent from philosophy. Its presence in philosophy is twofold: as a topic of philosophical inquiry and as an instrument of philosophical inquiry. As a topic of philosophical inquiry, metaphor has been the subject of different general theories during philosophy’s long history: from Aristotle and Quintilian over Vico and Herder to Max Black. Beyond philosophy, the topic of metaphor has aroused great interest in contemporary linguistics, literary theory, communication science, psychology etc.1

Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 7

 7

3/07/13 09:54

The upshot of this theoretical approach to metaphor seems to be that it is no longer considered a mere rhetorical ornament, but, on the contrary, a central phenomenon in language, thought, culture and science. Metaphor owes its centrality to being – more so than a factual statement – a vehicle of thought, a filter through which we engage reality. Metaphor is a method of representation (Mittel der Darstellung) rather than a representation (Dargestelltes). Someone who uses a metaphor tells us more about the standpoint, stance or attitude from which he thinks, speaks and acts, than about his actual thoughts. Metaphor is too contracted and open-ended to spell out specific thoughts. The essays in this collection will focus on the second perspective, i.e. on the way philosophers use concrete and specific metaphors in their discourse as instruments of philosophical thought. But these two ways are obviously linked, since the theoretical appreciation of metaphor has revalued its crucial place as an instrument of inquiry in philosophy and science. This book therefore opens with some reflections on the nature and function of metaphors. These reflections reveal the uninterrupted involvement of philosophers with metaphor. This philosophical involvement has its ambiguities. On the one hand, philosophers seek the clear and unequivocal presentation of ideas and argumentations. Metaphor is too indirect, too seductive, and too untrue to serve this purpose. On the other hand, philosophers do not seem able to do without metaphors and figurative language. Even when analysing metaphor they cannot escape using metaphors. The Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern, edited by R. Konersmann in 2007 (third edition 2011), has provided a selection of central philosophical metaphors and has started a systematic uncovering of this area. Against the background of Blumenberg’s metaphorology, it is clear that the study of philosophical metaphors is a subdomain of the history of ideas on an equal footing with the study of philosophical concepts (as undertaken for example in the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie). Konersmann’s dictionary testifies to the actuality and importance of the reflection on metaphors in philosophy and on the relationship between philosophical concepts and their roots in pre-philosophical language. Some philosophers have seen nothing more than the fossilized remnants of vivid metaphors in metaphysics. A too literalist reading of these metaphors has resulted in the remarkable constructs of metaphysics: ideas, substances, accidents, acts of the will …, these are all notions and expressions that originally had a metaphorical application. Perhaps it is no coincidence that now when foundational metaphysics is under heavy fire, metaphor sees a chance to return on the scene? There are mainly three reasons why the historical part of this book concentrates on modern and contemporary philosophy. First of all, one could say that only with the break of modernity metaphor is appreciated as expressive of the individual’s creativity. Second, the present collection of articles has no encyclopaedic ambitions, either historically or thematically. Third, the area of ancient and medieval philosophy is scientifically speaking a world on its own. It is true that both Greek and medieval philosophers make frequent use of metaphors. Famous instances are Heraclitus’ flux metaphor, Plato’s use of the term

8

Metaphors.indb 8

Philosophy in its Metaphorical Guises. An Introduction

3/07/13 09:54

‘handicraftsman’ (dèmiourgos) for the creator of the cosmic order, or Thomas Aquinas’ ‘five ways’ (quinque viae) to prove God’s existence. However, the editors preferred, with a partial exception in Chapter 6, not to include examples of ancient and medieval philosophical metaphors in a book with a more general approach. Neither does this book include contributions that are fundamentally critical to the use of metaphors in philosophy, since it is intended to illustrate, in the wake of Blumenberg and Konersmann, the idea that metaphors have their own irreplaceable role to play in philosophy, as the expression of the finite, provisional and contingent character of our thinking. As mentioned before, the first part of this book concerns theoretical reflections on metaphor as a topic of philosophical investigation. In Chapter 1, Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis, Ralf Konersmann starts with a survey of the history of philosophical reflection on metaphor, which includes on the one hand the tradition of philosophical criticism of metaphor and on the other, the position of someone like Blumenberg, who appreciates the world-disclosing function of metaphorical speech. Konersmann proposes understanding the rehabilitation of metaphor in twentieth century thought since I.A. Richards on the basis of the idea that metaphor is an expression of the ignorance or not-understanding inevitably involved in our acting in all kinds of situations, but at the same time as an instrument for handling that ignorance. The Kantian concept of hypotyposis, Konersmann argues, can help us to understand the non-identity of metaphor with what it designates as the driving force behind the metaphorical transfer. Consequently, the similarity of metaphors to what they mean is not an image preceding the metaphorical transfer but the product of the metaphorical process itself. Konersmann concludes that metaphors are not primarily semantic, but pragmatic phenomena, and that they stand for what they mean in a way that, paradoxically, is both tentative and definitive at the same time. In Chapter 2, Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor, Walter Van Herck brings together evolutions in the philosophy of metaphor with a particular view on philosophy itself as a craft. Metaphors are central to the craft of philosophical thinking. Even the history of the philosophy of metaphor shows this philosophical inevitability of metaphor. Wittgenstein’s notion of seeing aspects functions as an intermediary. On the one hand, aspect seeing is clearly connected to metaphor since it refers to the ability to see something as something. On the other, aspect seeing as an ability is dependent on praxis, on the mastery of a technique. Metaphor – like seeing aspects – characterizes its topic in its totality with only a few words. The attitudes, the techniques and the familiarity connected with a particular concept are transferred to an unusual topic. The role of metaphor to express and to trigger a new way of aspect perception in different areas of life (including philosophy) is therefore crucial. In the craft of philosophy, metaphors are important tools. How do you use, extend, and elaborate all the metaphors that philosophers produce? Perhaps teaching philosophy is more than we realize about teaching metaphors and how to deal with them in a philosophical way.

Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 9

 9

3/07/13 09:54

In Chapter 3, Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors, Frédéric Cossutta proposes a methodological investigation of philosophical metaphors in the context of Discourse Analysis. Discourse Analysis considers philosophy not only as a text but as an activity. It studies it as a discourse, and offers a way to study both sides of philosophical thinking: framing speculative schemes through which thinking is focused on truth searching, and creating expressive schemes, through which communication towards an audience is achieved. Metaphors, comparisons, analogies, fictions, rhetorical or stylistic devices are a way to fulfil this double scope. The philosopher puts into place a linguistic and generic apparatus as a scenic stage on which the philosophical show is going on. Dialogue, meditation, treatise or enquiry do not use metaphors the same way: there is a link between Plato’s philosophy, his use of dialogue and the way images, myths, and narratives are implemented. The way a philosopher walks along differs: it is not the same on a Cartesian methodic road as on a subtle Humean enquiring path. Both need to forge a specific grammar of metaphors. So we must not study metaphors for themselves in a metaphorology, nor oppose them to concepts, but observe how ‘metaphorization’ plays a role in the philosophical work in progress. The study of some examples of feminine metaphors in Kierkegaard’s books, or of the way Bergson transforms a trivial metaphor into a new one correcting the previous, will help us see the benefits of such an investigation. The purpose is not only to understand the various functions of metaphors in philosophical discourse, if we can afford such a general pretence, but also to gain a better interpretation of a particular philosophy by linking its expressive forms to its conceptual meanings. In Chapter 4, Agentive Metaphors, The Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts, Filip Buekens defends an older position, namely that metaphors can lead us to insight, but also to its opposite. Metaphors can mislead and delude. Buekens finds an exemplification of this in Dawkins’ use of the notion ‘selfish gene’. As long as he confines his stipulative, technical use of the concept ‘selfish’ to the description of the behaviour of genetic material, the problem isn’t insurmountable, but Dawkins seems to use the term ‘selfish’ also in its day-to-day meaning with its moral connotations. ‘We’ are essentially ‘selfish’ and not altruistic, because our genes are ‘selfish’. This equation is a step too far. Buekens finds the reason for this tempting overstretching of (metaphorical) concepts in the desire to complement rather abstract, objective explanations with a subjective feeling of understanding. Metaphors that rely on our understanding of the actions of fellow humans are excellent candidates for this job. The second part of the book is devoted to some selected metaphors in the history of modern philosophy. In Chapter 5, Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor, Guido Vanheeswijck offers a new view of the concept of transgression of the ‘Pillars of Hercules’, against the backdrop of the eschatological interpretation of Christianity in the first half of the sixteenth century. According to the standard story, the Pillars of Hercules stood for the ethical awareness of human limitation in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, however diverse the reasons for

10

Metaphors.indb 10

Philosophy in its Metaphorical Guises. An Introduction

3/07/13 09:54

this awareness might have been. This awareness, inspired by a religious aversion to human hybris, definitely disappears at the dawn of Modernity. Dante and Bacon are often brought to the fore as paradigmatic figures of this transition. While Dante in the Divina Commedia puts Odysseus in the eighth circle of hell as one of the bad counsellors of humanity who wished to transgress the Pillars, Francis Bacon is seen as one of the heralds of modernity, putting on the frontispiece of his Novum Organon the famous picture of a ship passing through the Pillars. In Vanheeswijck’s article, this standard story is disputed by focusing on the transition period of the first half of the sixteenth century, when the Spanish Empire – more specifically its Emperor Charles V – included the Pillars of Hercules in its coat of arms. This ‘modern’ form of curiosity – embodied par excellence in Columbus’ discovery of the New World under the auspices of Charles’ grandparents, the Spanish Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella – arose from a deep religious motivation, entrenched in the belief that after the conquest of Granada, not only Europe but the whole world lay open for Catholic conversion. In short, the transgression of the Pillars was not a typical anti-religious event, but on the contrary the product of an evolution, inspired by a specific eschatological interpretation of Christianity. In Chapter 6, Bradwardine and Pascal on the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations about a Metaphor, Edit Anna Lukács examines the metaphor of the infinite sphere in Bradwardine and Pascal. Originally, this metaphor was applied to God: ‘God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere’. In the course of its much-debated history, however, the metaphor became the embodiment of the Copernican revolution, because of its application to the universe since the Renaissance. In his Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Hans Blumenberg describes the progressive realization of the infinity of the universe as the basis of the substitution of God by the universe in the metaphor of the infinite sphere. Bradwardine and Pascal, the two authors in Lukács’ paper, represent two turning points in the history of the metaphor. They both quote the aphorism of the infinite sphere in the same context, but apply it to God and the universe respectively. The contrast between these two different interpretations leads the author to a new explanation of the way in which the ‘Copernican revolution’ took place in the metaphor of the infinite sphere. One of the best-known examples of metaphorical language in modern philosophy is found in G.B. Vico’s New Science. In Chapter 7, Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development, Vanessa Albus starts from the fact that the emergence of historicism in the eighteenth century was accompanied by a frequent use of dynamic metaphors in philosophy. Her contribution focuses principally on Giovanni Battista Vico’s use of cyclic metaphors such as repetitive circles, blood circulation and spinning, which offer detailed insights into his concept of development. According to Vico, history follows a cyclic and recurrent course of development, guided by divine providence. In contrast to straight and linear movements, circular movements obviously visualise the eternal return of the same things. There seems to be motion without locomotion. Questioning the idea of progress, Vico’s approach

Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 11

 11

3/07/13 09:54

proves to be pessimistic. Actually, Albus argues, Vico’s cyclic metaphors can be treated as ‘absolute metaphors’, which indicate basic attitudes and worldviews. Hans Blumenberg introduced the term ‘absolute metaphor’. Absolute metaphors cannot be translated into conceptual language. They leap into a void that concepts are unable to fill. Evidently, they function as orientations in the world and structure pragmatic views of the world. In this metaphorological spirit, Albus’ essay traces Vico’s philosophical orientations by means of his cyclic imagery. In Chapter 8, Hegel’s Use of Metaphors, Eric v. d. Luft emphasizes that Hegel seldom used literary tropes, but relied in his writings mostly on direct, denotative exposition of philosophical concepts. Nevertheless, whenever he did use more colourful language, he did so with remarkable effectiveness. His most frequent and apparently favourite trope was the pun, but he also used metaphors with precision and skill. Several have become famous, notably the bud-blossom-fruit metaphor in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the dog metaphor in his ‘Hinrichs-Foreword’, and the owl metaphor in the Philosophy of Right. His metaphors fall into three general categories: (1) organic life and growth, (2) animal imagery, and (3) death. V.d. Luft’s paper presents examples from each category and shows their respective systematic functions in Hegel’s work. In Chapter 9, Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language, Koenraad Verrycken argues that metaphor is at the centre of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, despite the philosopher’s apparent reluctance to acknowledge this fact. The originality of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics lies in his introduction of will as the essence of all reality. In The World as Will and Representation he develops the idea that the world as representation or phenomenal world is the objectification of the metaphysical world as will. He bases this claim on man’s immediate experience of will via his own body. My real Self appears to be will. Accordingly, Schopenhauer argues, we have to conclude that will is the inner essence of reality in its entirety, of animals, plants and even inorganic nature. Therefore metaphysics is based on a transfer of the concept of will, i.e. on an analogy between ourselves and the rest of nature. Schopenhauer himself avoids explicitly recognizing this analogy as a metaphorical operation. By contrast, he is prepared to admit the metaphorical character of the language of metaphysics with regard to the development of the world as will before the origin of representation. The reality of a pre-representational condition of the world in the past is a consequence of what Schopenhauer calls ‘the antinomy in our faculty of cognition’. On the one hand the origin of cognition presupposes the existence of the brain, while on the other, the brain itself can only exist as a representation or object of cognition. Consequently, the development of matter and life up to the origin of the brain can only be a metaphysical reality that precedes representation. Schopenhauer says that the metaphysical language required for the description of this mere ‘world as will’ is a kind of figurative or metaphorical language. All this means that for Schopenhauer, there are two different types of metaphysical language, a ‘synchronic’ one transferring the concept of will to nature in its entirety, and a ‘diachronic’ one, applying the forms of cognition to a metaphysical past beyond any representation.

12

Metaphors.indb 12

Philosophy in its Metaphorical Guises. An Introduction

3/07/13 09:54

The second part of the book ends with a famous example of metaphorical language in philosophy, namely Feuerbach’s alleged use of the projection metaphor. In Chapter 10, On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy, Falko Schmieder points out that the history of the projection metaphor has been marked by many surprising transfers and epistemological turns. One of these is the negative transformation of the metaphor and its use as an instrument for the critique of religion. In this respect it is striking that the metaphor is not found in the classical works offering such a critique – later authors will simply read it into them. This process is exemplified by the oeuvre of Ludwig Feuerbach, a key figure in the revolutionary break of philosophy in the nineteenth century. Through a reconstruction of some central moments in the historical development of the projection metaphor, Schmieder analyses the significance of that variant of the metaphor which is linked to a critique of religion, and argues that the reading of the projection metaphor into Feuerbach’s critique of religion was a reflection of the emergence of photography, which marked a renewal of the cult of images on the basis of a new medium. However, Schmieder also shows that Feuerbach’s own break with speculative philosophy and his shift to a contemplative materialism must be understood in connection with the rise of photography. This means that the use of the projection metaphor as a modern critique of religion was based on the rise to prominence of just that technology of perception that was already at the basis of Feuerbach’s new materialist religion. The third part of this book is devoted to some selected metaphors in the history of contemporary philosophy. In this context, as the different contributions will assess, the metaphysical understanding of metaphor has lost its evidence. Since Heidegger’s philosophy, there is indeed a kind of new distrust with regard to the use of metaphors in philosophy. This distrust is related to the history of metaphysics and its crisis, which Heidegger explicitly intends to bring to an end and overcome (Überwindung der Metaphysik). However, it seems that the different criticisms of the history of metaphysics invent their own metaphors in order to inaugurate a way of thinking after metaphysics and beyond. Hence an insurmountable ambiguity will be considered in the following chapters: how should we understand these metaphors if they intend to express the dismissal of metaphor as thought in the tradition of metaphysics? Nietzsche is the first person to mention here because of his powerful use of metaphors in his opposition to the metaphysical evidences of philosophy. One of the most characteristic traits in his writings is their stylistic inclination towards an abundant and often elaborate use of metaphors and similes (much more than other forms of figurative speech). They are as much part of his resistance to philosophical systematics as they are representative of his almost romantic conception of a mobile, poetic language. In Chapter 11, Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming, Benjamin Biebuyck summarily sketches the evolution of Nietzsche’s idea of ‘sign’, ‘metaphor’ and ‘Gleichnis’ and the way in which these literary media become crucial tools of what might be

Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 13

 13

3/07/13 09:54

coined as his ‘narrative philosophy’. Examining in particular the metaphorical (self-) denominations of the protagonists in Zarathustra and the figurative staging of allusions to eternal recurrence, Biebuyck points to a fundamental ambiguity in Nietzsche’s use of metaphors: it shows the importance of mediation in a philosophical framework in which the search for immediacy seems to be one of the most pre-eminent occupations. In Chapter 12, Heidegger Thinking (Without) Metaphors. On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’, Gert-Jan van der Heiden brings to the fore a radical distrust of metaphor in the work of Martin Heidegger. According to him, ‘the metaphorical exists only within metaphysics’. Yet, at the same time, we can find many expressions in his work that we would count as metaphorical. How then to interpret Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor? This question is the starting point for an analysis of the (non-) metaphors Heidegger uses to characterize language, such as ‘the house of being’ (das Haus des Seins) and ‘words, as flowers’ (Worte, wie Blumen). Van der Heiden shows that one of the common explanations for this dismissal is problematic: Heidegger’s comments on metaphor are not limited to a Platonic conception of metaphor, but concern fundamental aspects of an Aristotelian conception of metaphor as well. He then proposes another approach to Heidegger’s comments on metaphor. Following Derrida’s notion of quasi-metaphoricity, he argues that Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor withdraws the metaphysical concept of metaphor and inaugurates another form of metaphoricity or quasi-metaphoricity that not only precedes the metaphysical conception of metaphor but also points to certain problems in Heidegger’s own account of the essence of language. A similar distrust of metaphor has been expressed in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. According to him, metaphors entail a logic of participation that is reductive in a fundamental way, because it strips every single being of its otherness by relating it to a pre-given whole. In Chapter 13, Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy, Arthur Cools first recalls Levinas’ criticisms of rhetoric and metaphoric language. The face in the encounter with the other is the condition in the name of which Levinas intends to break with this logic of participation and to dismiss the use of metaphors in relations to the other. As a result, he introduces the term of trace in order to express the exceptional meaning of the face, rejecting any relation of resemblance to account for its otherness. But Cools shows that this is not the whole story on metaphor in Levinas’ philosophy. In some philosophical notes on metaphor, which were published in the first volume of his works, Carnets de captivité suivi d’autres inédits, Levinas is very approving of metaphor and well aware of its importance for human culture. Initiating a reflection in which he tries to relate metaphor to the meaning of the face, he interestingly introduces the notion of the skin (pelure) as a metaphor of the metaphor, which combines the features of transcendence and resemblance. This reflection invites Cools to re-examine the relation of the face to the skin (la peau), which Levinas mentions in Otherwise than Being as a metaphor of the meaning of the face (in the expression ‘peau à rides’) and as well as a metaphor of my own being for the other (in the expression ‘mal dans sa

14

Metaphors.indb 14

Philosophy in its Metaphorical Guises. An Introduction

3/07/13 09:54

peau’). The skin seems to be the condition that binds me to the other’s face. On the basis of this analogy, Cools points at a fundamental ambiguity in Levinas’ account of the face, which epiphany is irreducible to a metaphoric understanding, but not without the skin. Is there still a place for metaphor in postmodern philosophy? The polemic orientation of this question immediately reveals what is at stake in Chapter 14, Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe. The author, Frans van Peperstraten, reminds us from the start that Lyotard uses a metaphor precisely when he wants to characterize his own postmodern thinking. Lyotard conceives the dispersion of what he calls ‘phrase families’ and the interaction between them on the basis of the metaphor of ‘the Archipelagos, the primeval sea as the Aegean was once called’. Not all aspects of this metaphor are immediately clear and Van Peperstraten elucidates them in a reflection that also focuses on the state of metaphor in postmodern philosophy in which Kant and Heidegger, as primary references for Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe, are involved. Lyotard has established a direct link between his metaphor of the archipelago and Lacoue-Labarthe’s metaphor of the mother. With this metaphor, Lacoue-Labarthe intends to break with the logic of identification and to imagine a radical disfiguration within the concept of personal identity. Lyotard sees here a similarity with his metaphor of the archipelagos: both are metaphorical expressions for what as yet cannot be expressed, figures of the figureless, so to speak. Van Peperstraten brings us straight to this ambiguity where the metaphor is critically assessed. He shows how Lyotard’s understanding of the archipelagos is already inspired by Kant’s treatment of language in his third Critique. And he recalls Lacoue-Labarthe’s discussion with Heidegger on the ‘earthly’ poetic language of Hölderlin in order to differently evaluate Heidegger’s and Lacoue-Labarthe’s treatment of metaphor. There is no dismissal of metaphor as such in postmodern thinking, he concludes, but as the metaphor of the ‘mother – sea’ suggests, there is an awareness that the use of metaphor is dependent on something that resists any figuration. Finally, in Chapter 15, Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?, Erik Meganck offers a general reflection on the future of metaphor after deconstructive philosophy. This future, argues the author, lies beyond use of the metaphor as defined in its opposition to a concept. Throughout its history, philosophy has always considered a metaphor inferior to a concept. A concept is supposed to be clear and transparent while a metaphor is suspected of opacity and ambiguity. According to Derrida, however, philosophy now becomes conscious of the arbitrariness of this opposition and, in fact, of its own very foundations. It can no longer look away from how thought always/already works like a metaphor. This is metaphysics’ confession at its ‘end’ – in the sense that Heidegger meant. This ‘end’ is not the death of philosophy or a transition into a post-metaphysical era, says Derrida, suspecting both prophecies of a strong metaphysical hinge that refutes them. In fact, Derrida claims that this ‘end’ might well be the best thing that could happen to thought, liberating it from metaphysical shackles. By carefully analysing Derrida’s expression plus de métaphore, which reveals the logic of the supplement at

Arthur Cools, Walter Van Herck, Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 15

 15

3/07/13 09:54

the core of his thinking, Meganck shows how this liberation lays bare metaphoricity and scripturality. On 20 May 2009, the Philosophy Department of the University of Antwerp organized an international symposium on the topic of Metaphors in Philosophy. Speakers on that occasion were, among others, Ralf Konersmann, Benjamin Biebuyck, Alexander Roose and Walter Van Herck. This book cannot be considered to be the ‘acta’ of that gathering, but the symposium did stimulate the editors to go ahead with the idea of producing a book that would bring together valuable material on the role and function of metaphors in philosophy. The editors wish to thank the Belgian University Foundation and the University of Antwerp for financially supporting this publication. They also want to thank the Philosophy Department and the Centre for Philosophy of Culture at the same university. A last word of thanks goes to the contributing authors for their continued enthusiasm.

Endnotes 1

The number and size of the bibliographies on metaphor thus far published can serve as an indication for

this widespread interest. W.A. Shibles, Metaphor. An Annotated Bibliography and History, Whitewater,

Language Press, 1971; J.P. Van Noppen – S. De Knop – R. Jongen, Metaphor. A Bibliography of

Post-1970 Publications, Amsterdam, Benjamins, 1985; J.P. Van Noppen – E. Hols, Metaphor II. A

Classified Bibliography of Publications from 1985-1990, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1990. For post1990 publications, John Benjamins Publishing Company has developed an online Bibliography of Metaphor and Metonymy (http://benjamins.com/online/met/), short MetBib, which contains

11,000 records.

16

Metaphors.indb 16

Philosophy in its Metaphorical Guises. An Introduction

3/07/13 09:54

Part I Systematic Studies

Metaphors.indb 17

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 18

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis.1  

Ralf Konersmann

‘Man – a metaphor’ Novalis, Vorarbeiten 1798, nr. 174

I

t is well-known that it is difficult to indicate what a metaphor actually is and how it should be defined. There are mainly two reasons for this difficulty. On the one hand there is the fact that there are already an excessive amount of definitions available, the large number of which make us less confident in finding an exhaustive account of metaphor in one single definition. On the other hand, several of these attempted definitions, and especially the first by Aristotle, which is still canonical, make use of metaphor. Aristotle explains in his Poetics that the metaphor is ‘the transference’ of ‘a name that belongs to something else’.2 By doing so, he draws attention to the transfer, which constitutes the key problem of the metaphorical function. Metapherein means to move, to carry away, to shift, as well as to apply, to overlook and indeed to transfer. I do not interpret the self-reference of this attempt at definition, this regressus, as a weakness or a handicraftsman’s negligence. Rather, it indicates a problem, and invites us to examine carefully what is happening here at the textual level. In his definition of metaphor, Aristotle does not actually limit himself to explaining the meaning of the term, but performs a speech act. As a consequence, we can say that the way in which he defines the concept directly turns the defining process itself into a problem. That process in itself shows, in a concentrated way, that metaphors in philosophy and theory in general have their privileged position where the standards of clear, unequivocal and objective language, i.e. concepts and definitions are lacking. In his way of proceeding, Aristotle’s definition draws attention to the mode of metaphorical speech, namely the duality of ‘saying’ and ‘showing’. The definition substitutes the essentialist question of what a metaphor is by the functionalist question on how a metaphor organises the context, i.e. how it is active in its specific environment and what it achieves. Accordingly, as Aristotle puts it, metaphors produce

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 19

 19

3/07/13 09:54

their effects by realising a ‘transfer’, in which ‘nouns’ and units of meaning which are semantically ‘strange’ to one another, are put together and by this combination are able to create a new relation of meaning. In accordance with Aristotle, we can say that metaphors improvise designations for which there are no exact formulations available, i.e. they compensate missing forms of language and knowledge. Apparently this metaphorical designation is not only a making available or offering. Instead of being merely a function of replacement and substitution, it is a performance in its own right and, as Nietzsche calls it in a similar context, an ‘active determination’ by the energeia of language.3 It is this successful creation of a new meaning that enables metaphors to claim their place as works of art in the cultural system of knowledge, as long as explanations and concepts are unavailable or unable to surpass or even to replace the world-disclosure function of metaphor. This is exactly the motive of the maxim Paul Ricœur put at the disposal of the theorist of metaphor, namely to treat his study object as a ‘work en miniature’.4 In the following, I would like to elaborate, on the basis of my preliminary reflections, the three components of the title of this article. In the first section (Metaphor and metaphysics) I will recall and outline some recent rehabilitations of metaphor, starting from the different traditions in the criticism of metaphor. In the second section (Figures of knowing ignorance) I will show how metaphors combine knowledge and ignorance in a specific way, and how they both disguise and openly display ignorance. Finally, in the third section (The metaphorical function) I will explain the way metaphors function, concentrating on Kant’s concept of hypotyposis and on the problem of the figurative character of metaphor.

Metaphor and metaphysics As already indicated, the philosophical reflection on metaphor has a long history. In this history two main strategies can be discerned: metaphor was either acknowledged or criticised. As far as I know, the history of this criticism, its motives and repertoire is still unwritten. All the same, at the centre of a philosophical criticism of metaphor we might have an expectation that has been very strong since Francis Bacon’s theory of idols, and that has been carried into modernity by the politics of language of the Enlightenment. The expectation was that man would sooner or later be able to put an end to the provisional creation of metaphorical indications by art and religion, and to replace it by definitive conceptual information on the basis of scientific knowledge. In the perspective of this criticism metaphor appears as an inadequate approach to the world, as its magical and mythical deformation, which refuses the task of objectivation, and calls the suspicion of regression on itself. These standard arguments of the philosophical politics of language and concept were available in

20

Metaphors.indb 20

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

the 18th century already, and were put forward by authors such as Hobbes, Descartes, Locke and Kant. They continued to be effective far into the 20th century, and were in part clearly sharpened by logical positivism. New philosophical currents in the 20th century were often based on a rejection of important and normative metaphors. This seems like an ironical concession to the philosophical iconoclasm just mentioned, including its objectives at the level of the politics of theory. As an example, one can refer first of all to Gaston Bachelard, the protagonist of ‘scientific spirit’, who criticizes the sponge metaphor, and explains it as ‘an obstacle for knowledge’ (obstacle épistémologique).5 Other examples are Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who want to understand knowledge and its order no longer as a tree, but as a rhizome, and Richard Rorty with his subversion of the mirror metaphor. In Heidegger we find a variant, or rather radicalisation and extension of the classical criticism of metaphor. In his criticism, the metaphorical distinction between proper and figurative meaning evokes a more fundamental ‘separation of sensible and intelligible reality’, and makes it evident in practice. Heidegger summarises his reservation as follows: ‘The metaphorical exists only in metaphysics’.6 He qualifies this criticism by limiting it first of all to ‘the dominant concept of metaphor’. Still, he rejects the supposed attempt of the opposite side to create meaning by means of metaphor, and to abuse it as a metaphysical machine available at random. The leading theories on metaphor of the modern era can be understood as attempts to oppose the view of metaphor challenged by Heidegger, including its reductionism and inconsiderate hierarchical approach. According to these theories, metaphor shows in an exemplary way the activity and creative power or, in Aristotle’s terminology, the energeia, i.e. the reality or reality potential of language. The metaphor is neither a mere rhetorical argument (ornatus) nor a scattered piece of metaphysics. It is an expression, which means that it is an expression both of something and for something. The disclosing function of metaphorical speech is an effect of this duality. On the one hand we have to admit that it is impossible to indicate definitively and with a claim to a realistic explanation what the world is, and especially what it ‘really’ is. On the other hand, when we say instead, in a sufficiently credible way, that the world is a stage, a dream or a book, as the big narratives and even the remixes of popular culture assure, we avoid the ultimate consequence that the world is entirely indefinite or even indeterminable. We cannot hope for an exhaustive answer to the question of what the world is. Neither would it be of any help to us, however, to completely abandon the question or reject it because it cannot be answered. Jean Paul chooses an entirely different way. The question ‘what the world actually is’ inspires him to the design of an entire hall of metaphors and images: ‘It [i.e. the world] might very well be only a blind alley in God’s large city, or only a provincial town compared to other planets. It is the go-cart or baby walker of Humanity, which teaches it to step out. Apparently a strict consequence of the foregoing comparisons is that the world is the coulisse

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 21

 21

3/07/13 09:54

and dressing room for another world. Only in that other world shall we get applause for the roles we play (…) Our present world, by contrast, is only the coast of God’s creation. It is a misty halo around a better sun, the numerator to a yet invisible denominator; it is really what I would call almost nothing’.7 The embedded particles and comments that are floating with Jean Paul’s stream of images draw our attention to the way metaphors work and to what they achieve. They turn that which cannot be thought into something conceivable, and prepare it for future ways of conceivableness. In this preparatory stage, possible concepts are already reflected in corresponding metaphors at the level of theoretical language, which we find in different world concepts of the modern era: the world as will and representation, as realm of subject and object, as life-world and world of the Dasein, as communal world and environmental world, or, in its totalising function, as ‘world economy’ or ‘world market’. The way in which Jean Paul accumulates his substitutes and improvisations makes the elementary achievement of the metaphorical function transparent. For that which cannot, or cannot yet or can absolutely not be named or conceptually be exhausted, metaphor has already substituted something else: a figure, an image or a sign. The application of these substitutes challenges the collaboration and interpretative competence or, as Jean Paul would probably put it, the reader’s ‘wit’. This is another confirmation of our provisional comparison of metaphors with works of art. However, the metaphor game is still more fundamental than these activities, which are presupposed by it. It contains the promise that this world is accessible, open, and even partly comfortable, and that it can consequently be understood as a world of and for man. The metaphorical transfer is an artifice which in its practice brings into prominence a condition of human language and, more generally, of man’s relation to the world. This elementary condition of metaphorical speech was elaborated and emphasised in particular by Hans Blumenberg. ‘Man’s relation to reality’, Blumenberg writes, ‘is indirect, laborious, delayed, selective and above all metaphorical’.8 At first sight Blumenberg’s explanation of metaphor is anthropological. On closer consideration, however, it belongs to the philosophy of culture. In his view, metaphors are first of all indications or testimonies of which the diffusion and usualness show man’s disproportion to his reality. Functionally, the auxiliary constructions of metaphor come close to myth. By its interpretative potential, myth puts reality, which cannot be mastered ad hoc, in the perspective of confidence. In the same way metaphors are necessary, because reality does not leave to man, who is unadapted, yet forced to act in his environment, enough time to completely overlook and consider the conditions and consequences of his actions. Action and the pressure to act are the anthropological conditions of the fact that metaphor discloses the whole of existence.

22

Metaphors.indb 22

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

Figures of knowing ignorance The thesis I just expounded starts from an anthropological point of view and leads to an argument belonging to the philosophy of culture. It does not only acknowledge the fact of the rehabilitation of metaphor in 20th century thought, which we can observe since Ivor Armstrong Richards’ legendary lectures on rhetoric in the middle of the 1930s, but also offers an explanation for this revival. The main argument is at the crossroads of the theory of action, anthropology and epistemology, and can be summarized as follows. Metaphor is an expression of non-understanding. It is the linguistic counterpart of a je ne sais quoi typical of the human species or, as a theologian might put it, of man as a created being. Situations in which we have to decide and act without having a complete overview or knowing the long-term consequences (that is without real understanding) call for a metaphor and its pragmatic orientation function. In these situations we are worried by the knowledge that on the one hand we do not know enough to act in an absolutely controlled and accurate way, while on the other, we cannot postpone the decision. In our culture, i.e. the culture of late modernity, situations like these are not the exception but the rule: one has only to think of relevant experiences in areas like the economy, the climate, education, family life etc.9 From the point of view of the philosophy of knowledge and culture, only one conclusion can be drawn: precisely a culture which, more than any other, places its hope in the value of positive knowledge, is longing for routines in the handling of ignorance. Metaphor and metaphorical functions in texts are the exemplary expression of these routines. Already Giambattista Vico emphasised the importance of ignorance, as he emphasised so much in the thematic area of metaphor. To the contemporary ideal of ‘rational metaphysics’ and of man ‘becoming all things through understanding’, Vico opposes man who ‘becomes all things through not-understanding’, and he ascribes to the latter an ability the former lacks, namely the ability to create by himself an entire world with the means of language, i.e. the ability to produce metaphors.10 In the perspective of the Nuova Scienza metaphor appears as an indication of not-knowing. At the same time, however, it is the instrument for handling not-knowing, and Vico attaches the greatest importance to this. This means that he abandons the strict opposition between understanding and not-understanding emphasised in the rationalist theories of knowing and knowledge. In Vico’s rehabilitation of metaphor, by contrast, understanding does not mean that one has understood, but is always something provisional. It is a continual process, and therefore it is punctuated, as long as it lasts, with forms and figures of not-understanding. Vico is not prepared to see in these mixtures of understanding and not-understanding, of knowing and not-knowing, only instances of deficiency or external signs of a stage of human history soon to be overcome. In the middle of the age of Enlightenment, he was one of the first to defend the right to indefiniteness, which up to the present day has its place in art. At the level of knowledge, this right proves itself to be an institutionalised

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 23

 23

3/07/13 09:54

resistance against an overpowering, prompt, premature and illusory understanding, which circumvents the challenge of its objects and removes the problems rather than being able to cope with them. W hen the world is called a stage, a book or a dream, it is certainly something other than a scientific explanation. On the other hand, astronomy and physics do not solve questions like those of the Platonic-Christian tradition whether, and if so, why, that which we call the world deserves our confidence, and why we are right to overcome our Weltangst and to conceive something like a ‘world confidence’. The example of the world concept draws our attention to the cultural achievement of metaphorical world projects. This achievement consists on the one hand in satisfying – provisionally – our need for information, and on the other hand in keeping them available – critically – for further questions. The rules of the metaphorical game do not provide a literal understanding of a proposition like ‘the world is a stage’. They rather invite us to acknowledge the indefiniteness of the proposition and to accept provisionally its imperfection as a testimony of both knowing and not-knowing. It is this testimony function and fundamental ambiguity of metaphor that allows us, not only to say something, but also to relativise immediately what it says, in order to show something by means of this self-revocation. The comparison of a metaphor with a work of art proves worthy here as well. According to Paul Valéry’s famous thesis, metaphor, just as the work of art or the holy word, cannot be replaced by paraphrases or elaborate explanations. Consequently, any attempt to summarise metaphors or to indicate per definitionem what they ‘really’ signify, would mean abandoning their most essential feature.11 Typical for a metaphor is the coincidence of knowing (the conceptual representation of the world as a stage) and not-knowing (the reflective admission that the world is not a stage). Meanwhile, this coincidence has found its place in the philosophy of science as well, a fact I at least want to mention here. Gaston Bachelard’s view of metaphor may serve as an example. Bachelard’s studies on the formation and constitution of the scientific spirit directly include the element of not-knowing, which is articulated in metaphor, into the process of the acquisition of knowledge. The protagonist of objective knowledge, he says, is toiling away at the obstacles to knowledge for which he is himself co-responsible, and stages between himself and these obstacles the so-called ‘ruptures’ (coupures). By doing so he is continuously working on the borderline between knowing and not-knowing, a borderline he has to draw himself. Consequently, if the scientific spirit were to contest the fact that it itself creates and spreads ‘inertia and confusion’ in the field of knowledge, that would be an illusion and, in Bachelard’s terms, another very momentous obstacle to knowledge.12 According to Bachelard, who is an avowed critic of metaphor, metaphor is not only an evil in the field of scientific language that should be eradicated but it is also an informative proof of not-knowing, and, moreover, an indication of the winding paths knowledge follows. In metaphor, Nietzsche, Derrida and de Man say, know­ ledge comes across its own causes and origins. On the basis of this self-awareness,

24

Metaphors.indb 24

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

metaphor proves its efficiency in the field of positive knowledge as well, regardless of some specific objections. The analysis of the metaphorical function gives us insight both into that function itself and into the practice of conceptual intervention. But the efficiency of metaphor is even greater than that. The reflective not-knowing concentrated in metaphor (or, in Blumenberg’s terms, ‘the unconceptual’) allows hypothetical and risky anticipations of new knowledge. This knowledge, precisely because it is new and in being new, remains ‘impossible to anticipate’13 in its concrete formulation. Therefore it requires the anticipation of metaphor, which is conceptually under-determined but by no means arbitrary. When we systematically link metaphor with the concept of not-knowing, this can help us to specify what the criticism of metaphor is and what it achieves. With regard to a given text or a specific problem, it helps us to distinguish between problematic (e.g. manipulative) and constructive (e.g. disclosing) uses of metaphor.

The metaphorical function Let us at this stage retain that we have juxtaposed an aesthetic and an epistemological foundation of metaphor to its foundation in the philosophy of culture, which was supposed by Blumenberg. The question however remains on how metaphor succeeds in bridging knowing and not-knowing in a paradoxical way; and how – with reference to the emergence of knowledge touched upon before – it can anticipate that which cannot be anticipated in a speculative way. As an answer to this question Kant had already presented the concept of hypotyposis. Hypotyposis, in the way it is developed in the Critique of Judgement, is an artificial act of presentation. Hypotyposis ‘supplies’ – as Kant says in § 59 – something that in itself cannot be an object of sensible intuition with a provisional sensible perception, in order to indicate, not through similarity but in a ‘symbolic’ and ‘indirect’ way, ‘what the idea of it could be for us’. Understood as a hypotyposis, a metaphor is from the start non-identical with what it designates. Exactly this non-identity, which is recognised by the act of ‘supplying’, activates what Aristotle described as a linguistic energeia, and finally triggers the receptive achievement which has been known ever since as a ‘transfer’. The metaphorical transfer is referential, not in the sense of reproducing the world (to which metaphor cannot attain in its own being), but in the sense of giving indirect expression to human or rather human-level and therefore anthropomorphic conciseness. This functional process of the metaphorical act confirms the indicative character of metaphor. Metaphors are testimonies that not only render possible and instigate cognitive comprehension, but thereby also reveal the world stance of the human being, lacking in orientation and producing images, who makes use of them. With this motive Kant takes up a thought that is already to be found in Vico’s work and then again in Blumenberg’s work. As a testimony and as a means of information

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 25

 25

3/07/13 09:54

which, in retrospect, teaches us about the ‘nature of human things’, metaphors give us the material for a concrete ‘history of human ideas’, as Vico formulates it, in which the reality of man always appears to him as his reality.14 Vico’s original intuition is thus reinforced by the concept of hypotyposis: metaphor is a cultural fact. The elaboration of the notion of ‘metaphor’ as a case of non-conceptuality, as set out by Hans Blumenberg, takes precise account of the contextual conditions of the rhetorical situation. ‘A moment of silence, a visible omission in a behavioural context can be as rhetorical as an outcry of popular anger read from a sheet of paper, and the Platonic dialogue is no less rhetorically intended than the sophistical discourse which was its literary opponent.’15 The extension of the perspective from manifest metaphors to phenomena of non-conceptuality and to a phenomenology of non-conceptuality (which is their theoretical elaboration) in general requires the study of the contexts which give rise to the metaphorical game. This confirms the cultural-philosophical dimension of the metaphorological matter. Metaphors are interpretations of the world compressed into signs, and allow a robust empathy that often even resists critical questioning.16 In this way, metaphors and phenomena of non-conceptuality in general elucidate the manifest meanings in a given culture. The message hypotyposis brings to metaphorology and to all those who study phenomena of non-conceptuality, is the following: it’s not the similarity of its parts that indicates the qualities of a metaphor (some type of objective correspondence or adaequatio), but that which on the one hand, its users and producers, and on the other hand, its listeners and readers make of the possibilities of interference of the metaphorical game. It is exactly in this context that Max Black talks about ‘interaction’ and Gérard Genette describes this structure as ‘reciprocity’. This does not render the criterion of similarity, which was already introduced by Aristotle, entirely obsolete, but gives it a new orientation. In our view the similarity with which a metaphor seeks our consent is not pre-established, nor is it the mirror image of an ontology of things, but is itself produced. The similarity is not the precondition, but the product of the process that is called ‘transfer’ ever since Aristotle. This specification is decisive for our understanding of the metaphorical function. Metaphors are no automatisms, nor do they draw what they mean from themselves, either from their etymology, their vocabulary or semantics. Metaphors are not at all primarily semantic, but pragmatic phenomena which, in order to develop their potential, require spirit and ‘intelligent cooperation’.17 In an impressive way this pragmatic orientation of metaphor is confirmed by the fact of the semantic openness and unfixed character of its meaning: metaphors not only can, but must be interpreted. Already Richards reacted against the idea that metaphors are images and many authors have followed him. Their reservations are the following. Firstly, it remains

26

Metaphors.indb 26

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

unclear, they claim, which element of the metaphorical game is referred to when metaphors in general are called images. Secondly, this definition is believed to divert from the fact that a metaphor is an event of language. Even without representational, mental or sensory images, words can ‘do almost anything’.18 I agree with both arguments. It is the linguistic context of the utterance that turns a specific word into a metaphor given this textual environment, and therewith releases its potential to refer. On the other hand, it is clear that the view of metaphor as imago or image, which is self-evident for Vico and customary since early Modernity, did not at all originate by chance. The image-like quality meant here cannot be understood as a kind of pictorial reproducing. Compare in this regard the critique of the notion of similarity in the context of hypotyposis. It has nothing to do with an autonomous art image or painting (which are already specifications of the more general concept of image) either. When I want to hold on to calling metaphors ‘images’, I do so because I don’t want to call them pictures. Decisive at this level is not the substance-like quality or the visual plasticity of what these images represent, but only the act of visualisation as such and the way it crosses the flow of speech. The image-like quality of metaphor is the functional equivalent of a visual structure, i.e. of a structure that is obviously linguistic, but at the same time sceptical of language. This actualised concept of image is broken and definitely critical of any pictorial reproducing. Kant already expounds this self-objection, this specific metaphorical resistance to the ‘image-character’ of metaphor. He openly displays its latent paradox when he says in the decisive passage that the symbolical is an intuition ‘supplied’ where ‘no sensible intuition can be adequate’. Philosophical texts offer many instances of this characteristic metaphorical figure of image presentation with withdrawal, a figure openly admitting its conjectural status. Hegel’s famous image of a ‘cycle of steps’ can serve as an example. In order to concentrate in one single formula both the unity of latency and presence of spirit, and at the same time the development of this unity, Hegel in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History characterises the ‘life of contemporary spirit’ as a ‘cycle of steps’, which, as Hegel explains, ‘on the one hand exist next to each other and on the other hand appear as past’. ‘The moments’, Hegel continues, ‘which spirit appears to have left behind, remain present in its contemporary depth’.19 Apparently the point for the reader is not to bring rational order in the range of images of this text, or to select one of the traditional metaphors it deploys (life, circle, step, moment, depth, juxtaposition, succession) and give preference to it. The point is rather to recognise that none of these metaphors fully honours the intention of the speaker, and accordingly that the use of metaphor and the criticism of metaphor have become indistinguishable in this passage. The rupture of the image, the catachresis, is not an error or the result of an incapacity, but is approvingly accepted and deliberate, as in the visualisation of the ‘cycle of steps’ by M.C. Escher, which takes the paradoxical game of ‘circular flow of stages/steps’ lovingly to extremes.20 As the provision of the offered image is frustrated on purpose and the collision of the iconic elements provoked, the catachrestical proposition succeeds through its articulation to utter its

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 27

 27

3/07/13 09:54

transgression at the same time.21 It makes an appeal to notice and use the distance between what it says and what it means. Consequently, the image rupture between horizontal circularity and vertical step-structure is a proposition and an avoidance of proposition at the same time. One field of images blocks the dynamics of the ascent and the ‘formation of spirit’; the other blocks the no less emphatic movement of ‘return to itself ’. Hegel’s catachrestical ‘cycle of steps’ thereby openly displays the discrepancy between the two figures of the course of historical times, i.e. the incommensurability between the model of progression and the model of restitution. This hesitancy of Hegel’s genealogy is at first sight remarkable, because with the ‘spiral’ an integral metaphor for the logic of historical development had been introduced for a long time already, a metaphor which remained in use after Hegel as well, e.g. with Friedrich Engels.22 Hegel however rejected this possibility to formulate his view. He does not mention the spiral metaphor anywhere, and exactly this omission and using catachresis instead is, to my mind, very revealing. What Hegel bypasses in this way is, first of all, the naturalisation of historical processes suggested by the snail’s spiralis line and is also clearly intended in the contemporary use of the spiral metaphor by Goethe.23 Secondly, he circumvents the questionable clearness of this image, which covers up the systematic problems and leads to simplifications.24 Exactly as a catachresis, the ‘cycle of steps’ is functional. It avoids simplifications, and is a message in a bottle that, in the way it presents things, suggests that this depiction is only provisional and cannot be the last word. How consistent Hegel’s avoidance strategy was from the point of view of the politics of language is elucidated by a glance at the second volume of Balzac’s novel Illusions perdues, published in 1839, in which the author included a satirical dialogue about the metaphorical bliss of the philosophers of history: ‘Just at that moment Lucien caught sight of three melancholy faces. Michel Chrestien, Joseph Bridau, and Fulgence Ridal took up their hats and went out amid a storm of invective. “Queer customers!” said Merlin. “Fulgence used to be a good fellow,” added Lousteau, “before they perverted his morals.” “Who are ‘they’?” asked Claude Vignon. “Some very serious young men,” said Blondet, “who meet at a philosophico-religious symposium in the Rue des Quatre-Vents, and worry themselves about the meaning of human life [rather: the general course of Humanity, K.V. – W.V.H. .” “Oh! oh!” “They are trying to find out whether it goes round in a circle, or makes some progress,” continued Blondet. “They were very hard put to it between the straight line and the curve; the triangle, warranted by Scripture, seemed

28

Metaphors.indb 28

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

to them to be nonsense, when, lo! there arose among them some prophet or other who declared for the spiral.”’25 It cannot have been Hegel to whom Balzac has referred, and whom he exposed to mockery. Hegel’s metaphor for history is undogmatic and, thanks to the special finesse of catachresis, limited to putting down a marker. The way in which metaphors provide images follows the model of visualisations that are actually achieved but at the same time disclaimed as inadequate. Metaphors use the ‘iconic episteme’26 in order to immediately recall the giving in to the logic of the visual as inauthentic. This negation that creeps in, this self-revocation is deeply inscribed in metaphor. When we hear an utterance like ‘the world is a stage’, we normally have no trouble, as participants in language, with hearing at the same time the reservation of its non-literal character. We are conscious of the fact that this metaphor not so much wants to tell us something but wants to show us something – something that we as listeners and readers have to disclose beyond what is offered by the imagery of metaphorical discourse. Metaphors – this would be my summary – are paradoxical proposals of formulation. This paradoxical character is not arbitrary, but purposeful and calculated. They are linguistic overbids of language, according to the logic of a long, technically polished tradition of linguistic visualisation, a tradition which manifests itself also pregnantly in the presentation techniques of memoria and evidentia, of ekphrasis and simulacrum. The metaphorical function activates language’s proper resources of ‘eidetic contours’,27 which stand for what is meant in a way that is, paradoxically, both provisional and unsurpassable, both tentative and definitive. Nothing else was meant when Black called metaphors, especially philosophically interesting ones, ‘emphatic’, when Blumenberg called them ‘absolute’ and Paul Ricœur called them ‘live’.

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 29

 29

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Aristotle (19715). Rhetorica, De Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, De Poetica, transls W. Rhys Roberts, E.S. Forster, I. Bywater, The Works of Aristotle, ed. W.D. Ross, vol. XI, Oxford, Clarendon Press Bachelard, G. (197710). La formation de l’esprit scientifique. Contribution à une psych­ analyse de la connaissance objective, Paris, Vrin Balzac, H. de (2004). A Distinguished Provincial at Paris (www.gutenberg. org/e-books/1559, release date August 11th 2004) Becker, R. (2007). ‘Anthropomorphismus’ (I), in Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 49, pp. 69-98 Blumenberg, H. (1961). ‘Die Bedeutung der Philosophie für die Zukunft’, in EuropaGespräch 1961. Die voraussehbare Zukunft, Vienna, Verlag für Jugend und Volk, pp. 127-140 Blumenberg, H. (1979). ‘Ausblick auf eine Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit’, in Idem, Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer. Paradigma einer Daseinsmetapher, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 75-93 Blumenberg, H. (1998). Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Blumenberg, H. (2001). ‘Anthropologische Annäherung an die Aktualität der Rhetorik’, in Idem, Ästhetische und metaphorologische Schriften, ed. A. Haverkamp, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 406-431 Blumenberg, H. (2006). Beschreibung des Menschen. Aus dem Nachlaß, ed. M. Sommer, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Boehm, G. (2007). ‘Das Paradigma ‘Bild’. Die Tragweite der ikonischen Episteme’, in H. Belting ed., Bilderfragen. Die Bildwissenschaften im Aufbruch, Munich, Fink, pp. 77-82 Böschen, S. – Schneider, M. – Lerf, A. eds (2004). Handeln trotz Nichtwissen. Vom Umgang mit Chaos und Risiko in Politik, Industrie und Wissenschaft, Frankfurt – New York, Campus

30

Metaphors.indb 30

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

Campe, R. (1997). ‘Vor Augen stellen. Über den Rahmen rhetorischer Bildgebung’, in G. Neumann ed., Poststrukturalismus. Herausforderung an die Literaturwissenschaft, Stuttgart – Weimar, Metzler, pp. 208-225 Cazeaux, C. (2007). Metaphor and Continental Philosophy. From Kant to Derrida, New York – London, Routledge Danto, A.C. (1981). The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. A Philosophy of Art, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press Engels, F. (1975). Dialektik der Natur, in K. Marx – F. Engels, Werke, Berlin, Dietz, vol. 20, pp. 305-570 Escher, M.C. (19737). Grafik und Zeichnungen, Munich, Moos Geisenhanslüke, A. – Rott, H. eds (2008). Ignoranz. Nichtwissen, Vergessen und Missverstehen in Prozessen kultureller Transformation, Bielefeld, Transcript Haverkamp, A. (2007). Metapher. Die Ästhetik der Rhetorik, Munich, Fink Hegel, G.W.F. (1970a). Phänomenologie des Geistes, Theorie Werkausgabe, eds E. Moldenhauer – K.M. Michel, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, vol. 3 Hegel G.W.F. (1970b). Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, Theorie Werkausgabe, eds E. Moldenhauer – K.M. Michel, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, vol. 12 Heidegger, M. (1997). Der Satz vom Grund, Gesamtausgabe I, vol. 10, Frankfurt, Vittorio Klostermann Jean Paul (2000). Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren, Sämmtliche Werke II, vol. 2, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 9-469 Konersmann, R. ed. (20113). Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Koselleck, R. (2006). ‘Revolution als Begriff und Metapher. Zur Semantik eines einst emphatischen Worts’, in Idem, Begriffsgeschichten. Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen Sprache, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 240-251 Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in Culture. Universality and Variation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 31

 31

3/07/13 09:54

Lepenies, W. (1976). Das Ende der Naturgeschichte. Wandel kultureller Selbstverständlichkeiten in den Wissenschaften des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Munich – Vienna, Hanser Mauthner, F. (19802). ‘Verbale Welt’, in Idem, Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 2, pp. 526-531, Zürich, Diogenes Nietzsche, F. (1980). Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, Kritische Studienausgabe eds G. Colli – M. Montinari, vol. 12, Munich – Berlin – New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag – de Gruyter Novalis (1999). Vorarbeiten zu verschiedenen Fragmentsammlungen, Schriften, eds H.J.Mähl – R. Samuel, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, vol. 2, pp. 311-424 Polanyi, M. (1985). Implizites Wissen, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Pörksen, U. (1997). Weltmarkt der Bilder. Eine Philosophie der Visiotype, Stuttgart, Klett – Cotta Rheinberger, H.J. (2005). ‘Nichtverstehen und Forschen’, in J. Albrecht – J. Huber – K. Imesch – K. Jost – Ph. Stoellger eds, Kultur Nicht Verstehen. Produktives Nichtverstehen und Verstehen als Gestaltung, Zürich – Vienna – New York, Voldemeer – Springer, pp. 75-81 Richards, I.A. (19962). ‘Die Metapher’, in A. Haverkamp ed., Theorie der Metapher, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 31-52 Ricoeur, P. (19962). ‘Die Metapher und das Hauptproblem der Hermeneutik’, in A. Haverkamp ed., Theorie der Metapher, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 356-375 Spitz, H.J. (1972). Die Metaphorik des geistigen Schriftsinns. Ein Beitrag zur allegorischen Bibelauslegung des ersten christlichen Jahrtausends, Munich, Fink Stoellger, Ph. (2005). ‘Wo Verstehen zum Problem wird. Einleitende Überlegungen zu Fremdverstehen und Nichtverstehen in Kunst, Gestaltung und Religion’, in J. Albrecht – J. Huber – K. Imesch – K. Jost – Ph. Stoellger eds, Kultur Nicht Verstehen. Produktives Nichtverstehen und Verstehen als Gestaltung, Zürich – Vienna – New York, Voldemeer – Springer, pp. 7-27 Valéry, P. (1957). ‘Léonard et les philosophes. Lettre à Leo Ferrero’, Oeuvres (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), Paris, Gallimard, vol. 1, pp. 1243-1246

32

Metaphors.indb 32

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

Vico, G.B. (1999). New Science. Principles of the New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations, transl. D. Marsh, London, Penguin Books

Endnotes 1

Translated from German by Koenraad Verrycken and Walter Van Herck.

2

Aristotle (19715), 1457b6.

3

Nietzsche (1980), p. 385. As editor of the Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern (Konersmann

[20113]), I decided to use verbs as entries as much as possible, in order to make clear the efficiency

of the selected metaphors. F. Mauthner already drew a similar consequence in the entry ‘Verbale

Welt’ of his Wörterbuch der Philosophie (Mauthner [19802]). H.J. Spitz (1972), pp. 234 ff. simply speaks, albeit with a slightly different meaning, of ‘verbal metaphors’. On the topos of ‘metaphorical

creativity’ cf. also Z. Kövecses (2005), pp. 259 f. 4

Ricœur (19962), p. 358. In support of his rule of thumb, which shows a metaphorical touch itself, Ricœur refers to M.C. Beardsley (p. 372). In fact, however, Ricœur’s recommendation goes back to

Vico; cf. Vico (1999), p. 159 (§ 404). 5

Bachelard (197710), pp. 73-82.

6

Heidegger (1997), p. 72.

7

Jean Paul (2000), p. 241: ‘Sie kann gar wol das Sakgäsgen in der großen Stadt Gottes sein oder eine

blosse Provinzialstadt in Vergleichung mit andern Planeten. Sie ist der Gängel- oder Laufwagen

der Menschheit, um sie ausschreiten zu lehren. Sie ist – das scheint eine strenge Folge aus den

vorhergehenden Gleichnissen zu sein – die Kulisse und Anziehstube für eine andere Welt, in der

wir erst unsere Rollen nicht ohne Beifall machen. (…) Sie ist die Küste zur Schöpfung Gottes: sie ist

ein dunstvoller Hof um eine bessere Sonne; sie ist der Zähler zu einem noch unsichtbaren Nenner;

wahrhaftig ich sage, sie ist fast gar nichts’. Cf. also Blumenberg (1998), pp. 25 ff. 8

Blumenberg (2001), p. 415.

9

Böschen – Schneider – Lerf eds (2004); Geisenhanslüke – Rott eds (2008). In the introduction to

their collection of articles, S. Böschen a.o. quote a social scientist who requires a ‘logic of uncertain

knowledge’ (p. 10). On the one hand this is to be welcomed. On the other hand it is striking that even those who carry out research into ‘not-knowing’ and ‘forgetting’ apparently forget that exactly

such forms of logic have already been made available by poetics, liturgics and rhetoric for a long time.

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 33

 33

3/07/13 09:54

10

Vico argues that anthropomorphism cannot be deluded. According to Vico, man – because he is

not-understanding – instead ‘makes things out of himself and, by transforming himself, becomes them’ (Vico [1999], p. 160 [§ 405]). Cf. also Stoellger (2005).

11

Valéry (1957). Danto (1981), p. 189 very pertinently not only explains metaphor as a kind of work

12

Bachelard (197710), p. 15.

13

Rheinberger (2005), p. 78.

14

Vico (1999), p. 129 (§ 347). Notwithstanding this common element, the difference between Vico and

of art, but, conversely, also explains the work of art as a metaphor.

Kant should not be neglected. Vico’s ‘metaphysics of imagination’ (cf. Vico [1999] § 405) refers to

the condition of man who, as a finite being, does not understand and never fully understands. Kant, by contrast, who is critical of anthropomorphism, characterizes with the concept of hypotyposis

an epistemic position of enlightened scepticism. This position of knowledge at the same time

understands that it does not understand, and what it does not understand and cannot capture in

theoretical formulae. Cf. Becker (2007), esp. pp. 91 ff. On hypotyposis cf. also Campe (1997) and

Cazeaux (2007), pp. 43 ff. 15

Blumenberg (2001), p. 407.

16

Blumenberg (2006), p. 781.

17

Polanyi (1985), p. 15.

18

Richards (19962), p. 38. This criticism was vehemently taken up by Haverkamp (2007), pp. 99 ff.

19

Hegel (1970b), p. 105.

20

Escher (19737), Illustration nr. 75, reproduced on the cover of this book.

21

Cf. Blumenberg (1979), p. 84; cf.also Blumenberg (1998), pp. 179 ff. Blumenberg speaks of ‘blast

22

In 1878 Engels speaks of ‘the spiral form of development’ as a ‘main law’ of ‘dialectics, the general

metaphors’ (Sprengmetaphorik); his historical informant is Cusanus.

science of interconnections’ (Engels [1975], p. 307). Numerous instances of the use of the spiral

metaphor from the 18th century can be found in Koselleck (2006), pp. 248 ff. 23

34

Metaphors.indb 34

Lepenies (1976), pp. 27 f. adduces evidence for the organological reading of the spiral metaphor from Steno to Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Goethe and Carus. Cf. also Pörksen (1997), pp. 225 ff.

Metaphor, Image and Hypotyposis

3/07/13 09:54

24

Hegel’s conceptuality is indeed motivated throughout by a critique of language. On October 28th 1807 he announces his Phenomenology with the intention to inform the reader ‘of the presumption and the nonsense of philosophical formulae, which currently debase philosophy’ (Hegel [1970a], p. 593).

25

Balzac (2004), p. 129.

26

Boehm (2007), p. 82.

27

Blumenberg (1961), p. 139.

Ralf Konersmann

Metaphors.indb 35

 35

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 36

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

Walter Van Herck

M

etaphors in philosophy and the philosophy of metaphor are different but related topics. Philosophers who reflect on the role of metaphors in philosophy can’t help thinking about what metaphors are. Nietzsche and Derrida are two well-known examples that spring to mind. What does metaphor and the topic of metaphor bring to philosophy? Aspiring to no more than some intimations of a philosophical answer, the notion of aspect seeing, a notion akin to the concept of metaphor, is related here to the craft of philosophy.

History of the philosophy of metaphor A quick overview1 of the history of the philosophy of metaphor may be useful as a start. Aristotle is the first to give metaphor extensive treatment. His definition in the Poetics is as follows: ‘Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy’.2 With this definition Aristotle seems to restrict the phenomenon of metaphor to the realm of words. Later criticism will emphasise that the basic semantic unit is larger. Aristotle also seems to imply that metaphor involves deviance from literal use. A name is transferred to something to which it doesn’t properly belong. A further implication might be that metaphors as the improper application of a name are always false. The transfer is made possible on the ground of an analogy or of a resemblance. This is confirmed by another famous quote:

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 37

 37

3/07/13 09:54

‘But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars’.3 To sum up, metaphor is about words being improperly used on the basis of similarity. In his Rhetoric, Aristotle points to the assets of metaphor: ‘Metaphor, moreover, gives style clearness, charm, and distinction as nothing else can: and it is not a thing whose use can be taught by one man to another. Metaphors, like epithets, must be fitting, which means they must fairly correspond to the thing signified: failing this, their inappropriateness will be conspicuous’.4 As well as giving charm and distinction, metaphor is a kind of heuristic device: ‘(…) we all naturally find it agreeable to get hold of new ideas easily: words express ideas, and therefore those words are the most agreeable that enable us to get hold of new ideas. Now strange words simply puzzle us; ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh. (…) The similes of the poets do the same, and therefore, if they are good similes, give an effect of brilliance. The simile, as has been said before, is a metaphor, differing from it only in the way it is put; and just because it is longer it is less attractive. Besides, it does not say outright that ‘this’ is ‘that’, and therefore the hearer is less interested in the idea’.5 The Aristotelian view has inaugurated what is known as the traditional view of meta­ phor according to which a metaphor is an elliptical simile that is useful for stylistic, rhetorical and didactic purposes, but which can be given a literal paraphrase without any loss. For this reason, this Aristotelian, traditional view has also been termed ‘the substitution view of metaphor’. In modern times this traditional, substitution view of metaphor continues to have a firm hold on the minds of many. Often the use of metaphors is advised against. For Hobbes, for example, we record our thoughts by using names. In this way we can recall our thoughts in memory and express them to others. The use of metaphors inhibits the clear communication of our thoughts. In Leviathan, part I, chapter 5 he writes the following about the use of metaphors: ‘(...) the use of metaphors, tropes, and other rhetorical figures, instead of words proper. For though it be lawful to say, for example in common speech, the way goeth, or leadeth hither or thither; the proverb says this

38

Metaphors.indb 38

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

or that, whereas ways cannot go, nor proverbs speak; yet in reckoning, and seeking of truth, such speeches are not to be admitted’.6 The human conceptual system is seen as an essentially literal system and since any truth can be expressed in literal form, metaphor is at best an alternative form of expression. John Locke thinks along the same lines: ‘But yet if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness; all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats: and therefore, […], in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided; and where truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a great fault, either of the language or the person that makes use of them’.7 A first example of the breakdown of the primacy of literal language is found in Rousseau who remarks in his Essay on the Origin of Languages (Chapter 3) that figurative language was the first to be born. Language grows by a process of meaning transfer and the first speech of mankind must have been poetic in tone. Of course, Kant’s views on the imaginative metaphoric process that makes possible aesthetic and creative ingenuity and Nietzsche’s pan metaphoric views are other examples of refreshing ideas that start to counterbalance the traditional view on metaphor. They anticipate a different view. Up to the twentieth century the traditional view prevailed. The positivist preoccupation with ideal language and unified science wasn’t favourable to understanding the unique nature of metaphor. Moreover, the distinction between cognitive and emotive uses of language provided the perfect excuse to discard metaphor as purely emotive. In 1936, I.A. Richards’ The Philosophy of Rhetoric8 appeared. Richards went against the grain. He saw metaphor as not limited to a lexical, or even a linguistic level. Metaphor is a principle of thought. He recognised metaphor’s ubiquity. It permeates ordinary discourse. According to him, doing without metaphor is a ‘bluff ’. Metaphor even directs our experience and in this way is all but a cosmetic device. Richards is the first to introduce the notion of an interaction between two thoughts. Since the meaning of metaphor emerges from this interaction it is impossible to reduce it to a literal paraphrase. He noticed that not all metaphors involve images nor do they always involve similarities. Dissimilarities can also function as a ground for metaphor. The landmark article is ‘Metaphor’ by Max Black9 in which he proposed an elabo­ ration of Richards’ views. This elaborated view came to be known as the interaction theory of metaphor. The metaphor he uses to think about metaphors is ‘filter’. In the example ‘Man is a wolf ’, a system of associated commonplaces is connected to ‘wolf ’ which will filter some of the implications of ‘man’. ‘The wolf-metaphor (...) organizes

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 39

 39

3/07/13 09:54

our view of man.’10 His most provocative claim was that metaphors in some cases create similarities between things rather than being a registration of a pre-existent similarity.11 We’ll leave his views on the symmetrical structure of metaphor – suggested by his use of the term ‘interaction’ – aside here. In sum, there are grosso modo two views of metaphor: The traditional view or substitution view, which holds that: • Metaphoric transfer is situated on a lexical level • Metaphor is a deviance from literal usage • Metaphor is an elliptical simile • Metaphor can in principle be replaced by a literal paraphrase • E.g.: Richard is a lion = Richard is brave /… is like a lion The interaction view, which holds that: • Metaphoric transfer is an interaction on the level of the sentence (also pragmatic issues…) • Metaphor is not a deviance, but is a ubiquitous phenomenon • Metaphor cannot in all cases be substituted with a literal paraphrase

Metaphor and ontology Now, the substitution view has a certain connection to Aristotelian ontology. For Aristotle reality consists of substances that can be bearers of properties. Human concepts can give expression to these substances and their properties. Since substances are part of a system of species and genera, reality presents itself as structured in an objective manner. In synecdoche’s – a figure of speech that transfers from species to genus or vice versa – the logical relations within this ontological system are used. In metonymies – a figure of speech that is based on real contiguity – the causal relations are the topic of the transfer. Metaphor, which is based on resemblance, connects substances that are not related to each other in a logical or causal way, but which bear some resemblance. As Strub12 notes, in this way metaphoric relations are fundamental to the classical ontological view, because they posit the unity of being. Only through metaphor can the comforting picture arise that everything is related to everything. Likeness and resemblance testify to the fact that the world is not a mere collection of isolated and disconnected domains of being.13 This horizontal ontology can be represented with the following example: old age evening :: human life day

40

Metaphors.indb 40

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Because in this ontology all substances have a fixed place and fixed relations of similarity and dissimilarity among one another, metaphor is simply the expression of a relation that is already objectively given. Everything a metaphor does can also be done with literal language. Of course sometimes there are lexical gaps – we don’t have a word for a specific thing, event… (yet) – and metaphor can help us fill this gap (Gr. catachresis). We don’t have a word for the lower part of a mountain, so we metaphorically call it ‘the foot of a mountain’. It can however be circumscribed in literal usage as I just did. Once the lexical gap is filled, metaphor is no longer needed. The substitution view of metaphor seems to go together with such an objectivist ontological outlook. A famous author on metaphor like George Lakoff maintains that metaphor cannot receive genuine appreciation within the framework of objectivist metaphysics. On the one hand, all of reality is seen as a collection of entities with fixed properties and relations holding among them, while on the other, concepts are seen as mental representations of categories and objects in the world. So it follows that products of the imagination such as metaphors, which may not be capable of corresponding to entities in an objectivist world, are banned from the realm of true concepts.14 Figurative expressions are defined as having meanings that cannot directly fit the world. ‘If metaphors and metonymies have any meaning at all, they must have some other, related literal meaning.’15 What seems to escape the attention of the objectivist metaphysician is that there are people with very different world views, with different ways of classifying the world and that because of this, these people will have a different perception of what a metaphor is and what is not. Notoriously, a sentence like ‘the sun is divine’ is a metaphor to a Western sunbathing person, but it will be literal usage to someone who worships the sun religiously. Thomas Kuhn remarks that ‘if Boyd is right that nature has “joints” which natural kind terms aim to locate, then metaphor reminds us that another language might have located different joints, cut up the world in another way’.16 From the time of nominalism onwards, an alternative for objectivist metaphysics develops. Cognition is seen as the result of mental construction. The objective world is not directly accessible. It must be constructed on the basis of the constraining influences of human knowledge and language.17 Concepts are not internal representations of external reality. Concepts are tools. According to nominalism our concepts have no fundamentum in re, they are products of the mind. The activity of the mind is productive and speculative, not reproductive. The notion of ‘substance’ is replaced with the notion ‘function’ – an important change in the scientific practice of modern times discussed by Ernst Cassirer in his book Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff (1910). These ideas of a productive mind are followed up by Kant, romantic thinkers like Hamann, and so on. In all these views we find anticipations of the contention Max Black makes:

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 41

 41

3/07/13 09:54

‘(…) I still wish to contend that some metaphors enable us to see aspects of reality that the metaphor’s production helps to constitute. But that is no longer surprising if one believes that the world is necessarily a world under a certain description – or a world seen from a certain perspective. Some metaphors can create such a perspective’.18 What would it mean that some metaphors can create a perspective on the world?

Aspect seeing One way of elucidating this consists of following the suggestion made by several theorists,19 namely that there is a close affinity between metaphor and – what Wittgenstein (PI, part II, ch. 11)20 has called – aspect seeing. Metaphor comprehension implies understanding one thing in terms of another. Aspect seeing denotes the seeing of something as something. The phenomenon of aspect dawning can be experienced in different contexts. One knows a father and a son, but only when seeing them together for the first time does one notice facial traits of the father in the face of the son. Or, in Wittgenstein’s words: ‘I contemplate a face, and then suddenly notice its likeness to another. I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this experience “noticing an aspect”’.21 Next to the dawning of an aspect, there is also the changing of aspects. Many drawings from Gestalt psychology can illustrate this. In Gestalt psychology, this phenomenon is termed Gestaltwechsel or Gestalt switch. At one time one sees the drawing as A and the next moment one sees the same drawing as B. Wittgenstein uses the duck-rabbit drawing by Jastrow. The paradox of aspect seeing is clear: nothing has changed, no line has been moved, and yet it is seen differently. In fact, everything has changed. Wittgenstein criticizes the mentalistic theories that want to account for this paradox. This criticism need not occupy us here. In fact, we always see things as particular things. We see a lion as a lion and the letter F as that letter. Our common, usual way of looking at things is called ‘the continuous seeing of an aspect’. We always see things as definite kinds of things. Only in uncommon and remarkable situations does a new aspect dawn on us. So to sum up, we can distinguish three different categories of thinking about aspect perception: (i) the dawning of an aspect; (ii) aspect change (Gestalt switch); (iii) the continuous seeing of an aspect. It is not easy for us to suspend our ‘seeing as’, and return to pure perception.

42

Metaphors.indb 42

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

‘If you look at a photograph of people, houses and trees, you do not feel the lack of the third dimension in it. We should not find it easy to describe a photograph as a collection of colour-patches on a flat surface (...)’.22 Seeing an aspect is seeing the identity of something; what it – as a whole – is. It is not seeing a property of something.23 Aspect change is such a disturbing experience exactly because the identity of something seems to fluctuate: now it’s a duck and then it’s a rabbit. As Stephen Mulhall writes: ‘The ability to perceive a given kind of object as another kind of object (i.e. in terms of another set of concepts) is limited only by the powers of the human imagination – which is simply another way of saying that we can place no logical constraints upon what we might see any given object as (…)’.24

Metaphoric aspect dawning Using metaphors is using words and concepts. And general concepts are, as P.F. Strawson wrote, ‘what (…) we experience the world as exemplifying, what we see things and situations as cases of ’.25 Concepts are not objects of knowledge, but they are the means by which we know. Metaphors suggest other conceptualizations for the same thing. Therefore, there is a big difference between saying ‘My boss is a bulldog’ and saying ‘My boss is very authoritarian’. The first sentence characterises my boss as a whole, what he is, to what kind he belongs. The second sentence gives expression to only one of his properties. A metaphor characterizes the topic in its totality with only a few words. The attitudes, the techniques and the familiarity connected with a particular concept are transferred to an unusual topic. When the army sergeant says that ‘your gun is your sweetheart’, soldiers immediately know what he means and what is expected of them. Seeing the object in question differently, experiencing the dawning of an aspect opens up a realm of new property descriptions and new ways of analysing. Furthermore, it mobilises skills and forms of tacit knowledge. That is why metaphors are often used right from the start in instructing and teaching. When the boss is a bulldog, then someone can throw him a bone, can teach him a new trick or can take him out for a walk. Once the metaphor is accepted, the consequences and implications that follow are almost self-evident. ‘The heart is a pump’ suggests that the know-how we have about pumps can be used in our diagnostic and therapeutic dealings with the human heart. Metaphor is a method of presentation. The crucial role of metaphor to express and trigger a new way of aspect perception in science and technology was demonstrated by Donald Schön.26 According to him metaphor doesn’t assist the solving of problems in science. Scientific discoveries aren’t so much about solving a clearly defined puzzle. Discoveries start with a new way of posing the question. Metaphors assist in problem setting, not in problem solving. In

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 43

 43

3/07/13 09:54

this sense, metaphors – to use Black’s words again – create a perspective. Metaphor is not an hypothesis, but opens up the space in which a new hypothesis can be formulated. ‘The heart is a pump.’ ‘The eye is a camera.’ ‘The brain is a computer.’ ‘Light is a wave’ … science is full of metaphors. And not all these metaphors are dispensable after they’ve done the creative work. T.S. Kuhn writes the following about the Bohrian model of atoms as little solar systems: ‘Without its (the model’s) aid, one cannot even today write down the Schrödinger equation for a complex atom or molecule, for it is to the model, not directly to nature, that the various terms in that equation refer’.27

Metaphoric continuous aspect seeing Not all metaphors are fresh or alive. The constructivist paradigm reveals that metaphor is omnipresent in our language and thinking. In a sense, I think, these dead metaphors (or frozen metaphors as Goodman calls them) are much more powerful than the fresh ones. The fact that they’re dead shows their success: they were immediately integrated into language, absorbed as if they express the most self-evident way of looking at things. Lakoff and Johnson have given us an analysis of the metaphors that hold us firmly in their grip every day in their famous book Metaphors We Live By.28 But I want to present here an example given by Michael Reddy on our metaphors to think about language. Let me just give a sample of some of the English sentences on which Reddy reflects: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Try to get your thoughts across Give me an idea of what you mean Capture a good idea in words Put a concept into words Unpacking his thoughts was difficult Insert those ideas in the next paragraph It sounded nice, but it was just empty sentences Hollow words Did you find any salient idea in that paragraph? He read ideas into her text that she hadn’t put there

Many more examples can be given, but the general idea should be clear. The English language contains many dead metaphors, which are all related and which determine a certain conceptualisation of language. Reddy calls this conceptual metaphor the ‘conduit metaphor’, because language is seen here as a canal or a tube through which

44

Metaphors.indb 44

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

ideas and emotions can be passed on in communication. Perhaps it could also be called the ‘container metaphor’, because it sees words and sentences as containers that transport meanings. This conceptualisation seems to imply philosophically, for example, that ideas exist independently of words, that ideas arise without the aid of words, that words as containers have an inside and an outside (‘beautiful but hollow words’), that the speaker inserts ideas in words, that the listener must extract the content again from the words. This implicit thinking about language has also received explicit philosophical expression in rather behaviourist theories of language, in mentalist theories and so forth. As Reddy says: ‘(…) it follows that “common sense” about language may be confused’.29 We are reminded of § 115 of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: ‘A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably’. When philosophy is mainly a conceptual enterprise, it will have to deal with metaphors and not least with its own metaphors. Philosophy must take care that its theories and systems are not anything more than an uncritical elaboration of views already implicit in the conceptual metaphors of the languages we speak. Another point that can be made here is the following. Conflicts between people who use different conceptual frameworks, who have differing conceptual metaphors, cannot be solved by an appeal to the facts, because the conflict is exactly about what the facts are, how they must be seen. The conflict is not about the given, but about the method of presentation. Using conflicting or competing metaphors is therefore much like having opposing worldviews or values. Metaphors can therefore be linked to Kuhn’s notion of ‘paradigm’ and to Collingwood’s notion of ‘absolute presuppositions’. In this way we arrive at what is generally seen as the downside of the constructivist view of metaphor. It is – more than its predecessor – capable of appreciating the unique contribution of metaphor. Its cognitive value is no longer underestimated. However, there seems to be a price to pay for this. The price tag says ‘relativism’. To use Nelson Goodman’s phrase, metaphor is ‘a way of world making’. Connected to this is the tendency to break down the distinction between the literal and the figurative and to defend an all language is metaphorical thesis. Furthermore, metaphor theory has itself passed through a kind of paradigm shift from a substitution view to an interaction view and with it, the metaphors used to talk about metaphor have changed themselves: from an ornament to a filter, for example. This evolution results from shifts on a metaphysical level: objectivist ontology has been replaced with a more constructivist view. Our view of metaphor is not isolated. It clearly reflects a broader view on the way in which we relate language and reality.

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 45

 45

3/07/13 09:54

True metaphors Since the whole issue seems to end up in a question about relativism, it is perhaps appropriate to take a look at the cognitive claims of metaphor. Can metaphorical utterances be used to make truth claims? The substitution view holds that the literal equivalents of metaphorical utterances can be true, but that the distinctive contribution of metaphor is limited to it being more or less pleasing, forceful and striking. The point made by Black’s interaction view is that what metaphor does is a distinctive intellectual operation, namely the way in which the interaction between one system of implications is used to filter and organise relations in another system of implications. No literal paraphrase can capture the insight thus provided. On top of that, this view claims that in some cases the metaphor is creative in producing – not reproducing – similarities. Some defenders of the interaction theory do not want to go as far as Black on the issue of truth claims. They argue that the irreducibility of metaphor should not be confused with a claim to truth. The irreducible power of metaphor is more associated with its hortatory function or a special illocutionary force. Metaphor need not compete with real assertions. Metaphorical seeing-as is not the same as seeing-that something is the case. The latter has more to do with describing qualities and properties and, indeed metaphor can suggest radical new ways of describing. Metaphor should however not be identified with such descriptions. If metaphors are not allowed to be true or false, this doesn’t preclude them from being appropriate or inappropriate. How is this appropriateness to be assessed? Here we have to go back to Wittgenstein. The precondition of aspect seeing is, according to Wittgenstein, a familiarity or a knowing one’s way about in a world. The following is one of the central texts in the eleventh chapter of his Philosophical Investigations: ‘The substratum of this experience is the mastery of a technique. But how queer for this to be the logical condition of someone’s having such-and-such an experience! After all, you don’t say that one only ‘has toothache’ if one is capable of doing such-and-such. From this it follows that we cannot be dealing with the same concept of experience here. It is a different though related concept. It is only if someone can do, has learnt, is master of, such-and-such, that it makes sense to say he has had this experience. And if this sounds crazy, you need to reflect that the concept of seeing is modified here’.30 In order to see, nothing more is needed than to open one’s eyes, but in order to see something as something one needs practice, familiarity, being at home in some world. X-rays are just a collection of shades of grey to someone who lacks medical

46

Metaphors.indb 46

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

training and a look under the hood of the car reveals only a tangle of steel and wires for someone who has no mastery of mechanics. J.F. Ross makes a distinction that is perhaps more widely used between craft bound and unbound discourse.31 Whoever wants to participate in a craft, a profession, or a science must learn to speak the craft discourse that belongs to it. This is not just a matter of learning a vocabulary, but it involves learning to make justified construals or acceptable utterances. As such, your discourse signals whether or not you are a full member of a specific craft community.32 Often metaphors are part and parcel of such a craft discourse. In many other cases, metaphors are used to render the complicated literal terms of a craft or profession more concrete. One typically uses metaphors to clarify jargon.

The practice of philosophy In Culture and Value, Wittgenstein has a remark dating from 1937 about the study of philosophy: ‘People sometimes say they cannot make any judgement about this or that because they have not studied philosophy. This is irritating nonsense, because the pretence is that philosophy is some sort of science. People speak of it almost as they might speak of medicine. On the other hand we may say that people who have never carried out an investigation of a philosophical kind, like, for instance, most mathematicians, are not equipped with the right visual organs for this type of investigation or scrutiny. Almost in the way a man who is not used to searching in the forest for flowers, berries, or plants will not find any because his eyes are not trained to see them and he does not know where you have to be particularly on the lookout for them. Similarly, someone unpractised in philosophy passes by all the spots where difficulties are hidden in the grass, whereas someone who has had practice will pause and sense that there is a difficulty close by even though he cannot see it yet’.33 According to Wittgenstein, philosophy is not a science because it doesn’t discuss empirical facts, not even facts of the mind. In a sense, a philosopher is never an expert. He can be an expert in the thought of Plato, Kant or Hegel, but he cannot in the same sense of the word be called an expert in happiness, good and evil, freedom and truth. Therefore, anyone can participate in philosophical discourse or dialogue. That said, it doesn’t follow that everything is equal in philosophy or that philo­ sophical training has no relevance. Here, on the contrary, philosophy is treated as a craft, even as a kind of practical skill. A trained philosopher moves through a

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 47

 47

3/07/13 09:54

philosophical text, a philosophical dialogue like someone who knows how to collect herbs, flowers, berries or mushrooms in a forest. He has an eye or a nose for things. He knows how to analyse, how to extend, elaborate, attack, undermine, question, and reconstruct philosophical positions. Undoubtedly metaphors are important tools in the craft of philosophy. How do you use, extend, and elaborate upon all the metaphors that philosophers produce? Perhaps teaching philosophy is more about teaching metaphors than we realise and how to deal with them in a philosophical way. Western philosophy is an infinite repertoire of metaphors, a seemingly endless procession of images: war as the father of things, caves and shadows, fountains of being, nights in which cows are black, ghosts in the machine, logical mapmaking, the Northwest Passage and so on. Indeed, metaphors are misleading and confusing, but this is only so because they can also be clarifying and lead the way. It is impossible to think about metaphor without using metaphors: a metaphor is a searchlight, a mask, a veil, a mirror, a filter, a pair of spectacles. Someone even said that metaphors are the black holes of our linguistic cosmos. Many have investigated them and a lot of energy has been put into them, but still little is known. Lichtenberg remarked: ‘Die Metapher ist viel klüger als ihr Verfasser’ – Metaphors are far smarter than their makers. Well, that sounds like a happy ending.

48

Metaphors.indb 48

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Aristotle (1984). The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. J. Barnes, Princeton, Princeton University Press Black, M. (1972). Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy, Ithaca – London, Cornell University Press (19621) Black, M. (1980). ‘More about Metaphor’, in A. Ortony ed., Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 19-43 Cohen, T. (1979). ‘Metaphor and the Cultivation of Intimacy’, in S. Sacks ed., On Metaphor, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-10 de Pater, W.A. (1988). Analogy, Disclosures, and Narrative Theology, Leuven, Acco de Pater, W.A. (1989). ‘Analogy’, in K. Lorenz a.o. eds, Handbuch Sprachphilosophie, Berlin, de Gruyter Hausman, C. (1989). Metaphor and Art, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Hesse, M.B. (1970). ‘The Explanatory Function of Metaphor’, in Idem, Models and Analogies in Science, Notre Dame Ind., Notre Dame University Press, (19661), pp. 157-177 Hester, M. (1966). ‘Metaphor and Aspect Seeing’, in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 25, pp. 205-212 Hobbes, Th. (1983), Leviathan, ed. by C.B. Macpherson, Harmondsworth, Penguin Johnson, M. (1985). ‘Introduction: Metaphor in the Philosophical Tradition’, in Idem ed., Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 3-47 Kuhn, T.S. (1980). ‘Metaphor in Science’, in A. Ortony ed., Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 409-419 Lakoff, G. – Johnson M. (1980). Metaphors we live by, Chicago – London, The University of Chicago Press Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal About the Mind, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 49

 49

3/07/13 09:54

Locke, J. (1959). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2 vols., New York, Dover Publications Mulhall, S. (1993). On Being in the World. Wittgenstein and Heidegger on Seeing Aspects, London, Routledge Ortony, A. (1980). ‘Metaphor: A Multidimensional Problem’, in Idem ed., Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (19791), pp. 1-16 Richards, I.A. (1971). The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Oxford, Oxford University Press, (19361) Reddy, M.J. (1980). ‘The Conduit Metaphor – A Case of Frame Conflict in Our Language about Language’, in A. Ortony ed., Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 284-324 Ross, J.F. (1981). Portraying Analogy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Schön, D.A. (1980). ‘Generative Metaphor: A Perspective on Problem-Setting in Social Policy’, in A. Ortony ed., Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 254-283 Strawson, P.F. (1974). Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar, London, Methuen, 1974 Strub, C. (1991). Kalkulierte Absurditäten. Versuch einer historisch reflektierten sprach­ analytischen Metaphorologie, München – Freiburg, Karl Alber Wittgenstein, L. (1980). Culture and Value, ed. G.H. von Wright, Oxford, Blackwell Wittgenstein, L. (1994). Philosophical Investigations, transl. G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell

Endnotes 1

I rely here mainly on Johnson (1985).

2

All quotes from the works of Aristotle were taken from Aristotle (1984). Here Poet. 1457b 6-9.

3

Aristotle, Poet. 1459a 5-8.

50

Metaphors.indb 50

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

4

Aristotle, Rhet. 1405a 8-13.

5

Aristotle, Rhet. 1410b 10-20.

6

Hobbes (1983), p. 114-115.

7

Locke (1959), vol.2, p. 146.

8

Richards (1971).

9

Black (1972).

10

Black (1972), p. 41.

11

Black (1972), p. 37: ‘It would be more illuminating in some of these cases to say that the metaphor

12

Strub (1991), p. 321.

13

de Pater (1988), p. 12; cf. also de Pater (1989).

14

Lakoff (1987), p. 165.

15

Lakoff (1987), p. 172.

16

Kuhn (1980), p. 414. Cf. also Hesse (1970).

17

Ortony (1980), p. 1.

18

Black (1980), pp. 39-40.

19

For example Hausman (1989), p. 24; Johnson (1985), p. 29; Hester (1966).

20

Wittgenstein (1994), abbreviated as PI. Reference is made to the pages since Part II of PI is not

21

Wittgenstein (1994), PI 193c.

22

Wittgenstein (1994), PI 213a.

23

Wittgenstein (1994), PI p. 212a: ‘The colour of the visual impression corresponds to the colour of

creates the similarity than to say that it formulates some similarity antecedently existing’.

arranged in paragraphs.

the object (this blotting paper looks pink to me, and is pink) – the shape of the visual impression

Walter Van Herck

Metaphors.indb 51

 51

3/07/13 09:54

to the shape of the object (it looks rectangular to me, and is rectangular) – but what I perceive in the dawning of an aspect is not a property of the object, but an internal relation between it and

other objects’. 24

Mulhall (1993), pp. 134-5.

25

Strawson (1974), p. 14.

26

Schön (1980).

27

Kuhn (1980), p. 415.

28

Lakoff – Johnson (1980).

29

Reddy (1980), p. 296.

30

Wittgenstein (1994), PI 208 e-f, 209a.

31

Ross (1981), pp. 165-6.

32

Ted Cohen has suggested that the use of metaphor has to do with the bond of intimacy that

metaphor creates. Metaphor can create a distinction between those who understand the metaphor

and those who don’t. In that sense, it can be an instrument of exclusion. Firstly, one must know

what a given metaphor is about – and in the case of metaphor in absentia (where the subject isn’t mentioned, like for example: ‘the pitbull was very tired yesterday’) that is very hard. Secondly, one

must understand the metaphorical predicate. If you’re not familiar with cameras, it is difficult to see all the implications of ‘the human eye is a camera’. See Cohen (1979).

33

52

Metaphors.indb 52

Wittgenstein (1980), p. 29e.

Metaphors in Philosophy and the Philosophy of Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

Frédéric Cossutta

Some methodological difficulties concerning a ‘metaphorology’

‘

Although philosophy has always insisted on clear and rational argumentation, philosophers seem not to be able to do without metaphors and figurative language.’1 That’s true, yet what do they do with metaphors and how do they use them? What kind of role do figurative devices play in philosophical writing? It seems quite simple to answer this question by working out a ‘metaphorology’, an objective investigation of metaphorical topoi or a more sophisticated approach like Blumenberg’s.2 It may also seem relevant to apply a linguistic3 or analytic theory of metaphor to philosophical texts, like for instance Black’s. However, these ways of investigating lead to paradoxes, whose features I shall briefly indicate. Is it really possible to use linguistic tools in order to mark off some dictionary or semantic map of metaphorical fields? Since a philosophical and epistemological background supports these theories, how can we assume the difference between concept and metaphor as grounded? Here, we get caught up in an external circle. If we preferred a philosophical appreciation of that difference, the criterion would vanish because of philosophical bargaining: we know for instance that Nietzsche and Kant don’t agree on the definition and role of metaphors in philosophy. If philosophy itself must unravel the question, the answer depends on your philosophical position and we become enclosed in an ‘inner circle’. Both Derrida and Ricoeur, almost at the same time but in different ways, tried to escape this kind of difficulty. Derrida proposes a deconstructive blurring of the borders between concept and metaphor, assuming the impossibility of leaving the inner circle. He asserts the impossibility of metaphorology.4 Ricoeur’s hermeneutics takes up a meta-position on philosophical metaphors, conferring them a creative function in

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 53

 53

3/07/13 09:54

philosophy if controlled by ‘speculative discourse’.5 As I indicated, their opposition is in fact an illusion: ‘If Derrida… so Ricoeur; if Ricoeur… so Derrida, and so on’.6 How can we escape these epistemological and philosophical paradoxes in order to avoid both hermeneutical and deconstructive impediments? I propose changing our point of view on philosophy, by no longer considering philosophers’ works as simple doctrinal systems or as closed sets of conceptual analysis framed in texts, but as transitory results of a discursive activity, a practice of thinking through discourse. This transformation requires a specific method allowing us to investigate philosophy as philosophical discourse.7

A dynamic way of considering philosophical metaphors: thinking is acting by means of discourse Philosophical writings are not an inert deposit of concepts, propositions, or arguments, of which we should reconstruct the anatomy. Philosophy is an activity, a practice inspired by the claim of truth searching and by a pragmatic interaction between author and readers. A philosophical discourse is an interface for interactions with a virtual reader whose expectations and contextual difficulties are taken into account and need transactions, accommodations, and facilities. We are not, as a reader, in front of a readymade thinking behind the stage. We are in front of the philosophical stage, contemplating the unfolding of the play, but we are also part of the cast through the features or characters constructed for us by the author: do we identify with Socrates in Plato’s dialogues or with the young man? Aren’t we teaching ourselves how to ground science through the meditative stream, searching for evidence by way of doubt? The ‘I’ identified with Descartes is no longer Descartes, but becomes the reader, and we become the authors of our inner speech. Let us remind ourselves of the way Hellenistic philosophy is always a ‘spiritual’ or ‘intellectual exercise’ in which a master is teaching his pupil how to transform himself by using many kinds of exercises applicable in the circumstances of everyday life.8 This tradition doesn’t end with the transformation of the social role of philosophy and the new conditions of philosophical communication and institutions. We can strengthen this idea by testing its relevance on the more abstract philosophical texts such as Spinoza’s Ethics and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.9 If thinking is acting through discursive operations (in speaking as well as writing), understanding and reading philosophy might engage us in a new ways of analysing, taking into account pragmatic and discursive features of philosophy.10 This methodo­ logical approach is called Discourse Analysis and offers a way to consider together the two sides of philosophical gesture: framing speculative schemes through which thinking focuses on the search for truth, and modelling expressive schemes through which communication to an audience is achieved.11

54

Metaphors.indb 54

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Each philosopher must manage this double scope, searching for the best exposition form and formulating his doctrine by means of various textual genres. Philosophical speech is speech acting that elaborates its own scenic stage by means of a linguistic apparatus (enunciative features), figurative and rhetorical devices, and textual genres. Dialogue, meditation, treatise, and enquiry do not use concepts, arguments, fictions, and metaphors in the same way. There is for instance a link between Plato’s Socratic dialogue, and the way images, myths, narratives, and paradigms are implemen­ ted.12 Neo-Academic scepticism commands another kind of dialogical organization. Descartes’ Metaphysics, as a philosophy of consciousness, requires a meditative style and the forgery of a specific metaphorical grammar (focused on walking, road, path), but to reach a larger audience he is not reluctant to spread his philosophy through a semibiographical narrative, a handbook, a geometrical outline, and an unachieved dialogue. The way a philosopher is ‘walking along’ is not the same on a Cartesian methodical road as on a Humean enquiring path.

What does this view on philosophy entail for our analysis of philosophical metaphors? Some rules for a meta-metaphorology Fictions, metaphors, comparisons, analogies, generic features, and rhetorical or stylistic devices are a way to fulfil this double scope of philosophical discourse. This new way of considering philosophy has some methodological implications for the study of philosophical metaphors. First, we should not separate the analysis of metaphors from their textual context (let us call this the metaphoric co-text). This entails a first set of rules. The metaphoric co-text is first of all a conceptual and argumentative one. We should not study metaphors in isolation, nor oppose them to concepts as if there were two different strata. Conceptual and metaphorical regulation can play harmoniously together or stand in tightening opposition, as if a philosophical text was not made of a single voice. The philosopher fights against herself and others to progress towards the right or most efficient expression. It might be possible to demarcate metaphorical from conceptual fields, but it is more fruitful to observe how the interplay of ‘metaphorization’ and ‘conceptualization’ makes up the philosophical work in progress. Only a micro-contextual analysis can observe how metaphors are created and used in a philosophical discourse: how is this metaphor or concept used, here with this thematic topic and not another one, and for what aim and scope? A philosopher works in the depths of vernacular language to awaken some connotations or semantic properties; she is rooted in a previous philosophical language game that associates meaning to technical terms (substance, being, monads…). She invents her own terminology by creating neologisms or giving new meaning to the old words of her philosophical tribe; the same holds for metaphors and images.13

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 55

 55

3/07/13 09:54

The second aspect of the metaphoric co-text is made up of all the images, fictions, figurative items and devices amongst which we can perhaps distinguish metaphors stricto sensu (if there is such a thing). We should not separate metaphors from other images, comparisons, similes, analogies, micro-narratives, or rhetorical figures present in the same sequence, chapter or book.14 They interplay and define an isotopic level for figurative themes. Together with the generic frame and the enunciative setting, they contribute to the philosophical scenography. Of course, there is a structure or coherence behind a metaphorical textual sequence, but the metaphorical net is not fixed or closed, its borders are shifting and changing. Is it really possible to find the adequate criteria to separate metaphors from semi- or fossil metaphors, or to distinguish them from concepts? Does it make sense to collect, from different philosophies and periods, isotopic or archaeological sets of metaphors on the same topic, as Blumenberg does in Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie? I rather opt for synchronic analysis in a specific doctrinal context. Rather than exhibiting some fixed metaphorical sub-network, let us pay attention to metaphors in action. A third aspect must be taken in consideration to prevent us from dissociating philosophical writing and expressing from philosophical thesis and analysis. We should always relate metaphors in philosophical texts to the way the use of metaphors is disused in those same texts. This is valid for our meta-philosophical investigation as well as for the philosophical object we observe. The risk of formalism can be avoided if we don’t dissociate the discovery of figurative devices from the careful study of their philosophical presuppositions. We must not split the way metaphors are used in a specific philosophical discourse from the implicit or explicit rules governing their use. We often observe when reading philosophical texts some meta-metaphoric remarks, explanations, or warnings about their use or limits. Sometimes these remarks are themselves metaphoric.15 Next to these local and limited occurrences of meta-metaphoric games, a more global position must be searched for in the philosophical system or theory. These directions for the use of metaphors are not necessarily exhibited in a specific chapter on metaphor, but can be derived from a theory of language or images, or from the ontological status given to analogy. The use of metaphors requires a meta-metaphoric explanation. We must show how metaphors, images, and fictions are explicitly or implicitly the objects of philosophical analysis. There is a complex relationship between the kind of metaphors a philosophy calls for and the general functions associated with them in philosophical analysis. We often find congruence between metaphor theory and use; sometimes a mere discrepancy, metaphors playing a comeback of more or less controlled intentions. Immanent textual analysis is not sufficient if we want to avoid formalist or textualist risk. We should also consider the insertion of texts in a discursive and social context: philosophical institutions, schools and exercises, the position devoted to philosophy in a historic moment, the social role of philosophy, the struggle for power with other discourses, religious, scientific, political... Thus, a second set of rules depends on this

56

Metaphors.indb 56

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

second context: we should not dissociate philosophical metaphors from their social, cultural, and historical discursive context. This context is more external and discursive than inner-textual (not a co-text but a con-text). It is not only made of philosophical voices and pitches, but also of speeches and speaking from all origins, institutions and communicative communities. They cross the philosophical ones on their borders and edges, making convergences, divergences, or competing with philosophical discourse for truth and norms. We think of ordinary language and religious, scientific, and juridical discourses; but works of logic and fiction also aspire to power and struggle for dominating positions. There is a relative dependence of philosophy on social uses and norms, sometimes with the aim to follow, on other occasions to impose new ways of thinking and speaking. This is the synchronic context in which philosophy is not detached from contemporary ways of speaking and imagining. Philosophy belongs to a common anthropological and social imaginarium with some individual and psychological originality. Philosophical metaphors are alive and in contact with the global life of metaphors in public and individual life, and we should always contextualise them when reading philosophy. We must also consider this context in a diachronic way. This second aspect of the contextual rule invites us to relate philosophical metaphors to philosophical and non-philosophical metaphors belonging to previous discursive domains. A philo­ sophical position, even if autonomous, is never self-sufficient. In commenting on others’ philosophies, philosophers subvert or convert previous metaphors in order to create their own. We could speak of a genealogical survey of metaphors; each philosophical use is dealing with a past, the dynamic philosophical archive put at work again and again for philosophically specific purposes. Discourse analysis offers a way to consider the two sides of philosophical gesture, namely framing speculative schemes and modelling expressive schemes through which communication towards an audience is achieved. Metaphors play a role on both sides. They must always be linked, together with other figurative schemes, to the speculative process in which they make sense and to which they give sense. Metaphors in philosophy are operators, amongst others, between text and discourse, opus and corpus, dogmata and philosophical opera. Eventually they are a way to make a philosophical system (or anti-system) not only into an abstract doctrine, but also into a beautiful masterpiece. Let us now try to apply these rules to concrete analysis and give some examples of such a method by focusing on some of the distinctive roles metaphors play in philosophical texts. Our methodology not only makes the general function of meta­ phors more intelligible in philosophical discourse, if such a general pretension may be allowed, but it also aims at a better interpretation of particular philosophies by relating their expression to their meanings. We can broadly distinguish two different ways of dealing with metaphors in philosophy: stinginess (the dominant one) and proliferation (the minor one).

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 57

 57

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors: submission to conceptual analysis in the history of philosophy’s mainstream Some kind of metaphorical chastity is generally recommended to the philosopher: if you can’t do without them, use them with parsimony, and beware of their potential danger for conceptual language.16 Metaphors are allowed for helping conceptual elaboration or overcoming conceptual deficiencies, but must be ruled by a strict conceptual observance. This ‘self-control’ is not only achieved by observance of this negative rule of abstinence, parsimony, or stinginess, but also by a conceptual or philosophical analysis of the philosophical status of metaphors. Philosophers not only use metaphors, but often also define how to use them. This not only happens in philosophy, but also in other fields like poetry or rhetoric. For example, Aristotle strongly asserts that every man wishes to know the truth: ‘Pantes anthrōpoi tou eidénai oregontai phusei’17 and that imitation is natural to man (in the fourth chapter of his Poetics).18 There is a specific technè by which we learn with pleasure by seeing such images (eikonas). Our desire for knowledge is first satisfied by sensible perception (dia tōn ommatōn), yet also by imitation (dia mimèseōs19). Achieving truth is not only the philosophical purpose of an apophantic function of the categorical logos, but also the purpose of a well-made artefact. Metaphors obey the same rule: ‘the transfer to a thing of a name which means another one’.20 So philosophers not simply condemn and withdraw metaphors from their texts; they determine some philosophical criteria to distinguish between good and bad use. There is a skilful way of using metaphors by poets and rhetoricians, a successful metaphorical transfer, both pleasant and beautiful, which conveys some kind of truth. Metaphors are also able to produce an effect of knowledge. This can be seen in Aristotle’s use of metaphors or similes in Peri Psuchès, in which natural bodies are compared to a tool21 and the soul to a sailor in a ship.22 This use, however, is contained by a philosophy of images or analogies: a meta-metaphorical theory as Aristotle’s Poetics or Art of Rhetoric. This dominant use of metaphors in philosophical texts allows us to speak of a first set of discursive functions. When their local occurrences reconfigure the conceptual workshop, metaphors play the role of a didactical, argumentative, or heuristic tool. For instance, in Aristotle’s Peri Psuchès, strictly speaking the analysis of the mind/ body relationship deals with comparisons rather than metaphors, because comparing something with something draws a parallel between two kinds of realities, and allows for analogical argument or the use of a paradigm. We know Plato’s frequent use of this device, for instance his metaphor of Socratic midwifery in Theaetetus.23 Hegel, when criticizing the thesis of the inexpressibleness of language, uses a metaphor to put this obscure thought in the same category as ‘mould in fermentation’.24 Next to this local occurrence of metaphors, there is a more substantial use of figurative devices in philosophy: Plato’s dialogues for instance are narrative and mimetic

58

Metaphors.indb 58

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

processes, fictions in which fictions are embodied. The dialogue First Alcibiades contains a ‘love story’ between Socrates and Alcibiades.25 Philosophical argumentations and discussions are implemented in this figurative level. But when it’s no longer possible to reach the anhypothetic truth in an intelligible world, images, metaphors, paradigms, and myths relay the work of definitions and conceptual distinctions to suggest what cannot be said explicitly.26 Metaphorical and narrative devices are temporary artefacts that should vanish as any kind of language when we reach a non-discursive contemplation of the Good (theōrein). This metaphorization is in coherence with the Platonist theory of analogy.27 The conceptual purity is more an ideal than an effective fact. Philosophers must explain, teach, and persuade their readers, and for this purpose they use rhetorical figures, restrained by severe self-control. This demands some questions: Is the philosopher’s use of these figures coherent with her theory of analogy or image? Are philosophical metaphors a sign of a retour du refoulé, a consequence of this high aspiration of purity? Are these expressive forms in harmony with speculative schemes and processes, or is there an irreducible suture?28 Answers to these questions depend on a philosophical choice. For Nietzsche (as we will see) or Derrida the whole philosophy, or so-called metaphysics, is interpreted as a hidden set of metaphors.29

Metaphors as a crucial means of philosophical writing: not only a question of style Metaphors as ‘truth’ of concept A less dominant but vivid tradition in the history of philosophy considers necessary and irreducible the critical and creative presence of metaphor in philosophical discourse. The pretension to get rid of any emotional or imaginative scoria is pure illusion. When philosophers fight against concept and system, they use a large range of metaphors and figurative devices. We can hear this other philosophical voice in Hume,30 and certainly in Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Bergson or Derrida. The new metaphor theories after the linguistic turn, for instance those of Deleuze or Derrida, follow this line and attribute to metaphors a constitutive role in thinking, language, and philosophical texts.31 To limit my field, I will compare how Bergson, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche use metaphors to understand and write philosophy. In these three cases, metaphors, together with other figurative devices, are not contingent means of expressing, but deeply rooted in the philosopher’s workshop; they are necessary tools in the process towards ‘truth’ or ‘being’. All three philosophers deeply integrate the metaphorical dimension in the speculative realm, but as we will see their functions differ: mainly heuristic and ontological in Bergson, hermeneutic and critical in Nietzsche, and

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 59

 59

3/07/13 09:54

pragmatic and poetic in Kierkegaard. And if we relate the metaphors to the feminine question in philosophy, we discover a new way to arrange them: Kierkegaard and Nietzsche’s metaphors are related to the feminine, where Bergson’s not at all.32

Bergson’s use of metaphor: a mediation between ordinary or conceptual language and an immediate intuition of Life and Being as ‘duration’33 Bergson uses metaphors to lead us from spatial concepts or ordinary perception to underlying images of a more genuine ‘intuition’. But how can we reach this image médiatrice while we are prisoners of ordinary language and perception? A long fragment of Introduction to Metaphysics offers an example of the working of a metaphorical sequence.34 Bergson asserts that we all have an inner experience of our self in the inner temporal stream of consciousness, experience that is easier accessible by intuition than analysis. To make us aware of this, he compares our perceptions to a ‘crust solidified on the surface’, under this surface though, there is a deeper stream of consciousness that needs a new image: rather than ‘crust’ we might speak of ‘sharply cut crystals and this frozen surface’,35 under which there is a ‘continuous flux which is not comparable to any flux I have ever seen’.36 The metaphorical translation of this movement is ‘the unrolling of a coil’37 ‘but it may just as well be compared to a continual rolling up, like that of a thread on a ball (...).’38 It is astonishing how Bergson makes rectification after rectification, trying to choose a better image to approximate the intuition of duration: ‘But actually it is neither an unrolling nor a rolling up, for these two similes evoke the idea of lines and surfaces whose parts are homogeneous and superposable on one another’.39 This metaphor isn’t a good one either, because it is framed in a geometrical spatialization instead of dwelling in a temporal and gradual one: ‘It would be better, then, to use as a comparison the myriad-tinted spectrum, with its insensible gradations leading from one shade to another’.40 Yet a new image quickly serves as a substitute for the previous one: ‘Let us, then, imagine an infinitely small elastic body, contracted, if it were possible, to a mathematical point’.41 None of these comparisons or metaphors give satisfaction; they are used as an approximation of what can’t be expressed by concepts, and this leads Bergson in the following lines to a meta-metaphorical reflexion on his own use of metaphors: ‘But it is even less possible to represent it by concepts, that is by abstract, general or simple ideas (...) No image can replace the intuition of duration, but many diverse images, borrowed from very different orders of things, may, by the convergence of their action, direct consciousness to the precise point where there is a certain intuition to be seized. By choosing images as dissimilar as possible, we shall prevent any one of them from usurping the place of the intuition it is intended to call up, since it would then be driven away at once by its rivals’.42

60

Metaphors.indb 60

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

We must not isolate a single root metaphor but get something like a metaphorical patchwork made of disparate pieces focusing on something underneath language. Each one pushes out the other, and at the same time they are complementary. The model is less a metaphorical systematic net than a philosophical bric-à-brac, realising with linguistic creations a metaphoric chain leading us from one metaphor towards another, each one playing against the previous one, from mechanical images (springs, rolls…) to organic ones, from delimited forms in space to blurred sketches in time. Flowing water, fountain springs are the narrowest images of the ‘grounding’ intuition of Bergson’s philosophy, but we are immediately aware that ‘grounding’ is a topologic image, in contradiction with the very idea of a perpetual rising of vital energy. Bergson’s metaphorical survey is like a ready-made toolbox; the same metaphor can be used for exhibiting some state of consciousness but also for some ontological features of the external world. For instance, the spring giving its swing to a clock’s balance wheel had already been used in The Possible and the Real.43 The process of metaphorization is itself metaphorised in the terminology of springing up, until the metaphors on metaphors themselves will become useless and lead us to a terminal experience of indistinction between ‘intuition’ as an act and ‘duration’ as a being in act. Here we are exploring a metaphorology in the sense of a typically Bergsonian method of using metaphors in philosophical discourse, with both an epistemic and ontological scope. Epistemic, as a way of knowing, a method for philosophical analysis, and a heuristic device; ontological because metaphors are images in a language-game, analogical to a specific feature of Being, where time, action and being are no longer dissociated in ‘the perpetual spurting out of an unpredictable newness across the universe’.44 Metaphor is not only a tool for understanding, but also a way to be in the world as well as in philosophical language, and a way to fill the gap that dissociates them. This heuristic and ontological function of metaphors and images entails a method for defining philosophy and for interpreting philosophical systems.45 This relationship between conceptual and demonstrative levels, between underlying metaphors and deeper intuition offers a key to reading for instance Spinoza or Berkeley.46 According to Bergson, a philosophical system contains a gap between ‘the simple intuition and the means for expression’.47 We can’t catch this intuition directly, but we can approximate it with images and metaphors: ‘what we achieve to grab and fix, is some kind of intermediate image between the intuition’s simplicity and the complexity of the abstract translations’.48 We are now aware of the complexity of Bergson’s use of metaphors: they are a rule for interpreting philosophical texts, they offer a heuristic for a new way of being for consciousness, by which intuition can merge itself in the stream of being. Metaphors are not important in themselves, but are transitory, offering an iconic scheme dissolving itself while directing us towards a new mental experience of an immediate consciousness of time as duration. And finally they reach their explicit philosophical meaning in a meta-metaphorical explanation. Their justification is less related to a didactical or persuasive claim, even if this part must not be denied, than

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 61

 61

3/07/13 09:54

to a concrete experiment of a special state of consciousness. They not only help us to understand; they also make us share or improve a very concrete way of modifying our own being. Heuristic and ontological functions are no longer dissociable.

Feminine metaphors in philosophy The importance given to feminine or gender questions in a philosophical theory depends on the originary or derived function of gender difference from an ontological and existential point of view. In Bergson and Heidegger, the feminine question is deeply repressed, or derived and strictly localised. No obvious link between feminine and metaphor can be put in immediate evidence.49 In the 19th century, we observe much more references to women and femininity than in any other philosophical period, as if an ambiguous fascination for women and the general use of metaphors were correlated (especially in Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard).50 This doesn’t mean that there is an unambiguous relationship with femininity: the use of feminine metaphors doesn’t mean an exaltation of womanhood; Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were fascinated by women, but remained prisoners of a great machismo,51 the first by despising women, the second by adulating them only when they were young maidens but not so when married.52 As a general rule, we may assert that the more philosophers are interested in women, the more they deal with metaphoric style, and the more averse they feel towards women, the fewer metaphors they use. It is as if there is a secret chain relating philosophers’ suspicion with regard to metaphors to their ambiguity with regard to ‘feminine’ features: blurring of borders, proximity to nature, loose fantasy and sensibility, contagious emotion by association and contiguity, and proliferation of vivid life. Are metaphors the Trojan horse of femininity inside philosophy? A contrario we can observe a link between the use of feminine metaphors in Nietzsche’s and Kierkegaard’s work, and their anti-conceptual and anti-systematic position that justifies a wide use of metaphors in philosophy. This is confirmed by feminist philosophy’s criticism of not only this relationship between metaphor and femininity in traditional philosophy, but also of the dichotomy between concept and metaphor and the way male philosophers use them. For example, Karen Green analyses how Christine de Pisan in Le livre du corps de policie ‘shows a subtle appreciation of the sexism of a traditional philosophical metaphor, which she cleverly undermines and subverts’.53 This subversion deals with a transformation and reconstruction of a metaphor of virtue: ‘In the transformation of the image of félicité humaine, one sees Christine engaged in an enormously sophisticated rhetorical strategy. Either unconsciously, or more probably consciously, her defence of women involves not just explicit argument, but also the construction of a new set of metaphors to counter and undermine the standard tropes used by philosophers’.54 The feminist approaches of

62

Metaphors.indb 62

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

philosophical metaphors owe something to Derrida and French Theory. Working on Nietzsche’s style in Spurs: Nietzsche’s styles, Derrida provocatively asserts: ‘The title for this lecture was to have been the question of style. However, it is women who will be my subject. Still, one might wonder whether that doesn’t really amount to the same thing – or is it to the other’.55 ‘Deconstructing’ a set of Nietzsche’s ambiguous and apparently misogynist aphorisms on women, Derrida underlines the deep link between an inessentialist approach to women and a new way of writing philosophy with figurative devices, amongst which metaphors play an important part. Derrida’s own way of writing philosophy promoted a new use of style and philosophical metaphors in association with a reconsideration of femininity’s ontological status. In this way, Derrida paved the way for feminist philosophies and perhaps for a feminine way of writing philosophy.56

Nietzsche’s critical and prophetical use of metaphors If in Bergson’s work metaphors are a necessary but temporary mediation, in Nietzsche’s philosophy they are much more involved. According to Nietzsche, philosophical discourse as a whole is metaphorical under its conceptual mask. Metaphors are used as a critical and eristic weapon, a hermeneutic tool for an archaeological deconstruction to reveal the moral unconscious purposes of metaphysics. He uses metaphors to make evident the metaphorical nature of philosophy and any attempt to reverse values and build a false, pure world beyond this world. This calls for a genealogical deconstruction of abstract, philosophical systems in order to reduce conceptual terms and propositional assertions to their metaphorical roots, a way to exhibit their meaning as symptoms of the great weakness of the ‘Will to power’. Understanding philosophical claims of a philosophical system supposes understanding the way it is linked to a singular physiological complexion in a particular context. Philosophical abstraction has to be interpreted as a symptom, as the way of holding onto life of an instinctive illness: ‘Even Socrates was tired of life’.57 Each philosophical mood must be related to an idiosyncrasy of the flesh, the blood, and the body of the philosopher. Nietzsche very often used feminine metaphors to emphasise the vanity of any attempt to catch the truth by conceptual means. Philosophers’ ‘will for truth’ conceals a more instinctive and idiosyncratic relationship between body and mind, physiology and consciousness; abstract ideas are hiding a vivid disgust for life. In the foreword of Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Nietzsche subverts a very traditional metaphor of truth as a goddess or woman to reveal less glorious motives:

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 63

 63

3/07/13 09:54

‘Supposing that truth is a woman – what then? Is there no ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women – that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself to be won’.58 This is not only a joke, in spite of what follows, (‘but to speak seriously [...]’), because in some later paragraphs Nietzsche uses this metaphorical topic to link philosophical systems to a subliminal fear of femininity, and thus fear of life itself, in the work of some of the highest representatives of philosophy: ‘The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-ways that lead (more correctly mislead) to his “categorical imperative” – makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find no small amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical preachers’.59 More precisely, he is making the same diagnosis about Spinoza’s system more geometrico: ‘Or still more so, the hocus-pocus of mathematical form, by means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail and mask – in fact, the “love of his wisdom” to translate the term fairly and squarely – in order thereby to strike terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance at that invincible maiden, that Pallas Athene: how much personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray’.60 This case displays the greatest tension between a highly speculative and abstract way of exposing philosophy as purely systematic thinking and the greatest weakness of flesh and vulnerability of temper. The more a philosopher excludes from her philosophical discourse a singular voice or an emotional or affective touch, the more she is committing a shameful confession. Metaphors, if interpreted with a suspicious eye, are the sign and symptom of this avowal. Nietzsche turns this idea into a general rule by means of an organic meta-metaphor: ‘It has gradually become clear to me that what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of – namely – the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown’.61

64

Metaphors.indb 64

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphorical reading of philosophical texts is the only way to understand them and their belonging to art, even if metaphors are drastically expelled from a more geometrico kind of exposure: ‘Great uncertainty as to whether philosophy is an art or a science. It is an art in its purposes and its production. But the means, i.e. representation in concept, it has in common with science (...) Heraclitus can never become obsolete. It is a poetic creation beyond the limits of experience, the continuation of the mythical drive (mythischer Trieb). Also essentially in images. Mathematical representation is not part of the nature of the philosopher’.62 This critical and hermeneutical use of metaphors as symptoms is a negative one, yet there is also a positive use that irrigates Nietzsche’s writing and is a mark of his philosophical style. This positive use is prophetic and a means to the expression of new values. The new philosopher fighting against the ‘ascetic ideal’ cannot dwell on conceptual and systematic language and can only draw the features of the new world beyond the nihilist one by way of figurative devices such as images, metaphors, short tales, and aphorisms. One of the best examples of a complete metaphorical sketch of this kind is found in paragraph 343 of The Gay Science. It evokes God’s death by imitating the rhetoric of prophetical discourses: the prophetic philosopher first imagines some kind of an apocalypse: ‘Some kind of sun seems to have set… who would guess enough of it today to play the teacher and herald of this monstrous logic of horror, the prophet of deep darkness as an eclipse of the sun the like of which has probably never before existed on earth’.63 This metaphorical topic of light fall subverts and inverts the Platonist enlightening process towards truth, being symbolised by the sun. This main topic is completed by building images, metaphors of destruction: ‘how much must collapse because it was built on this faith (...) demolition, destruction, downfall, upheaval that now stand ahead (...)’64 The second part of this fragment conveys the reader to share the point of view of the few who are able to face this darkening. The prophet of values’ transvaluation converts the darkness of this ‘God’s twilight’ and the subsequent ‘shadows that must soon envelop Europe’ in a motive of joy and amazement (gaya scienza) because they are aware that God’s death is a chance to see a ‘new and barely describable type of light’. The difficulty about describing this new kind of light is expressed by the oxymoric: ‘feel illuminated by a new dawn’. This luminous topic is translated in the dramatic scenery of a wide-open sea: ‘the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such an “open sea”’.65 Metaphors are not only a destructive device against the fallacious claims of philosophy and metaphysics; they also convey a new way of making philosophy by means of the creative power of poetic and figurative language. The philosopher thinks

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 65

 65

3/07/13 09:54

of herself as an artist. They make the unpredictable indirectly predicable, as in an indirect way of predicating without predication, some kind of an ontological sliding relating vivid life to its representations. In a book devoted to Nietzsche’s use of metaphor, Sarah Kofman insists on the large scope of its use, in which style is not an external means to achieve philosophical expression of ideas, but part of the philosophical content itself: ‘Nietzsche’s use of metaphors is not rhetorical but strategic: it expresses a sérieux redoutable. It doesn’t only consist of a new treatment of the form of philosophical discourse, but also of a complete subversion of its content. Its purpose is to erase the opposition between form and content, play and seriousness, imagination and intellect’.66

Kierkegaard’s feminine metaphors as a condition of philosophical writing Feminine topics are omnipresent in Kierkegaard’s philosophy; yet feminine presence is not only explicit as the object of a philosophical elaboration, but it is also the implicit condition of his philosophy. This implicit presence manifests itself in two different ways, on the one hand on the edge between autobiography and philosophical writing, on the other as a stylistic inner device. The way this subject is deeply involved in Kierkegaard’s writing should be related to the question of philosophical metaphors.67 The most obvious and explicit presence of women and feminine topics can be largely observed in the many chapters in which Kierkegaard attempts to understand anxiety or desperation. He relates self-consciousness to hereditary sin, sexual difference and desire by means of the story of Adam and Eve (Concept of Anxiety, Illness to Death). In Either/Or (Part II), in In Vino Veritas, and in The Repetition, seduction, first love and marriage are among the main topics at stake. Womanhood and femininity are fully explored and largely theorised in a general approach to human existence. Women are differently present in the three existential ‘moments’ delineated by Kierkegaard: aesthetic (see Diary of a Seducer), ethic and religious.68 The second presence of women is more structural and functions as the foundation of the philosophical scenography of Kierkegaard’s writing. In his writing, he takes a great care to address himself with a singular voice to a singular person made of flesh, emotions and intelligence, to an individual receiver. Under the unknown reader, in absentia or veiled under a mask, exists a real woman, even if she has mythical features. We find many direct addresses to the reader situated in the crowd (forewords, post scriptum, address to the reader, etc.), but in fact he always indirectly addresses Regine Olsen, the girl to whom he was engaged. Kierkegaard broke off their engagement as a voluntary renunciation or ‘sacrifice’. For the rest of his life, he attempted to justify and transform this act in order to achieve philosophical redemption. This renunciation, together with a previously darker and traumatic experience of his father’s sin, was a major influence on him becoming a writer, philosopher and preacher. But it also paints the picture of a special philosopher whose writings could also be those of a poet or novelist.

66

Metaphors.indb 66

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Secretly addressing her in an indirect confession, in a constant solicitude towards her whom he wants to become his secret follower, he hides his conscious strategy. Without any intention of a mundane resumption of their love affair, he wants to place this love under the paradoxical category of Repetition in the book of the same title. For this purpose, as a poet he uses polyphony, anonymity, and a profusion of characters and dramatis personae. The enunciative structures, the choice of textual genres and styles are framed from and for this secret wound, which in fact masks a much deeper sin (in fact a double sin, his father’s, for which he takes responsibility, and a secret one, of which we know nothing). From this personal event, which makes Regine une égérie littéraire,69 many features of Kierkegaard’s expression become intelligible. It induces him to put women and the feminine question at the centre of his preoccupations, or at least to give them great importance. Kierkegaard conducts a deep exploration of the various figures of existence, in which psychology and poetics are the servants of a philosophy of existence. This philosophy of existence is entangled in a poetic and psycho-logic theatre of thought. In contrast with Hegel, Kierkegaard’s choice of dramatis personae and characters avoids the systematic and abstract conceptual way of making philosophy. His slogan is ‘individuality is the truth’, and the concealed autobiographic motivations and preoccupations are omnipresent under various masks, which gives his passionate thinking the timbre of passion between lovers. This paradox of sublimated love as the root of philosophical writing,70 linked with the explicit investigations of feminine questions,71 has a less obvious stylistic consequence in the Kierkegaardian discourse: the deep implementation of feminine metaphors spread throughout his texts paired with philosophical analysis. This third mode of feminine implementation is intimately linked to the previous two, and plays on some kind of metaphorical obsession. Feminine metaphors are employed for any philosophical subject, and even for love and the female condition (some feminine metaphors deal with women and womanhood). These metaphores obsédantes, to paraphrase Richard speaking about Baudelaire,72 result in the discrete presence of femininity throughout the text. This is not perceptible at first glance; one must read the same book again and again to progressively become aware of this singularity in the repartition of a metaphorical topos. There are actually many metaphorical topics transferred to many philosophical themes, and a quantitative or technical inventory might help to make the hypothesis of an ‘irregular’ use of feminine metaphors a salient fact.73 The number of feminine metaphors seems superior to an average ratio if compared with other metaphoric topics. At times it is rather strange to come across a serious question of existential psychology intertwined with some light and funny metaphors dwelling on love or women.74 But if we look beyond aesthetics or style, and consider their use as a discursive operation, we become aware that they are not contingent but related to some philosophical considerations.  These metaphors are more striking when they are metaphorising a crucial philo­ sophical topic. For instance, in a darker mood, Kierkegaard uses the features of passion to metaphorise the paradox of thinking.75 We can observe a metaphorical

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 67

 67

3/07/13 09:54

feminisation of thought in chapter III of Philosophical Fragments, which is devoted to the ‘Absolute Paradox’: ‘This seems to be a paradox (in Socrates the link between his monstrosity and his proximity with god). However, one should not think slightly of the paradoxical; for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity. But the highest pitch of every passion is always to will its own downfall. And so it is also the supreme passion of the Reason to seek a collision, though this collision must in one way or another prove its undoing’.76 If paradox is like passion (passion of thinking, i.e. thinking as a form of existence, i.e. as a form of passion), the metaphorical properties of passion are transferred to the paradox itself; metaphor becomes like a paradigm or an extended comparison to make obvious that we must accept the risk of loss, in thinking as in living, to achieve the climax of existence and reach eternity. The metaphorisation of anxiety with feminine topics is fully used in The Concept of Anxiety and can be observed in an aphoristic form: ‘Anxiety is a feminine weakness in which freedom faints. Psychologically speaking, the fall into sin always takes place in weakness’.77 The device becomes more strange when, for example, he states that we are propelled towards self-consciousness by anxiety: ‘At this point, anxiety is at its highest level. Repentance has lost its mind, and anxiety is potentiated into repentance. The consequence of sin moves on; it drags the individual along like a woman whom the executioner drags by the hair while she screams in despair’.78 A similar ‘dragging’ is put differently elsewhere: ‘For him, anxiety becomes a serving spirit that against its will leads him where he wishes to go’.79 In the previous examples, the metaphorical topic of love, passion, and women was strictly located in a restricted textual segment, even if displayed in various textual locations. In Repetition, we can find a much more developed and complex metaphorisation. Like in a paradigmatic sequence, clothing, ages of life, and feminine types are employed to characterise ‘love by repetition’ as the only true love. This metaphorical construction is stylistically disturbing if not frankly confusing and outrageous from a feminist point of view. We cannot help but be struck by this stylistic event, which is not only stylistic. Here women are being enslaved in a male perspective on love: ‘Hope is a new garment, stiff and starched and lustrous, but it has never been tried on, and therefore one does not know how becoming it will be or how it will fit. Recollection is a discarded garment that does not fit, however beautiful it is, for one has outgrown it. Repetition is an indestructible garment that fits closely and tenderly, neither binds nor sags. Hope is a lovely maiden who slips away between one’s fingers; recollection is a beautiful old woman with whom one is never satisfied at the moment;

68

Metaphors.indb 68

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

repetition is a beloved wife of whom one never wearies, for one becomes weary only of what is new’.80 To explain the difference between the plain mode of remembrance and the strict repetition of the same, Kierkegaard dwells on a tryptical philosophical and ‘psychological’ distinction: ‘hope’ (hope for a future), ‘reminding’, or ‘remembrance’, and the enigmatic ‘repetition’.81 These three items are fully metaphorised by a triple metaphorical topic/ theme: ages of life, kind of clothes, and type of woman: Existential categories Metaph. topic 1 (Ages)

Metaph. topic 2 (Clothes)

Reminding

Worn cloth

Hope

Youth

Repetition

Middle age

Old age

Metaph. topic 3 (Women)

New bright cloth

Young girl

Everlasting cloth

Beloved wife

Old woman

To extend this investigation we should mention the special status Kierkegaard gives to the existential and biographical category of a ‘young maiden’: not adolescent nor in sexual interplay with a man, nor married nor mother, but neither an innocent child. We might link this analysis to the repartition of gender difference in the three existential moods, and cross it with the Kierkegaardian inversion of the Platonico-Socratic homosexuality in philosophical relationships, dealing here with the relationship between man (the seducer, the husband, the philosopher) and woman (charmed and forsaken, fully married or a secret disciple).82 These feminine metaphors transform and feminise Kierkegaard’s philosophical writing. They are the prolongation of the structural presence/absence of Regine as the secret, lost love and addressee aimed at in the fabric of his books, like a retour du refoulé of this unachieved love that is still alive, indeed transformed by time and ‘repetition’. Biographical substructures of the philosophical search and writing on the one hand, philosophical topics on existence, individual life, and sentiments about women and love on the other, both converge and contribute to this metaphorical ‘swarming’ of femininity in Kierkegaard’s philosophical works.

To conclude I argue that metaphors are objects of analysis in philosophy as in any kind of language. Philosophy seems to pose some specific problems, in contrast with ordinary language, literature or technical language. Philosophers are supposed to be aware of what they do when using metaphors and able to control and justify this use in their own philosophical categories. This is the root of the difficulty: the question of metaphor is a

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 69

 69

3/07/13 09:54

philosophical problem in itself. The history of philosophy, postmodern deconstruction, and hermeneutics hardly manage to solve this question. Philosophers are too aware and simultaneously not really conscious of their use of metaphors, and philosophical theory on metaphors doesn’t exempt itself from its philosophical choices. This said, we are no more satisfied with non-philosophical theories of metaphor. They can hardly achieve the goal, as they are not fully aware of their own philosophical presuppositions, nor able to explain the specific inner purposes fulfilled by metaphors in philosophy. My hypothesis is that these paradoxes ask for a new perspective. Philosophical texts and speeches aren’t static deposits of thoughts, theses, formulae or metaphors; they are vivid calls made by active thinkers aiming at expression, and claiming manifold re-appropriation of their philosophical acting by real and virtual readers; common people, students, colleagues, enemies, eventually scholars commenting on discourse under the charity principle, and to a larger extent posterity. Discourse analysis offers some appropriate tools for such an investigation. Empirical data, accurately observed and described, are framed in a theoretical model that endeavours to gain philosophical interpretation. This change of perspective leads us to emphasise the process of metaphorisation, rather than to exhibit metaphorical static fields (structural synchronic analysis of a set of metaphors) or metaphorical transformations in time (historical evolution of a single or of a close metaphor family). I have focused my attention on the actual use of metaphors in precise philosophical works, which I considered are the origin of a vivid activity deeply embedded in social life and institutions. Bergson, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, who philosophically justify metaphorical dominance, make metaphors a privileged mediation towards ‘truth’ or ‘being’. Metaphorisation is not a simple stylistic or rhetorical servant, but a multi-target philosophical means. When looking at Nietzsche’s and Kierkegaard’s metaphorisation, we discovered a deep link between their use of feminine metaphors and their ambiguous position towards women. Not only does this revisit the definition of philosophy, but it also subverts the philosophical status given to gender difference and feminine ontological status. Derrida and Rorty took on this challenge – a way to illustrate the philosophical efficiency of metaphor’s use – and passed it on to feminist philosophers. This attention paid to details and micro-textual analysis doesn’t prevent us from searching for more general features of the philosophical use of metaphors. We can assess what metaphors are used for, by investigating their function in the philosophical process. A cluster of functions defines metaphorical styles, but combinations are much more complex than this characterisation leads us to expect. We noticed more or less necessary links between the use of metaphors and meta-metaphorical considerations explicit or hidden in a theory of language, imagination or philosophy. Reluctance towards metaphors goes with a strict control and a weak implementation in philosophical analysis, combined with ornamental or not absolutely necessary functions, like persuasive, didactic, or perhaps heuristic. A deeper inscription in the philosophical

70

Metaphors.indb 70

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

game defines a pragmatic, critical, and hermeneutic use, in which metaphors are more involved in the philosophic process. At the other end of the spectrum, epistemic and ontological functions, eventually mixed with others, open a large, intensive and extensive range of directions for using metaphors. Under this predominance regime, metaphors have to play a crucial role in the special discursive knot, where the expressive form and the speculative schemes exchange their features: metaphors, a special crossing, where to reverse one in the other. For Kierkegaard, writing philosophy is ipso facto using metaphors (with other figurative devices) in order to frame existence into ‘psychological’ categories, and conversely, poetic metaphorisation is a way to give some concrete, prototypical yet individual features to existential analysis. More generally speaking, philosophical metaphors can be considered either as useful tools in a philosophical workshop, or the extreme opposite, as part of a philosophical language game, if not the philosophical language game itself.

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 71

 71

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Aristotle (1926). Art of Rhetoric, transl. J.H. Freese (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Aristotle (1933-1935). Metaphysics, transl. H. Tredennick (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press, 2 vols Aristotle (1957). On the Soul. Parva Naturalia. On Breath, transl. W.S. Hett (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Aristotle (1995). Poetics, transl. S. Halliwell – Longinus. On the Sublime, transl. W.H. Fyfe – Demetrius. On Style, transl. D.C. Innes (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Bergson, H. (1911). ‘Propos recueillis par Jacques Morland’, l’Opinion, 19 août 1911, in Ecrits philosophiques d’Henri Bergson, ed. F. Worms, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, vol. 3 Bergson, H. (1913). ‘An Introduction to Metaphysics’, transl. T.E. Hulme, London, Macmillan & Co. Bergson, H. (1932). Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France Bergson, H. (1966a). ‘Une introduction à la métaphysique’, in Idem, La pensée et le mouvant, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France (Collection Quadrige) (19341) Bergson, H. (1966b). ‘L’intuition philosophique’, in Idem, La pensée et le mouvant, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France (Collection Quadrige) (19341) Bergson, H. (1966c). ‘Le possible et le réel’, in Idem, La pensée et le mouvant, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France (Collection Quadrige) (19341) Bergson, H. (2007). ‘An Introduction to Metaphysics’, transl. T.E. Hulme, ed. J. Mullarkkey – M. Kolkman, Basingstoke, Hampshire, Palgrave – Macmillan Black, M. (1962). Models and Metaphors, Ithaca, Cornell University Press

72

Metaphors.indb 72

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Black, M. (1979). ‘More about metaphor’, in A. Ortony ed., Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Blumenberg, H. (1998). Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Frankfurt, Surkamp Blumenberg, H. (2006). Paradigmes pour une métaphorologie, transl. D. Gamellin, Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin Bordron, J.-F. (1998). ‘Bergson et les images. L’icônicité de la pensée dans ‘Le possible et le réel’’, in Cossutta (1998b), pp.159-182 Charbonnel, N. − Kleiber, G. (1999). La métaphore entre philosophie et rhétorique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France Cossutta, F. (1995). ‘Pour une analyse du discours philosophique’, in L’Analyse du discours philosophique, Langages n°119, pp. 12-39 Cossutta, F. (1998a). ‘L’analyse du discours philosophique’, in Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle, vol. IV, Le discours philosophique, dir. J.-F. Mattei, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 1792-1810 Cossutta, F. (1998b). ‘L’oeuvre philosophique de Bergson : une création continue d’imprévisible nouveauté?’, in F. Cossutta ed., Lire Bergson : ‘Le possible et le réel’ (Librairie du Collège International de Philosophie), Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 49-100 Cossutta, F. (2003). ‘Dialogic Characteristics of Philosophical Discourse: the Case of Plato’s Dialogues’, in Philosophy and Rhetoric 36, pp. 48-76 Derrida, J. (1972). ‘La mythologie blanche. La métaphore dans le texte philosophique’, in Idem, Marges de la philosophie, Paris, Editions de Minuit, pp. 247-324 (first in Poétique, n°5, 1971) Derrida, J. (1973). ‘La question du style’, in Nietzsche aujourd’hui?, vol. 1, Intensités, Paris, Union Générale d’Editions (Collection 10/18), pp. 235-299 Derrida, J. (1974). ‘White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy’, transl. F.C.T. Moore, New Literary History 6, pp. 5-74 Derrida, J. (1978). Eperons. Les styles de Nietzsche, Paris, Champs Flammarion

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 73

 73

3/07/13 09:54

Derrida, J. (1979). Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles, transl. B. Harlow, Chicago, University of Chicago Press Derrida, J. (1987). Heidegger et la question. De l’esprit et autres essais, Paris, Champs Flammarion Giolito, C. (1993). ‘Les raisons du cœur: lectures de la relation de Comte à Clotilde’, in Romantisme 82, pp. 31-44 Gouvard, J.-M. (1995). ‘Les énoncés métaphoriques’, in Critique n° 574 (mars 1995), pp.180-202 Green, K. (2005). ‘Philosophy and Metaphor: The Significance of Christine’s Blunders’, in Parergon 22, pp. 119-136 Hadot, P. (19872). Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, Paris, Etudes Augustiniennes Hegel, G.W.F. (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit, transl. A.V. Miller, Oxford, Clarendon Press Joly, H. (1988). ‘La philosophie comme métaphore’, in La métaphore (Recherches sur la philosophie et le langage 9), Grenoble, Université des Sciences Sociales de Grenoble, pp. 8-31 Kierkegaard, S. (1981). The Concept of Anxiety. A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, ed. & transl. R. Thomte, collaboration A.B. Anderson, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press Kierkegaard, S. (1983). Fear and Trembling. Repetition, ed. & transl. H.V. Hong − E. Hong, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press Kierkegaard, S. (1985/1987). Philosophical Fragments. Originally translated and introduced by D. Swenson. New introduction and commentary by N. Thulstrup. Translation revised and commentary translated by H.V. Hong, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press Kofman, S. (1972). Nietzsche et la métaphore, Paris, Payot Léon, C. − Walsh, S. eds (1997). Feminist Interpretations of Sören Kierkegaard, University Park, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press

74

Metaphors.indb 74

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Lhomme, A. (1998). ‘Formuler l’informulable : analyse d’un paradoxe pragmatique’, in F. Cossutta (1998b), pp.101-130 Lorentzen, M.J. (2001). Kierkegaard’s Metaphors, Macon Georgia, Mercer University Press Louis, P. (1945). Les métaphores de Platon, Paris − Grenoble, Les Belles Lettres Maingueau, D. ed. (1995). Les analyses du discours en France, Langages n° 117, Paris Margel, S. (2006). ‘La métaphore, de la langue naturelle au discours philosophique’, Gilles Deleuze l’intempestif, Revue Descartes n° 52 Monod, J.-C. (2007). ‘La mise en question contemporaine du paradigme aristotélicien et ses limites’, in Interpréter la métaphore. Archives de philosophie 70, Cahier 4, pp. 535-558 Nietzsche, F. (1872-1875). Das Philosophenbuch. Theoretische Studien (1872-1875). Nietzsches Werke, GOA, Leipzig, Kröner Nietzsche, F. (1909). Beyond Good and Evil. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. O. Levy, vol. 5 Nietzsche, F. (1990). ‘The problem of Socrates’, in Twilight of the Idols and the Antichrist, transl. R.J. Hollingdale, London, Penguin Books Nietzsche, F. (2007). The Gay Science, ed. B. Williams, transl. J. Nauckhoff, New York, Cambridge University Press Nietzsche, F. (2009). Writings from the Early Notebooks, ed. R. Geuss − A. Nehamas, transl. L. Löb, New York, Cambridge University Press Pepper, S. (1982). ‘Metaphor in Philosophy’, in The Journal of Mind and Behavior 3, nos. 3-4, summer/autumn Platon (1976). Théétète. Oeuvres Complètes, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, vol. VIII, 2 Plato (2001). Alcibiades, ed. N. Denyer, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Richard, J.-P. (1955). Poésie et profondeur, Paris, Editions du Seuil Ricoeur, P. (1975). La métaphore vive, Paris, Editions du Seuil

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 75

 75

3/07/13 09:54

Ricoeur, P. (1978). Rule of Metaphor. Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, transl. R. Czerny − K. McLaughlin − J. Costello, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul Rodrigo, P. (1988). ‘L’ euphorie de la langue. Sur le statut aristotélicien de la métaphore’, in La métaphore ( Recherches sur la philosophie et le langage 9), Grenoble, Université des Sciences Sociales de Grenoble, pp. 73-90 Titli, C. (2009). ‘Particularité de la maïeutique socratique : la métaphore de Socrate accoucheur dans le Théétète de Platon’, in Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé 2009 (2), pp. 81-97 Van Brabandt, P. (2008). Social Morality in the Second Enquiry: Hume’s Philosophy and Rhetoric, PhD diss., University of Antwerp Zavidil, J. (2006). ‘New Metaphor Theories: Implications for Interpretation’, South Political Science Association

Endnotes 1

Call for papers for the Antwerp symposium on Metaphors in Philosophy.

2

Blumenberg (1998); Blumenberg (2006).

3

Analytic philosophy: Black (1962), Black (1979); rhetorics and linguistics: Charbonnel – Kleiber

4

Derrida (1974), p. 18: ‘Instead of venturing here on prolegomena to some future metaphorics, let

(1999), Gouvard (1995).

us rather attempt to recognize the conditions which make it in principle impossible to carry out such a project’. Translated from Derrida (1972), p. 261: ‘Au lieu de risquer ici les prolégomènes à quelque

métaphorologie future, essayons plutôt de reconnaître en son principe la condition d’impossibilité

d’un tel projet’. 5

Ricoeur (1978), p. 303 begins with a semantic investigation, connected with an hermeneutic

point of view whose climax is an ontological subversion of the referential postulate (‘postulat de

référence’): ‘One can imagine a hermeneutic style in which interpretation would conform both to

the notion of concept and to the constitutive intention of the experience seeking to be expressed in the metaphorical mode’. Ricoeur (1975), p. 383: ‘On peut concevoir un style herméneutique dans

lequel l’interprétation répond à la fois à la notion du concept et à celle de l’intention constituante

de l’expérience qui cherche à se dire sur le mode métaphorique’. But in fact the benefit of this

76

Metaphors.indb 76

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

ontological enlightenment is devoted to a ‘speculative discourse’, which in itself is not so different from traditional metaphysics: Ricoeur (1975), p. 382.

6

I tried to show this in Cossutta (1998a), first section: ‘Herméneutique ou déconstruction?’, pp.

1793-1797.

7

Cossutta (1995), pp. 12-38.

8

Hadot (19872). For an identification of the ‘dialogic pact’ and its rules in Plato’s dialogues, see

9

I tried to show how Spinoza offers several ‘reading strategies’ in his deductive exposition of

Cossutta (2003).

metaphysics in order to help the pupil progress and become himself the ‘author’ of the text he is

reading: Cossutta (1995), pp. 29-38. 10

I am leading for many years a research team on this topic (GRADPhi, Groupe de Recherche sur l’Analyse du Discours Philosophique), first at the Collège International de Philosophie, and now

at Université Paris Est-Créteil Val de Marne. 11

Discourse Analysis undergoes a lot of linguistic or textual analysis at Dutch and Anglo-Saxon

12

Cossutta (2003).

13

14

Universities but also at a specific school in France, see for instance Maingueau (1995).

See below how Nietzsche subverts the classical metaphors on sun and sunset in paragraph 343 of

The Gay Science: Nietzsche (2007).

In this paper we don’t provide any technical criterion concerning the differences between comparison, analogy, images and metaphors, nor between metaphors and concepts. But our insistence on their mixing in textual contexts doesn’t discharge us from looking at such criteria, if we accept in principle

that such a difference between concept and metaphor exists. But this depends on a philosophical

choice concerning the general status of metaphors, as we will see later on. 15

See below an obvious example in Bergson’s work.

16

We will observe below a strange analogy between philosophers’ misogynist arguments and their

17

Aristotle, Metaphysics A,1,980a21.

18

I follow Pierre Rodrigo’s indications: Rodrigo (1988).

reluctance towards using metaphors.

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 77

 77

3/07/13 09:54

19

Aristotle (1995), Poetics 4, 1448b 8.

20

Aristotle (1995), Poetics 21, 1457b 6-7.

21

Aristotle (1957), On the Soul: an axe in II 1, 412b12-17.

22 Ibid., I 3, 406a4-10. 23

Titli (2009); Louis (1945).

24

Hegel (1977), § 463.

25

See the proemium of this dialogue and all the shorter segments, which here and there interrupt the analytical and argumentative development. They discuss their personal relationship, and we can

collect these interplays to reconstruct a complete narrative: a story going from seduction to philia, from philia towards true love and in the end, the contemplation in each other’s soul’s eye. See

Cossutta (2003). 26

That is obvious in Meno 81A-D where, in front of a philosophically weakly minded pupil, Socrates uses the voices of hiereis and hiereiai, religious women or men or poets to introduce the reminiscence

theory. 27

But things are not so simple, as H. Joly (1988) explains, maintaining that in Plato’s works there are

‘metaphorisations without metaphorology’.

28

For a recent summing up of contemporary arguments against the Aristotelian tradition, see Monod

29

Derrida (1972); Derrida (1974).

30

For a survey on Hume’s use of metaphors, see Van Brabandt (2008).

31

For a synthesis see Zavadil (2006).

32

This does not mean that there is no reference to femininity, sexual difference, desire, or love; rather

(2007).

they are evoked in an indirect or denying way. The manner in which love is driven into the backyard

of philosophy can be fully observed in Bergson (1932), pp. 38-39. Concerning Heidegger’s forgetting of sexual difference, see note 49. 33

78

Metaphors.indb 78

‘La durée’, a term difficult to translate, evokes some qualitative flowing of a consciousness’ inner time. I follow Hulme who chooses to translate this as ‘duration’.

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

34

Following a lecture at Oxford University (1911), an English translation was made in 1913: ‘An

Introduction to Metaphysics’, Bergson (1913), pp. 8-16. Our quotations are from this edition. For a more recent English edition, see for example Bergson (2007). This lecture (‘Une introduction à la

métaphysique’) is available in French in a series of collected papers, Bergson (1966a), pp. 177-227.

35 Ibid., p. 9. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., p. 10. 38

Bergson (1913), p. 9. The English translation uses comparative terms; the French is more directly metaphorical: ‘C’est, si l’on veut, le déroulement d’un rouleau (…) Mais c’est tout aussi bien un

enroulement continuel, comme celui d’un fil sur une pelote, car (...)’ (Bergson [1966a], p. 183). 39

Bergson (1913), Ibid.

40 Ibid., p. 11. 41 Ibid., p. 12. 42 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 43

‘Le possible et le réel’, Bergson (1966c), p. 101.

44

We translate: ‘Une création continue d’imprévisible nouveauté qui semble se poursuivre dans

l’univers’, in Bergson (1966c), p. 99. On that topic and the way Bergson uses metaphorical formulas, see Bordron (1998) and Lhomme (1998).

45

And this is convenient for his philosophy, see Cossutta (1998b).

46

As in ‘Philosophical Intuition’, Bergson (1966b), pp. 116-142.

47

We translate: ‘L’incommensurabilité entre son intuition simple et les moyens dont il disposait pour

48

We translate: ‘Ce que nous réussissons à ressaisir et fixer, c’est une certaine image intermédiaire entre la

49

See for example the way Derrida (1978) and (1979) emphasises a precise woman’s forgetting in

l’exprimer’.

simplicité de l’intuition et la complexité des abstractions qui la traduisent’. (Bergson [1966b], p. 120).

Heidegger’s commentary on a Nietzschean aphorism: ‘Différence sexuelle, différence ontologique

(Geschlecht 1)’, in Derrida (1987). We should also notice that some observers have underlined a

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 79

 79

3/07/13 09:54

relationship between Bergson’s metaphorical style and the particularly mild reception and appreciation by women of his Collège de France lectures, Bergson (1911).

50

This link (between the use of feminine metaphors, anti-systematic and anti-conceptual style, and

philosophical attention to women) is related to some historical context. This is not a general rule.

In Bergson’s work, as mentioned before, there are a lot of metaphors, but no particular references to women or femininity.

51

Note some differences and degrees between Nietzschean (or worse Shopenhauerian) apparently open misogyny (but remember also Derrida’s deconstruction and inversion of this position in

Spurs) and a much more complex and ambiguous Kierkegaardian attitude towards women and

femininity. Contemporary feminist readers of the Danish philosopher don’t agree on this question,

cf. Léon - Walsh eds (1997). See below our analysis of his feminine metaphors. 52

See his apology of marriage in Aut Aut, part II.

53

Green (2005), p. 132.

54 Ibid. 55

Derrida (1978), pp. 36-37: ‘Le titre retenu pour cette séance aura été la question du style. Mais − la

56

Men might also be credited with feminine writing in philosophy, when they assume their ‘becoming

femme sera mon sujet (…)’

woman’ like Kierkegaard does indirectly, or Derrida does more obviously. During his lecture on

Nietzsche at Cerisy’s 1972 symposium, he replies to a question: ‘J’ai dit ‘la femme (de) Nietzsche, ‘ la ‘femme Nietzsche’: au point où il affirme, à l’instant où il est, où il aime la femme affirmative, il écrit, si l’on peut dire ‘de main de femme’. M’avez-vous posé une question personnelle? J’aimerais bien écrire, aussi, comme (une) femme. J’essaie …’ (Derrida [1973], p. 229). Difficult to translate

from French, but let’s try: ‘I said ‘Nietzsche’s woman/Nietzsche as a woman’: when he asserts, at the moment when he is and when he loves the assertive woman, he writes, we could say ‘with a

woman’s hand’. Did you ask me a personal question? I would like to write as (a) woman. I try…’

This assertion should be viewed in the perspective of recent trends in feminist philosophy, which don’t agree with Derrida’s feminism.

57

Nietzsche (1990), p. 39.

58

Nietzsche (1909), Preface, Ibid., p. 7.

59 Ibid., § 5, p.10. But he is unaware that this is also a kind of an autobiographical confession concerning his own problems with women and femininity.

80

Metaphors.indb 80

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

60 Ibid. 61

Ibid., p. 10. We underline.

62

Nietzsche (2009), see the different texts without this title in Nachlass, KGW III, 4, 2, 1. Nietzsche,

63

Nietzsche (2007), p. 199.

English translation, Notebook 19, § 62, p. 112.

64 Ibid. 65 Ibid., end of § 343. 66

Kofman (1972), third cover (translation).

67

I have made several systematic tables showing the occurrence of feminine metaphors in some of Kierkegaard’s main works. I cannot explain here the methodological problems posed by this

investigation: how to define specific ‘feminine’ metaphors, how to delimit them and to emphasize the way they occur, etc. For another way of investigating this question, see Lorentzen (2001).

68

In this third moment, the problem of women and femininity is more difficult to understand, because

69

Like Clotilde de Vaux for A. Comte, see Giolito (1993).

70

We can understand ‘sublimation’ in a psychoanalytical sense; love is elusive in life but theoretically

71

The reverse is also true: existential figures and categorisations of the relationship between desire

sexual difference is progressively vanishing or transforming itself.

saved by fiction.

and fault, women and men, give sense to the autobiographical items.

72 Richard (1955). 73

It would not only require a list of metaphors’ extension and form/locus/metaphorical topos/metaphorised conceptual or analytical item or theme, but also the analysis of the metaphoric process

itself. I have made several inventories, for instance of Repetition and of The Concept of Anxiety, and found approximately fifteen feminine metaphorisations in each book.

74

We know the importance of irony in Kierkegaard’s philosophical practice.

75

It would be worth comparing with the greatest care the way Kierkegaard uses feminine metaphors in order to explain ‘thinking’ and ‘ideas’, with Nietzsche’s as partially explained above.

Frédéric Cossutta

Metaphors.indb 81

 81

3/07/13 09:54

76

Kierkegaard (1985/1987), Chapter III: The Absolute Paradox: A Metaphysical Crotchet, p. 46.

77

Kierkegaard (1981).

78 Ibid., p. 115. 79 Ibid., p. 159, the translation in French is ‘une servante invisible’, an invisible maid. 80

Kierkegaard (1983), p. 132.

81

Which in French is translated as ‘reprise.’

82

Gender and sexual difference are deeply rooted in Kierkegaard ontologico-existential matrix and their effect extends throughout his philosophy. The relationship between female and male is more

balanced than in Nietzsche (yet not in equality). This does explain that feminine items, topics or

schemes are more active in the work of the Danish philosopher.

82

Metaphors.indb 82

Discourse Analysis and Philosophical Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

Filip Buekens

Introduction

S

peaking metaphorically is a janus-faced speech act. Its use can be a source of unexpected insight and it is, as Thomas Hobbes pointed out, a lust of the mind to come to understanding-seeking knowledge, a lust he famously compared with ‘the short vehemence of carnal pleasure’.1 But in another sense, their use is essentially contestable because potentially misleading when an unintended reader or audience, or even the intended reader or author herself, does not always appreciate the cognitive consequences of speaking metaphorically. The case only worsens when literal and metaphorical use of words and concepts are mixed up in one complex explanatory narrative. A new way of seeing things may unintentionally result in a massive, persistent and glaring ‘un-insight’. The lust of the mind to come to understand things and to explain has its cognitive price. That is, I suggest, what happened when Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene, held that genes are selfish, and added, in one fell swoop, that ‘we should try to reach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish’.2 The full context in which the statement occurs is less known: ‘The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness (...) If you wish (...) to build a society in which individuals

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 83

 83

3/07/13 09:54

cooperate generously towards a common goal, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish’.3 But it is hard to see, in view of what he writes about the selfish gene in the rest of the book, how teaching generosity and altruism could be an effective antidote, given that the selfish nature of genes turns out to be a biochemical property of genes – they tend to faithfully reduplicate themselves, and it is at that level where the biological explanatory work is done. As James4 put it: the idea is that if you want to understand the workings of a big scandal, you follow the money. In biology, when you want to understand the mechanism of evolution, you follow the genes. But how could moral education undo the effects of a distinctive biochemical property of genes – to more or less faithfully reproduce themselves? Something must have gone wrong here. I explain the misunderstanding that Dawkins’ metaphor created with the help of theories of metaphors developed in cognitive linguistics. In section I the context of Dawkins’ book is briefly presented. In section II we sketch a model of how metaphors work and connect the source domain with the role of intentional and teleological concepts in evolutionary explanations. In Section III we defend puritanism with respect to teleological concepts and agentive metaphors in biology.5 ‘Liberalists’ like Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett often suggest that agentive metaphors are practically indispensible, given their heuristic value in contexts of discovery. What Ruse (in a review of Dawkins’ book) called the ‘most brilliant metaphor of the 20th century’ may also have been the most misleading one. I draw on recent work by Peter Godfrey-Smith to underwrite puritanism in evolutionary thinking.

The levels of selection controversy I begin with a brief sketch of the theoretical background of Dawkins’ book. In The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins tackled an important and still disputed issue in evolutionary theory. Ever since Darwin composed The Origin of Species, the ‘units of selection’-question has always been one of the most fundamental ones in evolutionary biology.6 In an evolutionary explanation of why the average speed in a zebra population has increased over time, or why the giraffe has a long neck, the unit of explanation, the ‘unit of selection’, if you want, is the organism; the differential survival and reproduction of individual zebras or giraffes causes evolutionary change from one generation to the next. Since the principles of evolution can be formulated independently from what they operate on, they will operate on any entity that exhibits ‘heritable variation in fitness’.7 Many entities satisfy these conditions, including families and groups, and, looking ‘downwards’, cells and genes. The ‘Gene’s Eye Point of View’ (not that genes have a point of view!) has its roots in the work of Hamilton,8 who was concerned

84

Metaphors.indb 84

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

with a problem that already bothered Darwin: how could altruism emerge in a system in which the ‘struggle for life’ was the motor behind evolution? Animals that behave altruistically have lower fitness than their selfish counterparts, and yet we observe altruism in many animals. Hamilton’s solution was that if altruism was directed at close relatives, as the altruism of parents to children, and of animals in general to their offspring, the fact that children and offspring share genes with their parents would clarify everything: we need not explain the effect of the altruism-gene(s) on the agent herself, but also on the agent’s direct relatives. Hamilton found out that the condition required for a gene to spread in a population, was that (Hamilton’s Law) (b/c)r > 1 Where c denotes the (biologically describable) cost incurred by the altruist, b denotes the benefit (idem) enjoyed by the recipient and r is the coefficient of relatedness between donor and recipient.9 Hamilton’s law could only be precisely formulated after it was discovered that the gene was the main (and perhaps only) carrier of hereditary material. All the pro’s and con’s of reductionist strategies in science apply to this approach, but that is not the main target of our discussion. Richard Dawkins further developed this gene-centric approach, stressing that the real question was not how an individual benefits from certain traits or behaviour, but how the frequency of a gene that underlies the trait is affected. From the gene’s perspective, altruistic behaviour is a strategy ‘devised’ by a ‘selfish’ gene, with a view to ‘ensure’ its future ‘propagation’. The concepts between quotes are clearly teleological ones, but as there is no teleology in nature – evolution is a notoriously blind process – what is the function of these metaphors? Genes are not really selfish, and they do not ‘look at the future’. They even lack ‘a point of view’, which Okasha is very clear about: the gene’s point of view is ‘a powerful heuristic for thinking about evolution’.10 In presenting the gene as selfish, Dawkins availed himself of a concept that plays a key role in another, and related, field of Darwinian evolutionary theory. According to the theory of natural selection, behaviour that serves to increase an individual’s fitness will be favored over behaviour which decreases that individual’s fitness. Given that cooperative behaviour tends to result in an individual’s fitness being lower than it would have been had it acted otherwise, how is it that cooperative behaviour is possible, and persists over time? We do not have to answer this fundamental question to see how the concept of selfishness (and its counterpart: altruistic behaviour) is used in this context in a quite literal way: why are we not more selfish than we actually are? If you offer a narrative, or (even more ambitiously) develop a scientific model that deals with this key problem, you will eventually end up telling a story about levels of selection and genes (particularly if Dawkins’ theory of the gene as the ultimate level of selection is right). But such a narrative, involving selfish genes and selfish actions

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 85

 85

3/07/13 09:54

and choices, becomes a hermeneutic time-bomb: why shouldn’t its ‘selfishness’ not be conceptually or causally connected with human, manifest selfish behaviour, or even more provocatively, be the basic condition for human selfish behaviour? Reread some of Dawkins’ original quotes, and you will see the hermeneutic mess created by what initially seemed to be an innocent metaphor: ‘Our genes made us. We animals exist for their preservation and are nothing more than their throwaway survival machines. The world of the selfish gene is one of savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit’. And in The Selfish Gene: ‘Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour’. The problem with Dakwins’ choice of the word ‘selfish’ in characterizing a fascinating biochemical property of genes – that they replicate themselves – and its manifest counterparts – selfish and altruistic actions and choices in humans (and perhaps other higher animals) is that the former designates a natural phenomenon that can be scientifically described in terms of biochemical properties (‘selfish gene’ is a natural kind term), whereas the latter designate, as Michael Tomasello11 has stressed, not a single behavioural phenomenon but a pattern of styles of interaction that benefit others. A behaviour qualifies as helping if it is an altruistic act that provides instrumental service; informing someone involves the altruistic transmitting and sharing of information (telling the ignorant where the enemy is), and acts of sharing involve the transmission of physical goods (like food or instruments). It is a striking fact that helping, informing and sharing have different ontogenetic trajectories and rely upon different cognitive and affective systems,12 and there is also no sense in which the countless manifestations of altruism (and egoism!) among humans could be seen to ‘contradict’ a biochemical phenomenon. Just as our capacity to build and fly planes does not contradict the laws of gravity – in fact, it exploits those laws and countless other physical properties of our environment – so is there no interesting sense in which varieties of egoistic and altruistic actions should somehow be seen to ‘go against’ a fundamental biochemical feature of genes. Why was it so tempting to use the concept of selfishness, a manifest concept, drawn from common-sense psychology, to describe a biochemical property of genes (and perhaps the Kripkean essence of genes)? In the next section I’ll sketch a popular model of the cognitive function of metaphors. In section III I explain why the source domain, human agency, was so attractive: our sense of understanding a phenomenon

86

Metaphors.indb 86

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

does not always track the intrinsic quality of an explanation. Good explanations may not yield a sense of understanding, and we may have a sense of understanding without being offered a good explanation.

Background model: metaphor as transfer of properties From a cognitive-linguistic point of view, metaphor is the mental transfer of properties from one domain (the source domain) to another (the target domain) to create a new referential value: some of the term’s semantic properties are selected or abstracted and applied to another domain to designate a new entity by virtue of the properties considered shared by the two referents. The properties that are shared between the word’s original referent and the metaphorical referents are very abstract, but they constitute a semantic schema that is present throughout all the uses and which founds the semantic unity of the term. One speaks of metaphor when a shift takes place between one particular use, considered as fixing the primary meaning, and another, generally more abstract, through a process of selecting properties which are transferred from the primary domain to the other. However, it is not always easy to say exactly what the primary meaning was from which a schematic form was originally abstracted and then applied to another domain. It is probable that in certain cases the terms represent an abstract semantic schema from the start which is then applied to different domains: in this case, there would be no shift from a primary meaning to a metaphorical meaning, but from the beginning the word functions in various domains. As Lakoff & Johnson13 have shown, in metaphorical transfer one not only transports a ‘form’, but also the inferences linked to the properties of the form. This is an important feature of scientific vocabularies which have frequent recourse to it, notably because it makes it possible to take something as a basis for describing, naming and explaining something unknown. Erasing the purely heuristic value of the metaphor has considerable and often unintended consequences. Take a different example, the computer metaphor in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. Because of the computer model, human thought has been increasingly viewed as an autonomous system based on the manipulation of formal symbols (sentences in Mentalese, as Fodor would have it) which could be described in terms of logic and algebra. Consequently, everything that did not belong to the traditional domain (like emotions, perceptions, or experiences) was (unintentionally) removed from the picture. (What does an emotion represent? Do experiences have representational content that meshes with representations contents of beliefs?) The problem of meaning in cognitive science has thus unintentionally been reduced to the domain of information processing: how does it take place, where in the brain does it occur and what are its neural correlates? Signification was then treated as a stable product (information to be transmitted), given as input and transformed

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 87

 87

3/07/13 09:54

in a process. The initial metaphor had considerably impacted on our manifest image of the human mind – and the scientific model it supported (think of the enormous popularity of the ‘artificial intelligence’ research program). A critical discussion of the intriguing combination of the computer metaphor and the metaphor of information as source domain in evolutionary biology can be found in the work of Ernst Mayr,14 who has given the most detailed treatment of the concept of a genetic program. Mayr has invoked the program analogy in connection with his attempt to legitimate biologists’ use of ‘teleological’ or even ‘intentional’ concepts and language in biology. In order to avoid the connotations of conscious purpose and design in discussion of biological systems and processes, he advocated that biologists substitute the term ‘teleonomy’ and ‘teleonomic’ for the more traditional terms ‘teleology’ and ‘teleological’. But, as Mayr himself recognized, these new terms can only be effective if they have been purged of intimations of conscious purpose and design. Information theory is the parent discipline from which numerous concepts are borrowed in biology and socio-biology. This allows us to say, for example, that the DNA in a mammalian cell has a capacity of about 2 x 1010 bits of information, which is equivalent to about 100 sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica. But this is, notwithstanding its familiarity and its seductive exactness, still a metaphor: it is an account of the degree of genetic causation or control not on the basis of evidence concerning lawful generalisations that implicitly invokes intentional and/or prescriptive notions. Information is always information for someone, who can determine its content, interpret it and misinterpret it, but there is no-one out there to interpret genes or genetic information. That talk about information flow in genetics is inherently metaphorical is often forgotten: ‘Though we have known for many years how genetic systems worked, breaking the genetic code – the structure of the DNA molecule – allowed a rather hard-headed species to see with its own eyes how the life of an animal was controlled by facts of nature as comprehensible as a computer program. The genetic code is a program, and it is a way of transmitting a program from generation to generation’.15 Talk about how behaviour is ‘programmed’ by genes is distinctively metaphorical, and many critics of sociobiology have emphasized the excessive reliance that advocates of genetic determinism have placed upon metaphorical ways of speaking. In the selfish gene-case the target domain are genes and the source domain are morally evaluable qualities of human actions. Why is that so? What explains the attractiveness of the gene as an agent harbouring selfishness? Before I explore that question, I consider a defender of the use of agentive and design metaphors in biology in general. Michael Ruse defends the use of design metaphors as follows: ‘We are faced (in the case of living organisms) with what we have been calling, in as neutral a way as possible, organized complexity. (…) Whatever

88

Metaphors.indb 88

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

you call it, this complexity allows for and indeed calls for understanding in human terms of intentionality, of purpose, of design. (...) for the Darwinian, the heart is made through natural selection, but we continue, metaphorically, to understand it as made by humans’.16 The heuristic view of the use of metaphors (here applied to the central metaphor of design) holds that, as Paul Sheldon Davies puts it, ‘absent the metaphor we would fail to ask questions or formulate hypotheses that throw light on the causes of evolution’.17 And if we cannot help using the design stance, why throw it away? ‘Any other stance amounts to a denial of the kind of inquirer we are.’18 Use of design metaphors in biology has its origins in the design-stance, itself a component of the intentional stance. The term intentional strategy, like that of the intentional stance, was introduced by Daniel Dennett,19 and the design stance was itself legitimized in cultural practices like religious beliefs. Being the social creature we happen to be (a contingent, evolved property of humans) we make sense of each other and allow others to make sense of us in order to arrive at mutual understanding, and this with the goal of coordinating our actions, beliefs, intentions and desires when realizing shared projects: ‘The intentional stance is the strategy of interpreting the behavior of an entity (person, animal, artefact, whatever) by treating it as if it were a rational agent who governed its ‘choice’ of ‘action’ by a consideration of its ‘beliefs’ and ‘desires’ (...) The basic strategy of the intentional stance is to treat the entity in question as an agent, in order to predict – and thereby explain, in one sense – its actions or moves’.20 In making sense of each other, we attribute large patterns of contextually appropriate true beliefs and apt desires; false beliefs (we all have false beliefs, and the world can always lead us astray) are identified on a background of shared truths. Design metaphors and agentive thinking are not accidental heuristic tools, but part and parcel of our natural habit to see living things (and sometimes non-living things too!) as exemplifying agency. The intentional stance yields understanding, and is therefore essentially explanatory. What happens when concepts and cognitive habits that evolved to make sense of others and to make oneself understood by others overshoots? Researchers in the cognitive science of religion have pointed out that postulating hidden people and agents is the inevitable by-product of our chronic search for important agents in a world full of dangerous and unexpected events.21 The fact that this capacity often overshoots is itself quite useful (nature teaches us to be better safe than sorry). The illusion comes with its own distinctive phenomenology. Consider how William James experienced the San Francisco earthquake when he visited Stanford University in 1906:

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 89

 89

3/07/13 09:54

‘I personified the earthquake as a permanent invidual entity (...) Animus and intent where never more present in any human action, nor did any human activity ever more definitely point back to a living agent as its source and origin. All of whom I consulted on the point agreed as to this feature in their experience, “It expressed intention”, “It was vicious”, “It was bent on destruction”, “It wanted to show its power” (...) For science (...) earthquake is simply the collective name of all the cracks and shakings and disturbances that happen. They are the earthquake. But for me the earthquake was the cause of the disturbances, and the perception of it as a living agent was irresistible. It had an overpowering dramatic convincingness’.22 James’ lucid self-observation shows that he is clearly aware of the real causes of the earthquake – the San Andreas Fault – and that his knowledge of the underlying geological mechanisms did not interfere with and did not prevent the way he personified the earthquake: his experience of hidden but real agency was in no way undermined by it, nor explained by it. There is, as philosophers would say, an explanatory gap between the tectonic causes and the feeling of agency caused by the experience of the quake. Willam James was, as Jean Piaget later observed, like all of us a ‘natural artificialist’.23 But we would definitely not make the mistake to think, as Cioffi points out, that someone who undertakes a seismological study of the San Andreas Fault ought to address himself to the question of what it is like to get caught up in an earthquake.24 Study of the geological phenomena would bear fruit independently of how or whether there was something it is like to experience an earthquake, and one would definitely be misled if one took the feeling of agency that was clearly a component of that experience – James’ sense of agency was activated by the quake – as a heuristic tool for seismological investigations. There is no connection between the sense of agency experienced during the quake and a model of the San Andreas Fault, and the experience doesn’t function as a heuristic tool that can later be dispensed with. Needless to add that there is no contemporary discussion among geologists about the role of agentive metaphors in their discipline. There is no Journal of Theoretical Geology in which conceptual wars are fought over the usefulness of design metaphors in the study of seismological phenomena. William James’ observations should be applied to the way we should investigate biological and evolutionary phenomena, and I recommend, contra Ruse and Dennett,25 a sense of conceptual puritanism. However deeply rooted in our own psychological make-up (Piaget’s artificialism, the false positives resulting from overapplication of the intentional stance) and in human cultural history (religious beliefs about the world and its ingredients as being created by deities), there is no reason to assume that these concepts are such that they are ‘necessary for the very existence of evolutionary theorizing’, as Ruse suggests. There is no need to believe in the practical necessity of a metaphor we know to be false, just as the sense of agency experiences by James and other was not necessary for the existence of seismological theorizing.26

90

Metaphors.indb 90

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

Trout and Gopnik27 suggest another reason for resisting metaphors in theorizing about evolution. The basic function of explanation is to increase our understanding of the world, but understanding can either designate an objective phenomenon, for example a more complete grasp of causal relations and a more unified belief system, or designate the subjective sense of a feeling of understanding that comes with satisfactory explanations. For Gopnik, the subjective sense of understanding is functionally similar to that of an orgasm: a rewarding experience that occurs in conjunction with an activity that enhances our reproductive success. But just as orgasms and reproductive success can come apart, we may enjoy the feeling of having understood something without there being real understanding. The desire to understand is easily satisfied by intentional explanations, but no real understanding follows. Philospher J.D. Trout is skeptical about the indicative value of the subjective sense of understanding. He holds that overconfidence and hindsight (the tendency to believe that past events were more predictable than they were) create positive illusions about our explanatory abilities. The use of agentive metaphors in biology suggests another source of illusions of understanding: that we may think we understand a phenomonon, when we have redescribed it in terms of agentive forces that brought it about. Intellectual satisfaction gained from our capacity to redescribe entities in terms of purposes and intentions is not a sure sign of truth or understanding.28

Agentive metaphors and Darwinian paranoia Peter Godfrey-Smith recently pointed out that the use of agentive metaphors in evolutionary agentive narratives is not an innocent manoeuvre. Remnants of the pull of the intentional strategy and agentive thinking can be discerned in replicator approaches in evolutionary thinking29 which are ‘in many of its presentations, designed to mesh with an “agential” way of thinking about evolution, (in which) evolution is treated as a contest between entities that have purposes, strategies and agenda’s’.30 We have already seen that the agential perspective ‘engages a particular set of concepts and habits: our cognitive tools for navigating the social world’.31 Godfrey-Smith points out that Darwin’s achievement replaced older ways of thinking, which were based on (i) an essentialist model of organisms, (ii) the idea that species can be taken to be collectives of individuals that express a type, and (iii) a teleological outlook on biological phenomena. We focus on the third feature. For starters, it was vital to the Darwinian view that at least in biology an alternative style of thinking could be developed. Darwinian explanations do not occur naturally to us because we have a long cultural history of practical interacting with plants and animals and using them for our purposes, and perhaps also because there is, as Godfrey-Smith points out, ‘a premium on compact schemata and models with which we can impose order on (nature)’.32 Even in the absence of a role for some intelligent designer, a teleological

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 91

 91

3/07/13 09:54

mode of thinking seems unavoidable for our understanding of the mindless principles of evolution by random mutation and natural selection.33 But even staunch Darwinists tend to present their theories using agentive metaphors, and they often had to face misunderstandings of their key metaphors. The Dawkins/Midgley controversy in last century, for example, was to a large extent due to the fact that Dawkins, at strategic points in The Selfish Gene (the first and last pages of the book) connected the concept of the selfish gene – intended to be a technical term – with issues pertaining to egoism and altruism. Thereby, a narrative strategy developed that could work only if the very same signifier was given a reading or meaning that made it sensible to think of us, humans as fundamentally selfish. The notorious remark ‘Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish’34 suggested a non-technical, manifest reading of ‘selfish’, while the rest of the book explores genes as the ultimate level of selection; in that theory, the gene’s selfishness indicates that they only ‘care’ about replication (note how difficult it is to even describe this idea without using agential notions). Dawkins defended his use of the word ‘selfish’ with a Humpty-Dumpty Argument (‘My words have the meaning I intend them to have’): ‘Philosophers may object that this kind of definition loses most of the spirit of what is ordinarily meant by altruism, but philosophers, of all people, know that words may be redefined in special ways for technical purposes. In effect I am saying: “Provided I define selfishness in a particular way an oak tree, or a gene, may legitimately be described as selfish”. Now a philosopher could reasonably say: “I don’t like your definition, but given that you adopt it I can see what you mean when you call a gene selfish”. But no reasonable philosopher would say: “I don’t like your definition, therefore I shall interpret your statement as though you were using my definition of selfishness; by my definition your concept of the selfish gene is nonsense, therefore it is nonsense”. This is, in effect, what Midgley has done: “Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be jealous, elephants abstract or biscuits teleological” (p. 439). Why didn’t she add to this witty little list, for the benefit of quantum physicists, that fundamental particles cannot have charm?’ I find this reply unpersuasive. Of course, any signifier can be assigned an arbitrary meaning or given a new definition. The problem was the metaphor of selfishness, and how it was woven into a narrative in which the manifest concept of selfishness and its counterpart, altruism, had to interact with the technical concept in order to achieve the intended rhetorical effect. It is ironic that while Darwin’s main achievement was the introduction of a style of explanation which aimed at eliminating agentive thinking and theorizing about living beings, some of his most popular apologists who present themselves as staunch opponents of Intelligent Design, reintroduced powerful and potentially misleading metaphors that refer back to agentive thinking. But, as

92

Metaphors.indb 92

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

Godfrey-Smith adds, ‘the feeling that some particular way of looking at things yields understanding should not always be taken at face value, is not the end of the matter’.35 Peter Godfrey-Smith locates the attractiveness of the selfish gene model in the agential narrative that surrounds it. When positing an agent in an explanatory story, two explanatory schemata can be developed. The first he calls a paternalist scheme, whereby the explanation works because a large, benevolent agent is postulated. The agent intends that, as Godfrey-Smith puts it, ‘all is ultimately for the best’.36 Such explanations postulate gods and spirits, but Hegel’s Weltgeist would also be a good example. The second is the paranoid scheme, where the explainer postulates small, hidden powers and agents. Examples are Freud’s psychology (the unconscious as a realm full of forces that explain manifest emotions, but also the content of dreams), demonic possession narratives, and selfish genes and memes.37 Godfrey-Smith points out that the psychological appeal of such hypotheses ‘often far outruns their empirical warrant’ (idem), and the seductive narrative – seductive because it appeals to the intentional stance of the reader himself who has no problem understanding the metaphor – has a considerable psychological afterlife in the mind of its readers. We suggest that the force of the intentional strategy to create a feeling of insight and understanding (even when it overshoots) explains (but obviously doesn’t justify) this tendency.38 The paranoid scheme is especially attractive because human minds – a phenomenon intuitively regarded to be of the greatest importance – is by nature unobservable.39 Fuelled by this idea of the mind it is easy for us to imagine hidden controllers at work when we speculate about unobservable mechanisms. Godfrey-Smith argues that a style of selectionist thinking in biology that does not invite paranoia should be preferred – ‘the kind of investigation when someone asks: suppose a population was like this, and such-and such a mutation happened, what would happen to that population?’.40 Call this Puritanism about agentive concepts. Puritanism does not invite the idea of hidden agents and genes as ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ for the simple reason that the concepts employed in mathematical models of evolution are thin theoretical ones (‘population’, ‘mutation’) that have no ancestor life in our manifest image. Statistical correlations written out in complex mathematical models are mostly connotation-free statements. There is also a negative side to that approach. Theoretical concepts and mathema­ tical equations are all we need to explain how mutations occur, but it is not difficult to appreciate that except for those who are fully immersed in the language of the theory such formulas do not speak to us (outsiders) in terms we understand, they do not elicit an epistemic feeling of having understood things, although the mathematical models say everything there is to say about the subject matter. Concepts like ‘selfishness’, on the other hand, inevitably activate cognitive habits that are constitutive of the intentional strategy. Dawkins, in an attempt to avoid the cold language of theory and to appeal to our natural sense of understanding by using a powerful agentive metaphor, obviously overlooked the consequences of mixing, in one and the same narrative, the literal and metaphorical meaning of selfishness. Dennett, in a critical

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 93

 93

3/07/13 09:54

review of Godfrey-Smith’s book, correctly points out that opposition to agentialism was intended to avoid support for creationism, but perhaps a better reason to avoid agentive talk is to admit that the enabling conditions of evolution are, as evolutionists insist, anonymous biochemical processes, and nothing more than that. Using the cold language of biochemistry would certainly make it easier to avoid reductionist strategies in morality. Another difficulty in grasping theoretical concepts and mathematical models is that evolution is gradual, and processes that often extend over thousands of generations are extremely difficult for our kinds of mind to get a cognitive grip on. Both factors – the concepts and formulae that are free from connotations, and the gradual character of evolution (a important factor already noticed by Darwin as a source of resistance to the evolutionary hypothesis) – at least partly explain why evolutionary explanations freed from intentional concepts and metaphors do not easily yield the kind of epistemic satisfaction we expect from ‘really understanding’ a phenomenon. The real explanation – a naked formula which, if true, is probably a necessary truth about the biological realm – feels like a non-explanation and doesn’t yield the feeling of insight. But that is perhaps the most profound illusion.

94

Metaphors.indb 94

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Boyer, P. (2001). Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, New York, Basic Books Cioffi, F. (1998a). Wittgenstein on Freud and Frazer, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Cioffi, F. (1998b). Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience, Chicago, Open Court Davies, P.S. (2009a). ‘Conceptual Conservativeness: The Case of Normative Functions’, in U. Krohs – P. Kroes eds, Functions in Biological and Artifical Worlds, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, pp. 127-146 Davies, P.S. (2009b). Subjects of the World, Chicago, Chicago University Press Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene, Oxford, Oxford University Press Dawkins, R. (1981). ‘In Defense of Selfish Genes’, http://richarddawkins.net/articles/2341-in-defence-of-selfish-genes Dawkins, R. (1986). The Blind Watchmaker, New York, Norton Dawkins, R. (1998). Unweaving the Rainbow, London, Penguin Books Dennett, D. (1987). The Intentional Stance, Cambridge, MIT Press Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness Explained, Boston, Mass., Little, Brown & Co. Dennett, D. (1996). Kinds of Minds. Towards an Understanding of Consciousness, New York, Basic Books Dennett, D. (2011). ‘Homunculi Rule. Reflections on Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection by Peter Godfrey Smith’, in Philosophy and Biology 26, pp. 475-488 Farrell, J. (1996). Freud’s Paranoid Quest: Psychoanalysis and Modern Suspicion, New York, New York University Press Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Darwinian Population and Natural Selection, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 95

 95

3/07/13 09:54

Godfrey-Smith, P. (2011). ‘Agents and Acacias: Replies to Dennett, Sterelny and Queller’, in Philosophy and Biology 26, pp. 501-515 Gopnik, A. (1998). ‘Explanation as Orgasm’, in Mind and Machines 8, pp. 101-118 Guthrie, S. (2007). ‘Anthropological Theories of Religion’, in M. Martin ed., The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Hamilton, W.D. (1964). ‘The Genetic Evolution of Social Behaviour I-II’, in Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, pp. 1-16, 17-32 James, W. (1911). ‘On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake’, in Idem, Memoirs and Studies, New York, pp. 212-13 Kelemen, D. (1999). ‘Beliefs about Purpose: On the Origins of Teleological Thought’, in M. Corballis – S. Lea eds, The Descent of Mind: Psychological Perspectives on Hominid Evolution, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 278-294 Kelemen, D. (2004). ‘Are Children ‘Intuitive Theists’? Reasoning about Purpose and Design in Nature’ in Psychological Science 15, pp. 295-301 Lakoff, G. – Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, Chicago University Press Lewontin, R.C. (1970). ‘The Units of Selection’, in Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1, pp. 1-18 Mayr, E. (1974). ‘Behavior Programs and Evolutionary Strategies’, in American Scientist 62, pp. 650-659 Midgley, M. (1985). Evolution as Religion, London, Routledge Okasha, S. (2008). ‘The Units and Levels of Selection’, in S. Sarkar – A. Plutynski eds (2008), pp. 138-156 Robert, S. (2008). ‘Words and their Meanings: Principles of Variation and Stabilization’, in M. Vanhove ed., From Polysemy to Semantic Change (Studies in Language Companion Series 106), John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 55-92 Roughgarden, J. (1996). The Theory of Population Genetics and Evolutionary Ecology: an Introduction, New York, MacMillan

96

Metaphors.indb 96

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

Ruse, Michael (2003). Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have A Purpose?, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press Sarkar, S. – Plutynski, A. eds (2008). A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, Oxford, Blackwell Searle, J. (2007). ‘What is Language: Some Preliminary Remarks’, in S.L. Tshatzidis ed., John Searle’s Philosophy of Language. Force, Meaning and Mind, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 15-49 Shtulman, A. (2006). ‘Qualitative Differences Between Naïve and Scientific Theories of Evolution’, in Cognitive Psychology 52, pp. 170-194 Sober, E. (1998). ‘What is Evolutionary Altruism?’, in D.L. Hull – M. Ruse eds, The Philosophy of Biology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 459-479 Thompson, M. (1995). ‘The Representation of Life’, in R. Hursthouse – G. Lawrence – W. Quinn eds, Virtues and Reasons, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 247-297 Tiger, L. – Fox. R. (1971). The Imperial Animal, New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston Tomasello, M. (2009). Why We Cooperate, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press Trout, J.D. (2002). ‘Scientific Explanation and the Sense of Understanding’, in Philosophy of Science 69, pp. 212-233 Warneken, F. – Tomasello, M. (2009). ‘Varieties of altruism in children and chimpanzees’, in Trends in Cognitive Science 13, pp. 397-402

Endnotes 1

See Gopnik (1998) for an exploration of the phenomenology of explanation.

2

Dawkins (1976), p. 3.

3

Dawkins (1976), pp. 2-3.

4

James (2011), p. 32.

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 97

 97

3/07/13 09:54

5

There are other metaphors in biology that do not fall under my criticism, for example the metaphor of ‘glue’ to describe how components in a larger system fit together. The glue-metaphor is part of a broader family of metaphors we use to conceptualize part-whole relations. Another popular metaphor in biology refers to flows (‘the flow of genetic information’).

6

See Okasha (2008).

7

Lewontin (1970).

8

Hamilton (1964).

9

Okasha (2008), p. 141.

10

Okasha (2008), p. 142.

11

Tomasello (2009).

12

Warneken − Tomasello (2009).

13

Lakoff − Johnson (1980).

14

Mayr (1973).

15

Tiger − Fox (1971), p. 58.

16

Ruse (2003), p. 265.

17

Davies (2009), p. 59.

18

Davies (2009), p. 60.

19

Dennett (1979), reprinted 1992.

20

Dennett (1996), p. 27.

21

Boyer (2001).

22

James (1911), pp. 212-13, quoted in Cioffi (1998b), p. 95.

23

Kelemen (2004).

24

Cioffi (1998b), p. 96.

98

Metaphors.indb 98

Agentive Metaphors, the Selfish Gene, and Puritanism about Teleological Concepts

3/07/13 09:54

25

Ruse (2003); Dennett (2011).

26

See also Davies (2009), p. 71 for a critique of Ruse.

27

Trout (2002); Gopnik (1998).

28

Trout (2002), pp. 213-214.

29

As in Dawkins (1976).

30

Godfrey-Smith (2011), p. 10, Dennett (2011) for critical discussion.

31

Godfrey-Smith (2011), p. 10.

32

Godfrey-Smith (2011), p. 13. And there is Wittgenstein’s observation that ‘(M)en have always had

a presentiment that there must be a realm in which the answers to questions are systematically

combined − a priori − to form a self-contained system’ (Tractatus, 5.451). 33

Thompson (1995).

34

Dawkins (1976), p. 3.

35

Godfrey-Smith (2011), p. 13.

36

Godfrey-Smith (2009), p. 144.

37

Farrell (1996).

38

One could also seek analogies between biological systems and physical systems, as in modelling predator-prey systems, which uses analogies from statistical mechanics, or use the diffusion of dye

particles due to Brownian motion as an analogy with a set of populations at an initial gene-frequency

g ‘diffusing’ away from that value due to random genetic drift. Roughgarden (1996), p. 69. 39

Guthrie (2007).

40

Godfrey-Smith (2009), p. 145.

Filip Buekens

Metaphors.indb 99

 99

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 100

3/07/13 09:54

Part II Metaphors in Modern Philosophy

Metaphors.indb 101

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 102

3/07/13 09:54

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

Guido Vanheeswijck

I

n the third section of his famous book, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Hans Blumenberg gives an extensive account of what he defines as the ‘trial of theoretical curiosity’.1 There he argues that both classical and Christian philosophy and theo­ logy proved hostile to a valorization of human curiosity. In Blumenberg’s eyes, their main reason for rejecting curiosity was related to the fact that classical and medieval thinkers’ quest was never for knowledge as such, but rather for the happiness and the good life the possession of knowledge could help to promote. In his review essay of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Martin Jay succinctly summarizes Blumenberg’s position regarding the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity, in which all obstacles and impediments to the full unleashing of curiosity were removed: ‘It was not really until the modern age that the verdict of ‘trial’ was rendered in favor of unconstrained curiosity. One major reason for the change was the uncoupling of happiness and salvation from knowledge, which followed the growing popularity of the doctrine of predestination prepared by the nominalists and brought to a head by Calvin. For if man’s redemption had nothing to do with his practical life on earth, then it was unnecessary to be so anxious about the distracting effects of curiosity about allegedly superfluous matters. In addition, the growing hiddenness of God in the early modern era meant the world could no longer be passively read as a divine text. A Deus absconditus meant a ‘speechless’ world lacking the marks of the divine word, a world as a result open to man’s own constructs and manipulations.

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 103

 103

3/07/13 09:54

The vindication of curiosity was therefore closely linked to the emergence of self-assertion as an alternative answer to the still unresolved Gnostic question of the meaning of an imperfect and corrupt world. Only when the qualitative knowledge assumed to be the analogue of divine wisdom was abandoned as a goal and replaced by an inevitably imperfect knowledge expressed in quantitative terms could modern science begin. Only then could man break through the forbidding Pillars of Hercules standing as the image of transgression as far back as the Odyssey and embark, as the famous title page of Bacon’s Instauratio Magna implies, on uncharted seas [italics mine]. Moreover, only when personal happiness was decisively severed from the collective pursuit of a truth that could be sought but never completely won, only when the hope for immortality was displaced from the individual soul to the species as a whole, only then could curiosity be utterly without limits’.2 Although Jay’s excellent summary can not do full justice to the complexity of Blumenberg’s account, it is clear that the quintessence of Blumenberg’s interpretation is strongly akin to the standard story. According to the standard story, the pillars of Hercules stood in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages for the ethical and religious awareness of human limitation, however diverse the reasons for this awareness might have been. This awareness, inspired by an aversion to human hybris, definitely disappears at the dawn of Modernity. As paradigmatic figures of this transition are often brought to the fore Dante and Bacon. While Dante in the Divina Commedia puts Odysseus in the eighth circle of hell as one of the bad counsellors of humanity who wished to transgress the pillars, Francis Bacon is seen as one of the heralds of modernity, putting on the frontispiece of his Novum Organon the famous picture of ships transgressing the pillars. In the following article, this standard story is disputed by focusing on the transition period of the first half of the sixteenth century, when the Spanish world empire – more specifically its Emperor Charles V – chose as its motto plus ultra, accompanied by the image of the transgressing of Hercules’ Pillars. The purpose of this article is to show that this ‘modern’ form of curiosity – embodied par excellence in Columbus’ discovery of the New World under the auspices of Charles’ grand-parents, the Spanish Catholic King and Queen Ferdinand and Isabella – arose from a deeply religious motivation, entrenched in the belief that after the conquest of Granada, not only Europe but the whole world lay open for a catholic conversion. In short, the transgression of the pillars was not a typical anti-religious event, but on the contrary the product of an evolution, inspired by a specific eschatological interpretation of Christianity. In order to underpin this interpretation, I first sketch the general context of the famous Löwith-Blumenberg debate, looking for a hidden connection. Next, I explore the double Franciscan heritage, in which the urge for progressive renewal and apocalyptic religiosity are intimately intertwined. Finally, I try to make clear how against the background of this forgotten heritage, the genesis of the motto plus

104

Metaphors.indb 104

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

ultra in combination with the metaphor of transgressing the pillars of Hercules has occurred.

A hidden connection in the Löwith-Blumenberg debate? In Meaning in History Karl Löwith maintained that the modern belief in progress, as found in the philosophies of history of among others Voltaire, Hegel, Marx and Comte, is nothing but a secularized version of Christian eschatology.3 This interpretation of the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity is known as the classical ‘thesis of secularization’. Secularization is there defined as an advancing process, in which every reference to transcendence or to super-natural reality disappears without however dropping the belief in progress. In a secular perspective, progress does no longer refer to a transcendent goal, but to a final consummation in this world. Since modernity does not yield anything new but must rather be considered as a half-hearted and inconsistent extension of the belief in progress, so characteristic of Christianity, Löwith therefore deems the origin of modern age as basically illegitimate.4 In response to this classical thesis of secularization Hans Blumenberg presented in Die Legitimität der Neuzeit an alternative theory, in which he explains the origin of modern philosophies of history without reverting to the inspiration of Christian eschatology. He discovered the earliest traces of the belief in progress in specialised research of astronomers from the 16th or 17th century or in the literary Querelle des anciens et des modernes, when the moderns no longer wished to follow the ancient models, being convinced of their own artistic skills. For Blumenberg modernity is surely legitimate since, in comparison to the Christian Middle Ages, it really creates something basically new. However, there remains also for Blumenberg a connection between the rise of modernity and Christianity. But unlike Löwith he does not regard modern belief in progress as a secularized form of belief in a transcendent ultimate goal, but rather as the answer of sixteenth and seventeenth century humanity to the gradual modifications in the nominalist interpretation of the view of God which have occurred during the late Middle Ages. The nominalist view of an almighty, fully transcendent God whom we cannot know, who is at any moment able to change the natural laws, whose traces in the operation of nature are no longer recognizable and who therefore operates as a Deus absconditus – a hidden God – makes human confidence in an order established by God almost impossible and incredible. Because man can no longer rely on God and his order, he has no other alternative than taking his fate in his own hands so as to survive in an indifferent universe. In short, the aspiration for progress of modern humanity must be read as an answer to the provocative view of a basically unfathomable God, inherent in late medieval theological absolutism. The restless activism of modern western man and his rampant urge for progress have, according to Blumenberg, arisen

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 105

 105

3/07/13 09:54

from a deep loneliness of man, completely abandoned by God and therefore left to his own fate.5 Such a view of the relation between a nominalist interpretation of the belief in God and the rise of Modernity has also repercussions on Blumenberg’s view as to the significance of the concept of ‘progress’. Because modern man feels abandoned by God, he is obliged to take his fate into his own hands (Selbstbehauptung or ‘self-assertion’) and consequently tries to achieve piecemeal progress on clearly demarcated terrains. Indeed, it was only in the eighteenth century that the belief in all-embracing progress – characteristic of modern philosophies of history – originated. According to Blumenberg, this belief in all-embracing progress must be understood as a modern answer to a paradigmatically ancient and medieval question regarding the all-embracing meaning of reality as a whole. Solely from the background of this interplay between question and answer can we understand the aspirations of modern ideologies of progress. Put in other words, belief in progress only plays a marginal role in the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. It is rather the product of a later evolution, when people were looking for a new answer to old questions which remained as anachronistic remnants from a definitely past period.6 In his presentation of the Löwith-Blumenberg debate Robert Wallace, the English translator of Die Legitimität der Neuzeit, claims that Karl Löwith nowhere gives an explanation for his thesis of secularization (in which the modern idea of progress is seen as the result of the secularization of the Jewish-Christian eschatological belief ), but only illustrates this thesis on the basis of an examination of various authors: ‘Löwith examines several 18th century thinkers – Voltaire, Turgot, Condorcet – in whose time the idea is commonly agreed to have emerged in its full modern clarity. He also studies the enigmatic and isolated work of Giambattista Vico, and the overtly Christian historico-theological writings of authors such as Bossuet, Joachim of Floris, Saint Augustine, Orosius – and the writers of the Bible itself. These discussions are very interesting, but no clear pattern or sequence of transformation appears. Löwith does not seem to suggest, for instance, that Christian thinking became increasingly more worldly during the Middle Ages, foreshadowing an eventual transformation into the (ostensibly) irreligious modern doctrines of progress. Nor does he define a point of stress, weakness, or potential crisis in Christian thinking which would help to explain the transformation. (…) The secularization of eschatology is apparently such an elusive, or such a deep-lying process that its stages, if it has stages, are not manifest in the documents of the history of ideas. (…) Apparently, Löwith wasn’t looking so much for the confirmation as for an ‘illustration’ of his theory of secularization in the writers he examines’.7

106

Metaphors.indb 106

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Such an interpretation is at least an oversimplified rendering of Löwith’s approach, since Löwith portrays Joachim of Fiore, the Calabrian monk from the twelfth century, as a key figure in the transition from an eschatological belief towards a secular belief in progress. He was the first in Western history to emphasize how eschatology is incarnated within history, thereby giving the impetus to the breakthrough of modern belief in progress. Actually, Joachim distinguished three different realms or dispensations: that of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is already in the dispensation of the Spirit – of which Joachim thought that it had started in his own era – that the eschatological belief will find its historical consummation. In this respect Löwith speaks of a double eschaton: ‘Joachim’s eschatological scheme consists neither in a simple millennium nor in the mere expectation of the end of the World but in a twofold eschaton: an ultimate historical phase of the history of salvation, preceding the transcendent eschaton of the new aeon, ushered in by the second coming of Christ’.8 Löwith devotes one separate chapter to an exposition of Joachim of Fiore’s works9 and the first appendix of his book to the Wirkungsgeschichte of Joachim’s thought in later centuries.10 Through the description of the figure of Joachim of Fiore he certainly gives an explanation for the transition from Christianity to Modernity and accordingly for the transformation from an eschatological belief into a secularized belief in progress.11 Hence it is not surprising that Löwith in his response to the publication of Die Legitimität der Neuzeit criticizes Blumenberg regarding the minimal role which the idea of progress would have played in the transition towards Modernity.12 According to Löwith, the idea of progress has precisely entered Modernity through the incarnational character of the view of eschatology, thereby ushering in the beginning of secularization. Beyond doubt, these two different aspects highlighted by respectively Blumenberg and Löwith have played a central role in the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. However, the central question in this article concerns the relation between both aspects. If, following Blumenberg’s lead, it is true that Christianity with its emphasis on unfathomable transcendence has led to modern autonomy and modern progress, what is then the role which incarnation has played in Christianity as an intermediary between eschatological expectation and belief in progress, to which Löwith alludes, especially when writing on Joachim of Fiore?13 Have we got to do here with two diametrically opposite interpretations or with interpretations that focus separately upon two aspects of the same evolution, without noticing their mutual connection? In the following part I intend to show that these two phenomena – the strong link between Jewish-Christian eschatological belief and the modern belief in progress (Löwith’s position); the role of nominalism and God’s inscrutable transcendence (Blumenberg’s position) – do not function separately as explanatory factors for

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 107

 107

3/07/13 09:54

modern secularization, but are intimately interrelated, as they arose within the womb of the same Franciscan tradition. From this very mixture the modern idea of human autonomy, self-control and progress has eventually arisen.

The double Franciscan heritage This very mixture manifests itself on a twofold level, on the one hand the level of philosophical and theological discussion, on the other that of historical description. On the first level I will dwell upon the role of the Franciscans in the famous debate on universals. It is surely no coincidence that the most prominent nominalist thinkers (Scotus, Ockham) were members of the Franciscan order. Although Blumenberg gives a central role to nominalism, he barely pays attention to the transition from realism to nominalism between the 12th and the 14th century. Löwith in Meaning in History does not even mention the debate on universals between realists and nominalists; he makes a direct transition from the chapter on Joachim of Fiore to modernity. In order to map these aspects neglected by Blumenberg and Löwith, I will in particular make use of some writings of Louis Dupré. On the second level I intend to show how between the end of the 14th century and the first half of the 16th century there has been a strong interaction between the belief in the prophetic strength of Christianity (influence of Joachim of Fiore, interest in the Apocalypse, Franciscan proselytism in the New World) and the philosophical and theological breakthrough of nominalism (likewise under the auspices of the Franciscans). This interaction has manifested itself pre-eminently in Spain during the passage from the 15th to the 16th century, a period in which Spain ruled a large part of the then world and which is circumscribed by the Dutch historian Chris Van der Heijden as the ‘Black Renaissance’.14 This period has been treated neither by Löwith nor by Blumenberg. Even though Löwith in Meaning in History explicitly focuses upon the impact of the Franciscan heritage during the 13th and 14th century, he does not pay attention – as already noted – to the rise of nominalism15 nor to the further impact of Franciscan eschatological belief in progress during the 15th and 16th century.16 Also Blumenberg overlooks the sensitivity to the apocalyptic aspect in the Franciscan order during the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity; he sees nominalism as ‘the second overcoming of gnosticism’ and therefore as a theological answer to a theological problem which was handed down to medieval theology by Augustine’s theory on (human and divine) free will. In the following sections I would like to situate this theological and philosophical issue within a more general historical context so as to elucidate the specific character of the modern belief in progress and the genesis of the motto plus ultra.17

108

Metaphors.indb 108

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

The first Franciscan heritage: from universalism to individualism18 Louis Dupré claims in Passage to Modernity that the first signs of what he defines as ‘Christian naturalism’ already began to turn up at the end of the 11th century.19 Since God’s presence was then thought to manifest itself pre-eminently in the immanence of cosmic space, nature progressively acquired a sacramental function. This sacramental approach to nature, typical of the neo-platonic school of Chartres, even developed into a form of mystical naturalism in the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. Moreover this sensitivity to the divine presence in the immanence of space soon found its complement in an analogous sensitivity to the divine presence in the immanence of time. Indeed, it was in that very period that Joachim of Fiore projected the eschatological expectation of final consummation into the chronological course of human history. As such the concrete daily world was given importance to an extent that had been barely conceivable in previous centuries. But a definite breakthrough towards appreciating the concrete individual only occurred with Francis of Assisi and his 13th century devotees. So far the figure of Jesus had been mainly presented as the Eternal Word of God among us. Francis began to lay emphasis on Jesus as a concrete human being of flesh and blood. The divine presence in space and time, as perceived in the 12th century, is now situated in the man Jesus, in the concreteness of an individual human being. It is therefore not surprising that Francis’ followers initially were looking for affiliation with Joachim of Fiore’s adepts: ‘In Calabria and Italy contacts were soon enough established between the first Franciscans and the monasteries of Flore’.20 This very emphasis on Jesus’ human individuality will cause an intellectual revolution and so usher in the end of the Middle Ages. It becomes gradually clear in the writings of Franciscan thinkers as Roger Bacon, Bonaventura and above all Duns Scotus and William of Ockham how the particular and the individual require a status of their own which is more than an embodiment of the universal. In Scotus’ terminology, perfect knowledge coincides with knowledge of the ‘individual form’, the haecceitas. Ockham will consistently bring this evolution to its conclusion by denying a status of reality to any universal outside human mind and reserving this status to the particular and the individual alone. By doing this, he made an end to the via antiqua of metaphysical realism and heralded modernity, while at the same time unintentionally ushering in the beginning of secularization. This intellectual revolution from realism to nominalism – in which the particular is given priority to the universal – can only be understood against the background of a religious revolution, notably a Franciscan revolution in the object of devotion and prayer: God-man, the concrete individual Jesus had become central in the Franciscan tradition. Paradoxically enough, a thorough interest in the immanence of the divine presence in nature, history and above all in the figure of Jesus – as it became manifest with Francis – led towards a philosophical concept of a fully transcendent God associated with late-medieval nominalists, who were mostly Francis’ devotees. And

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 109

 109

3/07/13 09:54

this emphasis on divine inconceivability will eventually lead to the modern rejection of the divine and accordingly to an exclusive interest in a basically immanent reality. Ironically enough, the urge for a deepening of faith progressively transformed itself into a dominance of unbelief: ‘(…) the need to make God more fully present in everyday life and all its contexts (…) led people to invest these contexts with a new significance and solidity. The irony is that just this, so much the fruit of devotion and Faith, prepares the ground for an escape from faith, into a purely immanent world’.21 One marginal note. Although the fraticelli and the more strict movements within the Franciscan order were persistently inspired by Joachim’s eschatological expectations, there obviously remained a basic difference between the view of Bonaventura, the superior general of the Franciscans, and Joachim’s.22 Following Francis’ example, Bonaventura granted a central place to the figure of Jesus, whereas in Joachim’s view the era of the Son only found its consummation in the era of the Holy Spirit.23 While Bonaventura’s christocentric interpretation became the expression of the Church’s orthodox position, Joachim’s rather pneumatocentric reading would be rejected as heretic.

The second Franciscan heritage: from eschatology to belief in progress In spite of the yawning theological gap between Bonaventura’s christocentric worldview and Joachim of Fiore’s eschatological expectations, these theological differences have been overshadowed by their common sensitivity to the incarnational character of Christian faith. The link between Joachim of Fiore’s work and Franciscan spirituality has never been stronger than during the first half of the 16th century in Spain, especially after the conquest of Granada in 1492. Following the lead of Van der Heijden (and building forth on De Lubac) I will concentrate in the following pages upon the period between 1492 and 1536, when belief in the prophetic power of Christianity and the breakthrough of nominalism went closely together. In short, this is the very period in which genuine religious sensitivity and a radical urge for renewal – far from being their mutual antipodes – will exactly intensify each other. Illustrative of this interweaving is that in 1519, when Joachim of Fiore’s writings – a lot of his manuscripts were circulating during the late Middle Ages – were cataloged and edited, Hernan Cortes conquered Mexico and Juan de Guadalupe could carry out an even more severe reform (the ‘Discalced of Extremadura’) within the Franciscan order. It was from this new Franciscan province of the discalced that the first missionaries for the New World were recruited.24 In the following sections I will look into both aspects – the great urge for renewal and apocalyptic religiosity – first into detail and then in their mutual connection.

110

Metaphors.indb 110

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Urge for renewal and innovation According to the selected angle, 1492 – the year in which the ‘Catholic Kings’ Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada – is at one time presented as the closure of the Middle Ages, at another as the onset of Modernity. Indeed, many considered the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Europe as the apogee of the medieval crusades or as the summit of Europe’s reconquista. But 1492 was also the year of the discovery of the New World – Columbus received his mission from the same ‘Catholic Kings’ – and on 18 August of the same year Antonio de Nebrija published the first grammar of Castilian language, which he devoted to Queen Isabella. It was Nebrija as well who wrote a pamphlet on alternative procedures for time calculation. His intention was to replace the chaotic medieval time calculations and their carelessness regarding measures and weights by rigid measuring instruments so as to bring order into chaos. Apparently, his urge for systematization did not stop at the boundaries of language.25 Santa Fe was the very spot where many of these new forms of ‘regulation’ had been put into practice for the first time. For more than one year, this garrison town built at top speed in 1491 was ‘the centre of the world’. It was indeed out of this nearby garrison town that Granada was conquered. On 24 November of the same year the ‘Catholic kings’ there laid down the exact conditions for the surrender of the old Muslim city. On 31 March 1492 the edict of the expulsion of the Jews was signed on the same spot. Almost three weeks later, on 17 April 1492, Columbus received in Santa Fe the permission to explore a new seaway towards India. Besides, Santa Fe was completely different from a medieval town. The old centers of Salamanca, Toledo and the Arabic towns in Andalusia were labyrinths of tortuous streets, apparently lacking every design with houses higgledy-piggledy leaning against each other. These old towns had organically grown out of history’s capriciousness. Santa Fe, by contrast, was the product of orderly, rational construction and deliberate design.26 This urge for renewal, strongly related to a staunch confidence in the role of empirical experience, has been pre-eminently embodied in the activities of the Franciscan archbishop of Toledo, Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros. Even before Erasmus he developed the plan to replace the Vulgate, which had served for centuries as the canonical Bible translation, by a Biblia poliglota complutense, a biblical edition in Latin, Hebrew and Greek. This plan seamlessly concurred with another project that the tireless Cisneros intended to work out: the foundation of a brand new university in Alcala de Henares (complutense alludes to the city’s Latin name Complutum). In these days it was remarkable and even sensational that Alcala students in theology got the permission to follow, apart from the classic scholastic courses in Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard, courses in the then in Spain completely unknown nominalist theories of the Franciscans Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. Since these nominalist ideas apparently resonated with a number of students, a competitive bidding between the various universities was likely to occur. The old university of Salamanca, a stronghold of classic Thomism, intended to take the new entrant the wind

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 111

 111

3/07/13 09:54

from the sails by proposing no less than three nominalist chairs, one for theology, one for philosophy and one for logic. Nevertheless, the new generation felt most attracted to the university of Alcala, which was not burdened by old traditions and did not feel embarrassed in criticizing the via antiqua as the royal road towards truth.27 As pointed out, it was Hans Blumenberg who referred to the famous late 17th century Querelle des anciens et des modernes as one of the origins of the modern belief in progress.28 But already in 1526 – one and a half century before the querelle burst out – theologians in Alcala claimed that man is free to interpret and if necessary to correct the opinions of ancient models.29 Louis Dupré even goes further back in time by demonstrating that, on the basis of quotations from the Florentine humanist Salutati30 ‘the idea that by imitating and emulating ancient models we surpass them took root two hundred years before the famous Querelle des anciens et des modernes’.31

Apocalyptic religiosity All this is not to say that the focus on newness and adventure, which had flared up since 1492, was synonymous with the modern belief in progress: ‘Admiration for youth, respect for experience and sense of superiority did not imply that the Spaniards (…) believed in progress’.32 It is most notable in this respect that Columbus did not use the word ‘discovery’ but rather spoke of a ‘find’.33 The Spanish name Santa Fe, the prototype of the modern city, signifies ‘holy faith’. And the fact that this renewal was embodied by an ascetic and deeply religious figure as Cisneros, one of the great reformers of the Franciscan order, is speaking volumes. The belief in newness was foremost related to the belief in a ‘new era’ as described in the last book of the New Testament, John’s Apocalypse (21:1): ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth did pass away’. Since the final pages of the Apocalypse denote Jerusalem as the place where the millenary empire will be established, kings, driven by this apocalyptic belief, had seen the deliverance of Jerusalem as their very mission for many centuries. In the first half of the 16th century the Spaniards, inspired by Cisneros and the Franciscans, believed that the time was ripe for its accomplishment. Granada had already been conquered on the Muslims, Oran was taken in 1509 and Tripoli fell on Saint-James’ high day of the same year. Now the way lay open for the conquest of Jerusalem.34 A similar passion which had made the Spaniards and in particular the Franciscans look forward to the conquest of Jerusalem, also motivated their conquest and conversion of the New World. In both cases the renewed interest in Joachim of Fiore’s theories played a central role: ‘The enthusiasm of the missionary epopee in the West-Indies provoked the explosion of an entirely original neo-joachimism, which was not so much founded upon the explanation of the Apocalypse but rather on the

112

Metaphors.indb 112

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

relation between its obsession by the end of the world and the discovery of the “new world” and its conversion. The Franciscans, among whom a certain number were of Picardy and who had left in 1516 to evangelize Venezuela, unmistakably showed, according to Marcel Bataillon, “joachimite tendencies”. The official mission letter that sent twelve Franciscans to Mexico in 1523 also had “the imprint of joachimism”. The leader of these twelve, Martin of Valencia, fervent adept of the reform established in the province of Extremadura, was himself a “joachimite of formation and comportment”; he carried with him the Livre des conformités of the life of Francis of Assisi with that of Christ, recently printed in Milan (1510 and 1513): that book was for these missionaries more or less the “Acts of the apostles of the mendicant friars which Joachim of Fiore had foretold as the vehicle of the Eternal Gospel in the final era of the world”’.35 Their dreams of ‘a heaven on earth’, fed by apocalyptic religiosity, were likely to become soon reality in the eyes of many faithful Christians.

Urge for renewal and apocalyptic religiosity During the first half of the 16th century in Spain a new view of reality was in the process of germinating – we will later call it modern – which at the same time was the continuation of medieval and religiously inspired ideals. It is therefore no coincidence that throughout this period the old tales of chivalry remained immensely popular in Spain and even set the literary fashion.36 Amadis de Gaula, the most famous tale of chivalry from this period and one of the first ‘bestsellers’ in the history of the printed book, read by kings, emperors as well as by ordinary people, became ‘immortal’ due to Cervantes’ ‘late reaction’. At the very moment that elsewhere in Europe the tale of chivalry had become outdated, Cervantes showed in Don Quichote that at the beginning of the 17th century tales on knights errant were still very popular in Spain, however much they may tell about a definitely past period.37 The interweaving of both elements – renewal and religiosity – was not confined to literary imagination, it was omnipresent. Christopher Columbus, the herald of the new world, died in a Franciscan frock; his principal initiator, Isabella of Castile, was buried in an identical garb. Moreover, this ‘explosive mixture’ of belief in apocalyptical prophecy and nominalist respect for concrete experience had led to a form of thorough discipline, which did not only manifest itself in the various reforms of the Franciscan order but also in the fanaticism with which the New World was converted.38 The passionate proselytism of figures as Hernando Talavera and Francisco Cisneros, two of Queen Isabella’s confessors, illustrates the concept of reform, as Charles Taylor defines it in his narrative on the gradual secularization of western culture: ‘Briefly

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 113

 113

3/07/13 09:54

summed up, Reform demanded that everyone be a real, 100 percent Christian. Reform not only disenchants, but disciplines and re-orders life and society’.39 This ‘explosive mixture’ expressed itself pre-eminently in Charles V’s famous motto, plus ultra, today still visible on the Spanish flag, on the Alhambra walls in Granada and on so many other spots related to the discovery of the New World. Medieval kings and emperors, fully aware of the limits of their power, used to refer to the classical legend on the pillars of Hercules, with which the ancient hero had demarcated the street of Gibraltar and indicated the end of the world. The discovery of the New World definitely transgressed the line drawn by Hercules both mentally and physically. In the beginning of the 16th century Europeans unhesitatingly navigated beyond the pillars of Hercules. Since henceforth all boundaries lay open and all parts of the wide world became accessible, the modest non plus ultra, so characteristic of ancient wisdom and Christian humility, made room for the proud plus ultra. But this arrogant awareness of infinity was intimately related to the religious belief that God had called the emperor to establish ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ and that the time was ripe for its accomplishment.40 The genesis of Charles’ motto plus ultra is even more complex. It not only origi­ nated from his Spanish heritage, it also arose from his Burgundian pedigree. The very first time that the motto was used, was on the 18th chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, held in the summer of 1516, albeit in a French variant plus oultre. It was coined by Luigi Marliagno, an Italian surgeon who had served the Habsburgian-Burgundian family for three generations. The Order was founded in 1430 by Charles’ great-great-grandfather, whose explicit aim was to defend the church and the Christian faith. In order to achieve that goal, a revival of the knighthood – in decline after the end of the Crusades – was necessary. Analogous to the ambitions of the Spanish ‘Catholic Kings’, the Dukes of Burgundy also dreamt of eventually conquering Jerusalem. The Golden Fleece stood as a model for this task: by interpreting the fleece as a lamb’s fleece, the Dukes related the classical legend of the Argonauts to the Christian symbolism of the Lamb of God. Since the Lamb is the animal to which the Apocalypse refers no less than twenty-eight times and since the Lamb on the final pages of the Apocalypse eventually breaks the seals of the Book of the Bible, thereby heralding the Final Judgment, it also symbolizes the advent of the New Jerusalem. This ideal was expressed pre-eminently by Jan Van Eyck in his painting ‘The Adoration of the Lamb of God’ (the Ghent Altarpiece).41 As such, in promoting the motto plus ultra, Charles proved to be heir to a double heritage: that of his Spanish and of his Burgundian forebears. Since he was the first heir to bring together both heritages in one person, he was considered by many contemporaries as being able to achieve what his forefathers had never been able to do: conquering Jerusalem and making the whole world into a purely Christian universe. That and nothing else was the original meaning of the motto plus ultra.42

114

Metaphors.indb 114

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

The forgotten context of the Franciscan heritage in the genesis of transgressing the pillars of Hercules Basically, my critique on Löwith and Blumenberg boils down to this: instead of accentuating the intertwining between nominalism and inscrutable transcendence on the one hand and the temporal relevance of incarnation within the history of an originally eschatological belief on the other, they treat both aspects separately, disengaged from their common Franciscan heritage. Neither Löwith nor Blumenberg exhibit the gradual process in Western culture between the 13th and the 16th century, in which the religious orientation to incarnation not only led to an undermining of the ancient and medieval notion of form but this epistemological transformation was also accompanied by an apocalyptic belief in final consummation.43 Only if the interrelatedenss of both aspects is taken into account, the complexity of the passage from Middle Ages to Modernity can be shown to its full advantage. Traditionally the rise of Modernity has been situated within a Calvinist and Puritan context, in which nominalist theology was connected with a strong belief in progress. But the mixture of both aspects is characteristic of Counter-Reformation Catholicism as well. Innumerous phenomena – we will later call them modern – then emerge for the first time, albeit still embedded in a religious context. Since the first half of the 16th century is the pre-eminent era of the interweaving between the two aspects, I devote so much attention to the period between 1492 and 1536 in Spain, which Van der Heijden defines as the ‘Black Renaissance’. But, in contrast to Van der Heijden, I put less emphasis on the (legitimate) ascertainment that the Black Renaissance has been largely forgotten than on its crucial role in the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. Like Western man in the 15th and 16th century was captivated by an eschatological belief in progress connected to a belief in a transcendent world, 21st century Western humanity is captured by the conviction that the only scenery on which progress can be made is the scenery of this world as a realm of immanence. As such, ‘the immanent frame’ has become our basic presupposition; it functions, in Wittgenstein’s terms, as ‘a picture which holds us captive’: ‘(…) it becomes part of the unquestioned background, something whose shape is not perceived, but which conditions, largely unnoticed, the way we think, infer, experience, process claims and arguments’.44 Since transcendence gradually got inconceivable for modern Western man, the ‘immanent framework’ could develop into – in Taylor’s terms – our shared ‘social imaginary’.45 A select example of this transition are the further vicissitudes of the motto plus ultra. The acute awareness of infinity that resounds in this motto and that initially was related to the belief that the emperor Charles V was called by God to establish ‘a new Heaven and a new Earth’, is more or less upheld in Francis Bacon’s writings.46 He still traced this motto adorning the opening page of his Novum Organon, back on the Biblical prophecy of Daniel about the end of times. The very same religious inspiration shines through in the work of the Anglican clergy and scientist Joseph

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 115

 115

3/07/13 09:54

Glanvill, the title of which, Plus ultra or the Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the Days of Aristotle, was inspired by Bacon.47 But this outspoken religious background will gradually disappear completely: ‘The concept of progress, which came with modern science and depended on it for its realization, is by its very nature unlimited. However advanced we imagine scientific progress to be at any point in the future, it remains always capable of further perfection. It directs its project toward a concrete, historical goal attainable in time yet implicitly denies that it can ever be reached. On this point the scientific ideal of progress differed from the eschatology to which it owed much of its original inspiration. We have seen how Bacon presented his vision of a scientific future as the fulfilment of a biblical prophecy and thereby secured his success among British Puritans. In fact, however, the scientific movement and its concomitant idea of progress was also, and increasingly more, propelled by a quite different factor that eventually replaced that original religious motivation. The scientific-technical conception of the future essentially differed from that of biblical eschatology. Unlike the apocalyptic future, which would violently interrupt the passage of time and bring history to a close, the modern future appeared as the endlessly postponed terminus of a continuing history’.48 The original religious inspiration behind plus ultra has now been transformed into a secularized and unlimited belief in ‘man-made progress’.49 Whereas this process was reinforced in Calvinist and Puritan countries, it was set in motion in the powerful Spain of the first half of the 16th century, which had appointed itself as the sole guardian of Catholicism within the boundaries of old Europe and at the same time was intent to sail beyond the pillars of Hercules in order to convert the rest of the world to this very belief. While the Puritan background of Bacon’s concept of science is well known, it has largely been forgotten that the Catholic roots of the modern belief in scientific progress and in the human ability to transgress the pillars of Hercules were at least equally strong.50

116

Metaphors.indb 116

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Blumenberg, H. (1983). The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Die Legitimität der Neuzeit), transl. R. M. Wallace, Cambridge Mass., MIT Press De Lubac, H. (1979). La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Flore, vol. 1 : De Joachim à Schelling, Paris, Lethielleux Dequeker, L. (2011). Het mysterie van het Lam Gods. Filips de Goede en de rechtvaardige rechters van Van Eyck, Louvain, Peeters (The Mystery of the Lamb of God. Philip the Good and Jan Van Eyck’s Just Judges) Dupré, L. (1993). Passage to Modernity. An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture, New Haven – London, Yale University Press Dupré, L. (2008). Religion and the Rise of Modern Culture, Notre Dame Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press Gillespie, M.A. (2008). The Theological Origins of Modernity, Chicago – London, University of Chicago Press Jay, M. (1985). ‘Review Essay: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age by Hans Blumenberg, translated by Robert M. Wallace’, in History and Theory 24, pp.183-196 Löwith, K. (1949). Meaning in History. The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History, Chicago – London, University of Chicago Press Löwith, K. (1983a). ‘Das Verhängnis des Fortschritts’, in Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 2, Stuttgart, Metzler, pp. 392-410 Löwith, K. (1983b). ‘Besprechung des Buches Die Legitimität der Neuzeit von Hans Blumenberg’, in Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 2, Stuttgart, Metzler, pp. 452-459 Taylor, Ch. (2007). A Secular Age, Cambridge Mass. – London, Harvard University Press Van der Heijden, C. (2008). Zwarte Renaissance. Spanje en de wereld 1492-1536, Amsterdam, Olympus (Black Renaissance. Spain and the World 1492-1536) Wallace, R.M. (1981). ‘Progress, Secularization and Modernity: The Löwith – Blumenberg Debate’, in New German Critique 22, pp. 63-79

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 117

 117

3/07/13 09:54

Endnotes 1

Blumenberg (1983), pp. 229-434.

2

Jay (1985), p. 191.

3

Löwith (1949).

4

Cf. Löwith (1949), p. 19: ‘The moderns elaborate a philosophy of history by secularizing theological

5

For an informative survey of the Löwith – Blumenberg debate cf. Wallace (1981). For Blumenberg’s

principles and applying them to an ever increasing number of empirical facts’.

elaboration of the relation between late medieval nominalism and the rise of modernity, cf. in

particular Blumenberg (1983), Part II, Chapter IV: The Impossibility of Escaping a Deceiving God, pp. 181-204.

6

Cf. Blumenberg (1983), Part I, Chapter VI: The Secularization Thesis as an Anachronism in the Modern

Age, pp. 63-75, in particular p. 66: ‘Questions do not always precede their answers’.

7

Wallace (1981), pp. 66-67.

8

Löwith (1949), p. 151.

9

Löwith (1949), pp.145-159.

10

Löwith (1949), pp. 208-213.

11

Cf. Löwith (1949), p. 154: ‘His [i.e. Joachim’s] expectation of a last providential progress toward the fulfilment of the history of salvation within the framework of the history of the world is

radically new in comparison with the pattern of Augustine. The latter never indulged in prophetic predictions of detailed and radical changes in temporal order or saeculum, which is essentially subject

to change’; pp. 155-156: ‘The Christian doctrine from Augustine to Thomas had mastered history theologically by excluding the temporal relevance of the last things. This exclusion was achieved

by the transposition of the original expectations into a realm beyond historical existence. Joachim

viewed everything in a historical perspective. Christ himself means to him not only the fulfilment

of the prophecies of the Old Testament but also the beginning of a new age; Christ remains central but as a centre of significations, leading to him but also from him into future developments. His

significance is truly historical not because it is unique but because it consummates and initiates

significations within a historical continuity in which the generations after Christ are as important

as were the generations before Christ. Joachim thinks strictly theologically and at the same time

historically (…) The Christian truth itself has, like the logos of Hegel, a temporal setting in its

successive developments. With Augustine and Thomas, the Christian truth rests, once and for all,

118

Metaphors.indb 118

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

on certain historical facts; with Joachim the truth itself has an open horizon and a history which

is essential to it (…) Compared with Augustine and Orosius, but also with Thomas and Otto of

Freising, the thought of Joachim is theological historism’. 12

Löwith (1983b), p. 454: ‘Daß die Idee des Fortschritts nur regionale Bedeutung und eine partielle

Herkunft habe, nämlich aus dem Bereich der wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungen und der lite­rarischästhetischen Kontroversen des 17. Jahrhunderts und nicht die Frage nach Sinn und Verlauf der

Geschichte als solcher und im ganzen berühre, ist so unwahrscheinlich wie die Behauptung, dab

die Rationalität und Autonomie des Menschen der Neuzeit eine schlechthin ursprüngliche und eigenständige sei’.

13

Cf. Jay (1985), p. 192: ‘Although admittedly heterodox, the millenarianism associated with figures like

Joachim of Fiore, a figure strangely ignored by Blumenberg, may still be accounted a substantialist rather than merely functionalist link with secular utopias of the modern age’.

14

Van der Heijden (2008). Cf. also De Lubac (1979), p. 196.

15

Neither de Lubac nor Van der Heijden pay attention to the link between Joachim and nominalism.

16

Admittedly, Löwith obliquely refers to the impact of the Franciscan belief in progress, when in his essay ‘Das Verhängnis des Fortschritts’ he makes a connection between Roger Bacon, Columbus

and Francis Bacon. Cf. Löwith (1983a), pp. 402-404. 17

This approach is in line with Charles Taylor’s approach. Cf. Taylor (2007), p. 775: ‘I would see our two

stories, ID (Intellectual Deviation Story) and RMN (Reform Master Narrative), as complementary,

exploring different sides of the same mountain, or the same winding river of history. ID clarifies

some of the crucial intellectual and theological connections. But we need RMN to upset the

unilinear story, to show the play of destabilization and recomposition. The understanding of social

imaginaries is crucial to explain these’. Cf. also the critique of Jay (1985), p. 188: ‘As Blumenberg sees it – characteristically offering an explanation solely on the level of ideas – the change occurred

when the providential, intelligible, and essentially rational cosmos of the Scholastics, with their recycled Aristotelianism, was called into question by Ockham’s nominalism’.

18

In the following pages I am particularly indebted to Dupré (1993) (also Charles Taylor explicitly refers to these pages: Taylor [2007], pp. 94, 144). Cf. Dupré (2008), p. 10. On this page Louis Dupré brings up the debate between Löwith and Blumenberg whereby he definitely gives preference to

Blumenberg’s position. 19

Dupré (1993), pp. 33-36.

20

De Lubac (1979), p. 75: ‘En Calabre et en Italie Centrale, des contacts s’étaient établis assez tôt entre les premiers franciscains et les monastères de Flore’.

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 119

 119

3/07/13 09:54

21

Taylor (2007), p. 145; cf. also Dupré (2008), pp. 6-9; Taylor (2007), p. 94.

22

Also Karl Löwith refers in Meaning in History to the link between Joachim of Fiore and the rise of the new orders: ‘After Joachim’s death, both Franciscans and Dominicans claimed to be the true

church by following their Lord and Master unconditionally, in poverty and humility, in truth and

spirit’ (Löwith [1949], p. 146). At the same time, he shows, on the basis of the vicissitudes around

Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino (Löwith [1949], p. 146), the precarious relation between the views of Joachim and the Franciscans.

23

De Lubac (1979), pp. 134-135: ‘Ce qui, dans les Collationes in Hexaemeron aussi bien que dans

le Breviloquium sépare absolument Bonaventure de Joachim de Flore, nonobstant leur penchant

commun à une théologie de l’histoire impliquant un progrès dans le processus objectif du salut, c’est ce qu’on peut appeler son christocentrisme accentué’. For a detailed comparison between Joachim and Bonaventura cf. De Lubac (1979), pp. 123-139.

24

Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 389 and 406; De Lubac (1979), pp. 196-198.

25

Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 114-116; for more information cf. Chapter VI, Taal en imperium. De grammatica van Nebrija, pp. 109-119 (Language and Empire. The Grammar of Nebrija). For more information on the new concept of time cf. also Dupré (1993), p. 157.

26

Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 118-119. These ideas on the ‘modern city’ are nearly one and a half century older than Descartes’ famous reflections upon his project of a new city in Discours de la

Méthode. 27

I am indebted here to Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 331-333.

28

Blumenberg (1983), p. 33. For a reference to this querelle see also Löwith (1949), pp. 60-61.

29

Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), p. 333: ‘Pedro Sanchez Ciruelo argued that Aristotle corrected Plato,

Augustine criticized Origen, and even Thomas was in continual discussion with his teachers. Duns

Scotus’ work is one long negation of Thomas’ writings and those of other authors. The nominalists,

finally, direct their sharp criticism at everyone. This is the character of free spirit. It interprets and corrects the others. In its search for truth it spares no effort’.

30

L.Dupré (1993), p. 153: ‘But then Salutati extended his argument beyond its theological limits: knowledge increases with time in a manner that would apply to the ancients themselves. All thinkers

profit from the work of their predecessors! ‘Why do you and others, so enamored with Antiquity,

estimate Plato and Aristotle more than those original, very ancient men? Do you not know that

what they wrote or what they left us in writing, they had received from their predecessors? Little

of what we praise in them could they claim as their own’.

120

Metaphors.indb 120

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

31

L.Dupré (1993), p. 153. In the same vein Dupré also opposes Jacob Burckhardt’s view on the

origin of the modern subject (p. 34). For an analogous critique on Burckhardt’s disregard of the

contribution of the Spanish Renaissance: cf. Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 307-308. 32

33 34

Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), p. 238. For more information: see Chapter XIV, Achterstevoren vooruit.

Wedergeboorte en vernieuwing, pp. 237-239 (Backwards Forward. Renaissance and Renewal) Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 96, 108ff.

Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), p. 239. For more information cf. also Chapter XX, De verovering van

Jeruzalem. Cisneros en de Spaanse Renaissance, pp. 321-341 (The Conquest of Jerusalem. Cisneros and the Spanish Renaissance).

35

De Lubac (1979), p. 196; cf. as well pp. 197-198.

36

Illustrative of it is the popularity of Tirant lo Blanc; cf. Van der Heijden (2008), p. 155.

37

Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 160-165.

38

Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), Chapter XXIV: Middeleeuwen in Mexico, Amerika als ‘Nieuwe Wereld’,

39

Taylor (2007), p. 774.

40

Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), Chapter XXI: Spelletjes zonder ernst. Karel V als Hercules, pp. 345-362

41

For more information: cf. Dequeker (2011).

42

I am strongly indebted here to Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 347-352.

43

Cf. Gillespie (2008), p. 12: ‘Blumenberg’s account points us in the right direction, but he does

pp. 397-415 (Middle Ages in Mexico, America as the ‘New World’).

(Games without Gravity. Charles V as Hercules).

not understand the metaphysical significance of his own argument and thus does not appreciate

the way in which modernity takes form within the metaphysical and theological structures of the

tradition (…) The origins of modernity therefore lie not in human self-assertion or in reason but

in the great metaphysical and theological struggle that marked the end of the medieval world and

that transformed Europe in the three hundred years that separate the medieval and the modern

worlds’. 44

Taylor (2007), p. 565; cf. p. 549.

Guido Vanheeswijck

Metaphors.indb 121

 121

3/07/13 09:54

45

Cf. De Lubac (1979), p. 18: ‘Sans que leur auteur [ Joachim de Flore] ait pu s’en rendre compte, l’Esprit allait être dressé contre l’Église du Christ et par une conséquence fatale contre le Christ

lui-même, pour un ‘dépassement’ du Christ et de son Eglise, ou du moins pour cent façons tout

autres de les comprendre. Dès lors cet Esprit, dont il célébrait d’avance le règne, ne serait plus l’Esprit-Saint’.

46

Whereas in Löwith (1983a) Francis Bacon’s belief in progress is situated against the backdrop

of his religious convictions (fitting him into the mold of his secularization thesis), Blumenberg presents Francis Bacon as a paradigmatic example of the breakthrough of modern Neugier. Thereby

he particularly emphasizes the nominalistic turn as a necessary precondition for the breakthrough

of this Neugier. For Blumenberg’s treatment of the changing attitude regarding the ‘pillars of

Hercules’: see Blumenberg (1983), Part III, Chapter IX: Justifications of Curiosity as Preparation for

the Enlightenment, pp. 383-390. 47

I am indebted here to Dupré (1993), pp. 72, 155.

48

Dupré (1993), p. 156. Cf. Van der Heijden (2008), pp. 348ff.

49

An analogous evolution pertains to the significance of the city of Santa Fe, originally the city of faith, which will later function as a model for Thomas Campanella’s ‘City of the Sun’ in one of the

first modern utopias (cf. Van der Heijden [2008], pp. 454-6; cf. on the relation between Joachim of Fiore and Campanella, De Lubac [1979], pp. 214-217).

50

Hence Löwith not unjustly refers to the kinship between the catholic Columbus and the puritan Bacon; cf. Löwith (1983a), p. 404: ‘Der Mensch müsse die Natur durch Wissenschaft zu Verwandlungen zwingen zum Zweck der Weltveränderung im Sinne einer fortschreitenden Verbesserung. Bacon

hat sich in dieser Hinsicht mit Kolumbus verglichen, wie schon der Titel Nova Atlantis zeigt’.

122

Metaphors.indb 122

Plus ultra. Navigating beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The Ambiguous Genesis of a Geographical Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

Edit Anna Lukács

‘The same inclination, which reigns at a ceremony, governs in a system; and if you love the uppermost place in the one, the philosopher desires the centre in the other.’

T

his sentence from Fontenelle’s A Week’s Conversation on the Plurality of Worlds identifies an anthropocentric or at least anthropomorphic cosmology in every philosophy.1 Also according to Hans Blumenberg, the anthropocentric teleology controlled the views of the cosmos at least from Aristotle to the Copernican revolution. After this revolution, man was confronted with his own ‘dethronement’, with the loss of his position as the supreme being in creation, and with his self-diminution (Selbsverkleinerung) under the sign of the fading power (Entmachtung) of the metaphor of the sphere.2 This highly complex history is mirrored in a peculiar way in a specific version of the metaphor of the sphere. The metaphor concerned here originates from the Book of the XXIV Philosophers, a work compiled or translated in the 12th century in Toledo. The second definition of the Book puts forward the following equivalence: ‘God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere’.3 This metaphor enjoyed exceptional popularity in the Middle Ages and was used in a range of texts stretching from theological writings via encyclopedias to novels, in order to praise the unlimited immensity of the Creator and his omnipresence in the cosmos. This nearly Biblical vision of divine omnipresence was not rejected by the German mystics of the 14th century, such as Master Eckhart or Suso, who found in the sphere the possibility for man to unite with God, nor by Nicholas of Cues, who applied it both to God and the universe, but only by Giordano Bruno, who praised the end of the geocentric world view by linking the infinite sphere to the universe, and turned the infinite sphere into the very symbol of an infinite cosmos.

Edit Anna Lukács

Metaphors.indb 123

 123

3/07/13 09:54

Although the metaphor of the infinite sphere is supposed to have little or no connection with reality, it seems to be in line with the cosmic and astronomic views of its time.4 Accordingly, its reference changes from God to the universe from the 15th century onwards, and is transmitted in this form to the 17th century. This piece of evidence opens a wide field of investigation, and, in fact, much has already been written on the subject. Attempts to understand the ‘Copernican’ mutation of the spherical metaphor used a multiplicity of concepts, among which infinity played a significant role. This is also how Blumenberg understands the change. According to Blumenberg, infinity was progressively incarnated in the material universe rather than in the supreme divinity.5 I propose to revisit this history from another point of view. The chronology of the change proposed above (from divine omnipresence in the infinite sphere in the Middle Ages to its ‘universalisation’ by Giordano Bruno) can indeed be framed differently by pointing to similarities between 14th and 17th century conceptions of space on the one hand and to the status of arguments on the other.6 In contrast to the notion of infinity, the views of space I will discuss here are not inherent to the metaphor of the infinite sphere itself. This will allow me to follow a line of argument that is not primarily philological. Nevertheless, these views appear in the textual field of the metaphor in several authors’ works, as part of a knowledge that circumfuses – and integrates – the metaphor. Thomas Bradwardine and Blaise Pascal, the authors I will comment on, both worked in the fields of mathematics and theology. They use the spherical metaphor in the same philosophical context but apply it respectively to God and the universe. Their similar and different use of the metaphor will form the thread of this paper.

Thomas Bradwardine: a place for God in the void ‘It is an astonishing fact that no canonical writer has ever made use of nature to prove God. They all strive to make us believe in Him. David, Solomon, etc. never said, “There is no void, therefore there is a God”.’7 Thomas Bradwardine is certainly not a canonic author, but he came close to a proof of God’s existence starting from the existence of a vacuum. Bradwardine, who worked at the crossroads of science, between mathematics, physics and theology, was one of the Oxford Calculators. His major theological work, De causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum (1344), includes various ramifications of theological subjects. It is in this work that he develops his argument on the vacuum. The vacuum enjoyed a synoptic presence in academic discussions already in the 13th century. The main question was to which science the inquiry on the vacuum should be linked: some opted for theology, while others more rarely opted for physics. Bradwardine used the hypothesis of the void’s existence in an imaginary – and theological – argu-

124

Metaphors.indb 124

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

mentation, the main purpose of which was to extend the limits of God’s power as far as possible. In Chapter 5 of Book I of his De causa Dei, entitled ‘That God cannot change in any way’, he explains the subject of divine invariability and then turns to God’s omnipresence including discussions about void, extramundane space and the metaphor of the sphere. Five corollaries describe the divine presence expanded outside the universe: 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

First, that essentially and in presence, God is necessarily everywhere in the world and all its parts; And also beyond the real world in a place, or in an imaginary and infinite void; And so truly can He be called immense and unlimited; And so a reply seems to emerge to the old questions of the Gentiles and heretics ‘Where is your God?’ and ‘Where was God before the [creation of the] world?’; And it also seems obvious that a void can exist without body, but in no manner can it exist without God.8

Bradwardine’s exploitation of these affirmations goes in complex ways, starting from the parallel between the notion of God and that of the world in order to shed some light on creation. Let us only retain that according to the Aristotelian view, the universe was materially limited.9 Bradwardine, in a reductio ad absurdum, states that a universe without a void or further imaginary space behind it would be eternal, which is contrary to Christian dogmatic principles. Given that the space outside the world possesses a hypothetical existence, God has to be present in it as He is present everywhere in the universe, asserting in this way His infinite power. Only infinite space indicates a quantity worthy of and appropriate to God, which Bradwardine illustrates by several philosophical authorities. According to Sixtus Pythagoricus, God is immense without measure, and cannot be circumscribed. According to the Book of the XXIV Philosophers, ‘God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere’, ‘God is a sphere, which has as many circumferences as it has points’, and ‘God is the One whose power is not measured, whose being does not finish, and whose goodness has no limits’. These testimonies of philosophers are followed in Bradwardine’s argument by those of the Bible and a liturgical song, and further by those of several prophets and Church Fathers. It is noteworthy that the Bible verse Bradwardine cites is the same one as Jorge Luis Borges quotes in his essay on the Esfera de Pascal, without knowing that it occurs in Bradwardine, as the sentence representative of the medieval feeling of divine omnipresence: ‘Look, if the sky and the highest heaven cannot contain you!’10 The metaphor of the sphere appears in Bradwardine as an aphorism quoted explicitly from the Book of the XXIV Philosophers and not just as a mere reminiscence. It is a citation in favour of the argument about divine omnipresence, which is part of a whole, traditional apparatus of sentences, perfectly echoed by Borges.

Edit Anna Lukács

Metaphors.indb 125

 125

3/07/13 09:54

An imaginary argumentation stands out here. If one wishes to make a purely theoretical disapproval of Pascal’s denial quoted at the beginning of this section, one only has to summarize Bradwardine’s argumentation on the vacuum and divine omnipresence, and the proof of God’s existence Pascal looked for is established. According to De causa Dei, the proof would follow from the existence of the void and not from its rejection: 1. The world is not eternal. 2. If there were no vacuum, the world would be eternal. 3. Therefore, there is a vacuum, and there is a creator. Or, otherwise: if there were no vacuum, God would not be omnipotent. Given that God is essentially powerful, omnipotent, or even infinite, the vacuum exists, and therefore God exists. Suppose then that God has a spherical shape. The vacuum exists; therefore, God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. This ‘Bradwardinian’ world – in which God is continually present in the imaginary infinite spaces and the vacuum is an envisaged hypothesis – does not stand up without altering the limits of human knowledge. Even if Bradwardine remains unable to make a suggestion about the position of man within the world, the pieces of evidence for the transfer of man from the centre of the world toward an indefinite central position can already be found in a different chapter of Book I of the De causa Dei, some pages before Bradwardine uses the metaphor of the infinite sphere. This passage offers a medieval reflection on the ‘very small worlds’ in a speech addressed to ‘philosophers’: ‘I persist in questioning you, philosopher, tell me, what do you know entirely? I do not think that you will affirm you know even a small or very small creature. I know that you do not perfectly know the smallest atom in the sun, nor the smallest particle of earth, nor the smallest drop of water. For, in every corpuscle an infinity of linear, superficial, and corporeal figures is contained, in different number, quantity, quality and species. There are correspondingly an infinite number of geometries following each other in an ordered manner, in such a way that the posterior cannot be known unless by means of the prior. In every single corpuscle are contained an infinite number of species of numbers, and an infinite number of conclusions of arithmetic, (…) Therefore, if you cannot entirely know the smallest, but on the contrary are necessarily more ignorant of it than you know it, how can you completely know the largest? Do not be arrogant, admit that you are a man, and humbly confess (…)’. Starting from the ‘philosopher’ and ending with ‘man’, Bradwardine dethrones the creature from the centre of the world, and prefers a rather precarious, epistemological perspective: man cannot entirely know the smallest, or, consequently, the largest being. He therefore holds a place between two infinites, on the one hand that of the divine immensity, the maximum, which Bradwardine describes in using the metaphor of the infinite sphere, and on the other hand, that of the minima discussed in the quotation above. Man, however, does not have to be discouraged by this epistemological and

126

Metaphors.indb 126

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

metaphysical situation. Bradwardine leaves the perspective of nature’s discovery open and requires only ‘epistemic humility’.11

Blaise Pascal: Horror vacui, but also a horror of Copernicus Blaise Pascal arrived at the very opposite conclusion about epistemic perspectives: ‘I find it good not to deepen the opinion of Copernicus’.12 This rejection both of the Copernican view of the universe and of further inquiry concerning it underlines the contrast between Pascal’s use of the spherical metaphor, applied to a decentralized universe, and Bradwardine’s. Pascal remains imbued with the idea of a universe without centre, in which, however, the sun continues to play an important role and the stars move in circular revolutions. The metaphor of the sphere is explored in Fragment 185 of Thoughts in a contemplative reflection about the cosmos. In the Pléiade edition, which follows the first copy of Pascal’s work, the fragment is placed in the chapter entitled ‘Transition from the knowledge of God toward that of man’. It thus constitutes a moment as speculative as Bradwardine’s argument. All the elements we find in Bradwardine’s reflection appear to be present in Pascal’s work as well: the different modes of infinity (the infinity of God, of the imaginary spaces, and of the infinitely small and large) and the possibility of the void’s existence. Because of this conceptual symmetry between Bradwardine’s and Pascal’s approach, we should not look for any new element or disturbing form of infinity which might have exploded the sphere. Rather, we have to find out which one of the ancient elements destabilized the metaphor in order to be applied to the universe. Let us first read the passage in Pascal’s Thoughts where the parallels between the worlds of Bradwardine and Pascal become immediately evident: ‘Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to illuminate the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let him wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine point in comparison with that described by the stars in their revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of conception than nature that of supplying material for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the

Edit Anna Lukács

Metaphors.indb 127

 127

3/07/13 09:54

circumference nowhere. In short, it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God that imagination loses itself in that thought (…) I will let him [i.e. man] see therein a new abyss. I will paint for him not only the visible universe, but all that he can conceive of nature’s immensity in the womb of this abridged atom. Let him see therein an infinity of universes, each of which has its firmament, its planets, its earth, in the same proportion as in the visible world (…) He who regards himself in this light will be afraid of himself, and observing himself sustained in the body given him by nature between those two abysses of Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at the sight of these marvels; and I think that, as his curiosity changes into admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than to examine them with presumption’.13 Pascal’s starting point is taken from the contemplation of nature, a nature the reality of which exceeds the most audacious imagination. Pascal speaks of imagination as the appropriate faculty to explore the infinite universe, only limited by its own incapacity in this potentially infinite exercise. In this basic scheme, the metaphor of the sphere, which appears at the intersection of the description of the minima and the maxima, takes a remarkable shape: without any exact reference, it turns to a description of the universe, of reality, of the totality of being.14 Pascal quotes the metaphor in its entirety, but omits the allusion to God. He simply changes the reference while retaining the metaphor’s original structure, which permits us to conclude that Pascal had perfect knowledge of the aphorism of the infinite sphere. If this supposition is correct, where did he read it: in the works of medieval authors, where it still referred to God, or in Giordano Bruno’s work, who used it to characterise the universe? Whatever the answer may be, the intertextuality has changed in Pascal’s work. He does not use the metaphor in the same way as the medieval authors, who sometimes concealed it behind another authority, more canonic in their eyes than Hermes Trismegistus or the Book of the XXIV Philosophers, which sometimes referred to it openly.15 Pascal uses the metaphor in a different way to Giordano Bruno and transforms it the way he wishes. It becomes an anonymous sentence, which might even have been invented by the author of Thoughts. It is no longer the quotation of a metaphor; it is simply a metaphor. The components of the metaphor of the infinite sphere in Pascal’s text require some analysis. Firstly, the place of God must be clarified. Even if God is banished from the sphere, He does not disappear completely. Immediately after quoting the aphorism, Pascal alludes to Him, and this is the only reference to God in the entire fragment.16 According to this affirmation, the author identifies the height of divine omnipotence with the endless cosmic reality. The limitlessness of divine power is no longer expressed in the fact that God is ‘an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere’, but in the fact that the universe is ‘an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere’. The infinite universe takes the middle place in the relationship between God and man, and the characteristics of God are shifted

128

Metaphors.indb 128

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

to the intermediate term, the universe. As for the other face of the cosmos, which veils infinity in ‘the womb of this abridged atom’, these minima constitute a world as well organised as the concrete visible world with its own planets, its own sun, etc. The idea of a correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm was also put forward by Bradwardine, who spoke of the arithmetic and geometry of the microcosm. Beyond these associations, Pascal’s view of the position of man, in the middle between the infinity of the minima and that of the maxima, definitely differs from Bradwardine’s. Pascal transforms the infinitely small into nothing, and by doing so, leaves man in the middle between two unfathomable depths. His intermediary position does not allow man to know the purpose of things, nor their principle. His unique occupation must from now on be contemplation. Pascal is notorious for his concept of human misery, of man’s rambling in the universe, which he discusses here from an epistemological angle. The universe cannot be the source of this loss of reference points, since the entity described by Pascal deserves the name ‘cosmos’ in the etymological sense of the word: the universe of Fragment 185 is rational, ordered and systematic, and presents the same essential characteristics as Bradwardine’s world provided with divine presence. Nonetheless, it is striking to observe that man is omnipresent in Pascal’s description. Everything appears to be examined from the perspective of man; man is in fact at the centre of Pascal’s universe. In Thoughts, man occupies the preeminent place God possessed in De causa Dei, but despite his position, he is considered as an inactive, demeaned entity.17 Pascal divides the world in as many pieces as there are men in it. Following the appeal of Pascal, individuals look at the infinite universe, and attempt to recognize God’s omnipotence in the infinite contemplation of the infinite sphere. No connection unites individuals to each other, and nothing guarantees the objective knowledge of the system, since knowledge itself, though potentially unlimited, is actually extremely limited. If there is a decentralised entity in Pascal’s system, it is first of all man. In order to complete the account of the universe’s elements, Pascal’s observation on the void, situated at the end of the same Fragment 185, must also be mentioned: ‘So if we are simply material, we can know nothing at all; and if we are composed of mind and matter, we cannot know perfectly things which are simple, whether spiritual or corporeal. Hence it comes that almost all philosophers have confused ideas of things, and speak of material things in spiritual terms, and of spiritual things in material terms. For they say boldly that bodies have a tendency to fall, that they seek after their centre, that they fly from destruction, that they fear the void, that they have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, all of which attributes pertain only to the mind. And in speaking of minds, they consider them as in a place, and attribute to them movement from one place to another; and these are qualities which belong only to bodies’.18

Edit Anna Lukács

Metaphors.indb 129

 129

3/07/13 09:54

This paragraph is basically the enunciation of a principle, namely that of the separation of spiritual and corporeal things, rather than an affirmation about the existence of the void, the reality of which is experimentally proved elsewhere in Pascal’s writings.19 Nevertheless, it is possible to conclude that, according to the argument in Fragment 185, nature cannot feel a horror vacui. To suppose the opposite would mean a denial of the essence of nature. There is no fear of the void in nature, and therefore the void exists.20 It is only human error that leads to the denial of the void. Consequently, Pascal appears as a thinker who adhered to a methodical anthropo­ centrism. This position is not represented by a universal teleology or by the idea of man’s magnificence, but by Pascal’s omnipresent point of view. This conversion stands for a subjacent, but decisive consequence of the Copernican Revolution. In this way the world receives an importance in itself, it becomes the habitation of man, and as a consequence it is secularised. Therefore God cannot show Himself to man directly as being the ‘sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere’, but only through intermediaries, in transferring His own properties to cosmological reality. In this case, the approach to knowledge about God becomes longer for man, and even his chances to understand the universe dwindle: if one must really pass through an infinite sphere to arrive at knowledge of God, the journey risks being long. In fact, in the Tourneur edition of Thoughts, we learn from the deletions mentioned by the editor that Pascal initially wanted to qualify his sphere not as ‘infinite’, but as ‘dreadful’ (effroyable).21 This qualification appears as another alteration made by Pascal to the fixed form of a quoted metaphor, in addition to the omission of God as reference of the sphere, but this time the change is entirely personal. The universe can indeed only be horrible for Pascal, since it delays and hinders man on the path of knowledge for the reasons mentioned above. There can be no doubt that this ‘dreadful’ sphere would have been incompatible with the divine omnipotence that the author mentions after having quoted the metaphor. But, as an alternative, it illustrates that the metaphor of the sphere is supple, flexible, and can function even without what was supposed to be its main force, i.e. infinity. This brings us to another obvious conclusion: whereas for Bradwardine the metaphor is an occasion to repeat established and confirmed knowledge, Pascal breaks away from the framework of famous authorities in order to make the metaphor his own for the sake of his philosophical – or individual – system. The individualisation of the metaphor reflects the individualisation of the universe. Beside this act of appropriation, there is the system into which the metaphor is integrated. This system, both for Bradwardine and Pascal, is of a philosophical-cosmological nature and contains echoes of major revolutions in the philosophy of nature. In both systems, the existence of imaginary infinite spaces or a void is asserted. This emphasises the resemblance of space and world in both authors’ works, and limits to some extent their scientific scope. The infinite definitely does not play the role of the element blowing up the ancient cosmological scheme: in Bradwardine’s and Pascal’s use of the spherical metaphor, the infinites as infinites are the same.22 The only and very real element that changes from Bradwardine to Pascal is man. In Pascal’s world,

130

Metaphors.indb 130

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

which is completely occupied by man, there remains no place for God, although God filled out the farthest corners in Bradwardine’s universe per potentiam Dei absolutam. The change of man’s position in the world leads to radically different epistemologies. Indeed, anthropocentrism is the cause of the shift of the metaphor of the sphere from God to the universe. This anthropocentrism was a consequence of the Copernican Revolution, and, after the verbal tilt of Fontenelle, was carried out more seriously by Kant.23 These considerations underline the fact that the metaphor of the infinite sphere definitely does not belong to physics, astronomy, magic or mathematics, but in first and proper place to philosophy.

Edit Anna Lukács

Metaphors.indb 131

 131

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Anonymous (1989). Le Livre des vingt-quatre philosophes. Résurgence d’un texte du IVe siècle (1989), ed. & transl. F. Hudry, Grenoble, Millon Anonymous (1974). A Source Book in Medieval Science, ed. E. Grant, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press Aristotle (1939). On the Heavens, transl. W.K.C. Guthrie (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Blumenberg, H. (1975). Die Genesis der kopernikanischen Welt, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Blumenberg, H. (1998). Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Borges, J.L. (2000). ‘La esfera de Pascal’, in Otras inquisiciones, Madrid, Alianza, pp. 14-19 Bradwardine, Th. (19642). De causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum, Frankfurt, Minerva Fontenelle (1728). A Week’s Conversation on the Plurality of Worlds, London, Bettesworth Funkenstein, A. (1986). Theology and the Scientific Argumentation. From the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century, Princeton, Princeton University Press Harries, K. (1975). ‘The Infinite Sphere. Comments on the History of a Metaphor’, in Journal of the History of Philosophy 13, pp. 5-15 Jones, M.L. (2001). ‘Writing and Sentiment. Blaise Pascal, the Vacuum, and the Pensées’, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 32, pp. 139-81 Kant, I. (1952). The Critique of Pure Reason, transl. N. Kemp Smith,London, Macmillan Mahnke, D. (1937). Unendliche Sphäre und Allmittelpunkt, Halle, Niemeyer Pascal, B. (1910). Thoughts, transl. W.F. Trotter, New York, Collier & Son Pascal, B. (1998). Physique. Ecrits sur le vide, in Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, Paris, Gallimard, pp. 349-437 Pascal, B. (2000). Pensées, in Œuvres complètes, vol. 2, Paris, Gallimard, pp. 541-900

132

Metaphors.indb 132

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

Endnotes 1

Fontenelle (1728), pp. 22-23.

2

Blumenberg (1998), pp. 145-146, 163, 190.

3 Le livre des vingt-quatre philosophes (1989), p. 95: ‘Deus est sphaera infinita, cuius centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam’.

4

According to Harries (1975), pp. 5, 14-15 the metaphor ‘preceded and helped to prepare the way

5

Blumenberg (1998), p. 180.

6

Cf. Funkenstein (1986).

7

Pascal (1910), Fragment 243 (p. 91).

8

Bradwardine (19642), I, 5, p. 177: ‘Prima, quod Deus essentialiter et praesentialiter necessario est

for the new astronomy’.

ubique, nedum in mundo, et in eius partibus universis:

Verumetiam extra mundum in situ seu vacuo imaginario infinito. Unde et immensus et incircumscriptus veraciter dici potest.

Unde et videtur patere responsio ad Gentilium et Haereticorum veteres quaestiones: Ubi est Deus tuus? et Ubi Deus fuerat ante mundum?

Unde et similiter clare patet, quod vacuum a corpore potest esse, vacuum vero a Deo nequaquam’.

For the English translation cf. A Source Book in Medieval Science (1974), pp. 556-7: Cosmology §

73 ‘On a God-filled Extramundane Infinite Void Space’. 9

Aristotle (1939), 279a14-15.

10 I Kings 8, 27; Borges (2000), p. 16. 11

Bradwardine has this concept in common with Pascal and his intellectual milieu. Cf. Jones (2001),

12

Pascal (2000), Fragment 153, p. 600.

13

Pascal (2000), Fragment 185, pp. 608-10: ‘Que l’homme contemple donc la nature entière dans

p. 154.

sa haute et pleine majesté, qu’il éloigne sa vue des objets bas qui l’environnent. Qu’il regarde

cette éclatante lumière mise comme une lampe éternelle pour éclairer l’univers; que la terre lui paraisse comme un point au prix du vaste tour que cet astre décrit, et qu’il s’étonne de ce que ce

vaste tour lui-même n’est qu’une pointe très delicate à l’égard de celui que les astres qui roulent

Edit Anna Lukács

Metaphors.indb 133

 133

3/07/13 09:54

dans le firmament embrassent. Mais si notre vue s’arrête là, que l’imagination passe outre, elle

se lassera plutôt de concevoir, que la nature de fournir. Tout ce monde visible n’ est qu’un trait

imperceptible dans l’ample sein de la nature. Nulle idée n’ en approche. Nous avons beau enfler nos conceptions au-delà des espaces imaginables, nous n’ enfantons que des atomes, au prix de la

réalité des choses. C’est une sphère infinie dont le centre est partout, la circonférence nulle part.

Enfin c’est le plus grand caractère sensible de la toute-puissance de Dieu, que notre imagination

se perde dans cette pensée. (…) Je veux lui faire voir là-dedans un abîme nouveau. Je lui veux

peindre non seulement l’univers visible, mais l’immensité qu’on peut concevoir de la nature dans

l’enceinte de ce raccourci d’atome. Qu’il y voie une infinité d’univers, dont chacun a son firmament, ses planètes, sa terre, en la même proportion que le monde visible (…) Qui se considérera de la sorte s’effrayera de soi-même et, se considérant soutenu dans la masse que la nature lui a donnée

entre ces deux abîmes de l’infini et du néant, il tremblera dans la vue de ces merveilles, et je crois

que, sa curiosité se changeant en admiration, il sera plus disposé à les contempler en silence qu’à les rechercher avec présomption’.

14

Mahnke (1937), p. 25.

15

On the philological history of the metaphor: cf. Mahnke (1937), pp. 175 ff.

16

Only a crossed out sentence deals with divine infinity in this long fragment.

17

Blumenberg (1975), p. 211: ‘Die Richtung auf eine Rationalisierung des Teleologieprinzips ist

18

Pascal (2000), pp. 613-4: ‘De là vient que presque tous les philosophes confondent les idées de

eingeschlagen um den Preis einer Verarmung des menschlichen Weltverhältnisses’.

ces choses, et parlent des choses corporelles spirituellement et des spirituelles corporellement. Car

ils disent hardiment que les corps tendent en bas, qu’ils aspirent à leur centre, qu’ils fuient leur

destruction, qu’ils craignent le vide, qu’ [ils ont] des inclinations, des sympathies, des antipathies, qui

sont toutes choses qui n’appartiennent qu’aux esprits. Et, en parlant des esprits, ils les considèrent

comme en un lieu, et leur attribuent le mouvement d’une place à une autre, qui sont choses qui n’appartiennent qu’aux corps’.

19

On void, experiments and evolutions in Pascal’s view: cf. Jones (2001).

20

For Pascal’s scientific writings on void: cf. Pascal (1998).

21

Borges (2000), p. 19.

22

Moreover, the concept of infinity has a very complex history, which has not yet been adequately related to the history of the spherical metaphor.

.

134

Metaphors.indb 134

Bradwardine and Pascal about the Infinite Sphere. Copernican Considerations on a Metaphor

3/07/13 09:54

23

Kant (1952) B XVI: ‘We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the

celestial movements. When he found that he could make no progress by assuming that all heavenly

bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming

that the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest’.

Edit Anna Lukács

Metaphors.indb 135

 135

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 136

3/07/13 09:54

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

Vanessa Albus

I

n the middle of the 18th century historic rationalism was, to some extent, replaced by historicism. The change from rationalism to historicism was accompanied by a modification of the metaphors used by philosophers. The rationalistic thinkers preferred static and mechanic metaphors, whereas their opponents instigated the rise of dynamic metaphors. The Neapolitan thinker Giovanni Battista Vico (16681744), whose language is highly charged with dynamic metaphors, can be traced as an important precursor of historicism.1 Historicism can be characterized as a doctrine supposing that history has a fixed direction. According to Vico, a function of science is to find the law underlying this process. However, the exploration of the course of the past is often provoked by forward-looking planning. If scientists manage to find the law of history, then they will be able to predict its future evolution. Among Vico’s metaphors, corso and ricorso are certainly the most interpreted figures of speech.2 The large amount of interpretations arises firstly from the fact that these dynamic metaphors are the key to his philosophy of history. Secondly, Vico’s New Science, in which the concept of corso and ricorso is developed, is, in fact, quite ambiguous and obscure. New Science was rewritten three times. When the first New Science composed in 1725 was regarded as unsatisfactory, Vico decided to rewrite the entire work once again. This revised edition was published in 1730. The final edition (1744) contains still further corrections and additions. Consequently, the concept of corso and ricorso has been developed throughout the years.3 A vague idea of this concept can already be traced in the second (Chapter 87-166) and third (Chapter 167-222) parts of De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno (1720). Here Vico writes at length about a cycle of Roman history, which leads from permanent aristocracy in heroic times to monarchy and transient democracy. Vico claims a return (recursus) to the starting

Vanessa Albus

Metaphors.indb 137

 137

3/07/13 09:54

point of the circle after the epoch of democracy.4 There is also a return to lawless and violent society (status exlex recurrit).5 Passing through this cycle man returns to God, insofar as God once initialised the origin of human government. Even the structure of De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno mirrors a cyclic pattern, which starts and ends with considerations on God. Demonstrating the epochs of history in De constantia iurisprudentis (1721), Vico clearly claims the recurrence of the same causes in history (iisdem recurrentibus causis).6 Obviously, the metaphor of circulation illustrates, in contrast to straight and linear movements, the return of the same things. When a cycle is completed, man must restart anew. In spite of constant motion, permanent efforts and an ongoing quest, there is a lack of locomotion and progress. In the first New Science, the cyclic theory is further developed. There are, in Vico’s view, three phases involved in the course of a circuit: the divine age, the heroic age and the human age. These three periods tend to recur in the same order in every society. All nations must pass through these three phases, inevitably returning to the barbarism in which they began. Therefore, the first chapter of the fifth book is entitled ‘The uniformity of the course that humanity takes among the nations’ (Uniformità del corso che fa l’umanità nelle nazioni).7 It goes without saying that Vico, in contrast to typical thinkers of the Enlightenment, did not look down on earlier ages, nor did he idealise primitive cultures, as some romantics would later do. Each phase held advantages and disadvantages in equal measure. Before the three ages, giants roamed in dark forests like wild beasts, mating with everybody. An extraordinary thunderstorm suddenly made the giants aware of their impure way of life. The divine age emerged from barbarism, and developed a religion represented by man’s invention of gods to whom he ascribed his own corporeity, fears and desires. This age was followed by a heroic age, in which heroic virtue became the standard. Vico characterises the heroes as violent, cruel and pitiless. However, the process of development seems to aim at the humanisation of man. The third age, the human age, bases its values on laws and reason. The increasing command of abstraction was followed by a decline in poetry and imagination. History follows a cyclical pattern in which linguistic, cultural, intellectual and political developments are all interrelated. Man’s intellect, Vico says, developed from imagination to philosophical reflection, whereas language was transformed from communication via mute signs or gestures to metaphors and abstract words. During this process, governments changed from governments based on divine authority to aristocratic commonwealths and monarchies. The decline of civilisation was reached when human reflection had turned against its origin. In Vico’s view, the Stoics and Epicureans deviated from religion and the law, the sceptics became indifferent of the origin of civilisation and the atheists started a revolt. Consequently, they lost their laws, their religion, values, language and weapons, and finally the ability to run a country. ‘Hence when the nations conduct themselves in a different way, as they would with the Epicureans and Stoics, or with indifference to it, as with the sceptics, or contrary to it, as with the atheists, they proceed to their

138

Metaphors.indb 138

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

3/07/13 09:54

downfall, losing their own dominant religions and, with them, their own laws. And because they do not value their own religions and laws as being worthy of defence, they proceed to lose also their own arms and languages and, with the loss of these properties, the further property of retaining their own names within those of other dominant nations. Hence, having proved that their nature is such that they are incapable of governing themselves, they lose their own governments.’8 The loss of all these goods enabled man to descend to barbarism once again. The first circle is closed and another is ready to start. The following diagram succinctly illustrates the idea of development underlying Vico’s metaphors for history in his early writings. human

heroic

divine barbarian

Although the regression from humanisation to barbarism appears to be tragic, it is profitable in some way. Mankind does not completely perish through decadence, because divine providence arranges its survival. If the worst comes to the worst, God prevents the mass extinction of mankind. Metaphorically speaking, God administers a medicine (rimedio) to mankind.9 Thanks to the law of providence, man returns (ricorrere) to the roots of civilisation. History is the manifestation of divine providence in the world. ‘Thus, in accordance with the eternal law of Providence, the natural law of the heroic gentes, in which there is no equality of justice between the weak and the strong, recurs.’10 Although Vico emphasises the role of divine providence, there is no determinism underlying the development of history in his view. On the contrary, Vico holds the principle that what is true (verum) and what is man-made (factum) are convertible, so that we can only know for certain that which we have made. The verum factum principle was already developed in Vico’s early writings. Later he applied it to history.11 In the second New Science, he notes that his principles circulate in his writings like blood in the human body.12 The dynamic and organic metaphor of blood circulation is

Vanessa Albus

Metaphors.indb 139

 139

3/07/13 09:54

used again to illustrate the structure of the ideal speech. In Vico’s view, the arguments of the orator should circulate in a speech like blood in a body.13 As for the cyclic development of history, the question arises whether all circuits are identical not only with regard to their structure but also with regard to their quality. The uniqueness of historical events seems to be contrary to an eternal return of the same things. In the second New Science the problem is solved to some extent. The metaphors corso and ricorso occur mainly in the fourth and fifth books. According to the table of contents, the fourth book examines ‘The Course of Nations’ (Del corso che fanno le nazioni), whereas the fifth book deals with ‘The Resurgence of Nations and the Recurrence of Human Institutions’ (Del ricorso delle cose umane nel risurgere che fanno le nazioni). The Middle Ages, consisting of a divine, a heroic and a human phase, can now be clearly identified as a ricorso. As a consequence, Vico distinguishes between two epochs of barbarism: the first, ancient barbarism (tempi barbari primi) and the second, medieval barbarism (tempi barbari ritornati, tempo della seconda barbarie).14 The first barbarism is the zero point of the circuit, which Vico already illustrated in the first New Science. The beginning of mankind is also characterised as ‘the primitive barbarism of the senses’ (la prima barbarie del senso).15 According to Vico, the second barbarism is substantially worse, considerably more miserable and ‘more obscure’ (più oscuri) than the preceding barbarism.16 The development of the ricorso happens on a higher level than the second corso in the first New Science and De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno. Corso and ricorso still have the same order, which follows the three ages, but yet they have a different quality. The ricorso runs on a higher level, because mankind has not lost Christianity, which Vico considers as the only true religion.17 A nation that has evolved to the human phase does not fall all the way back to the brutality of barbarism of the senses. Some aspects of the old culture persist in the new culture. The relationship between corso and ricorso can be described not only as diachronic but also as synchronic. The series-connected order of corso and ricorso is diachronic. Nevertheless, corso and ricorso synchronise because of the correspondences and similarities between the three ages. Vico’s concept of development easily leads to the question on how many ricorsi mankind has to pass through. Nonetheless, Vico does not explain. Human develop­ ment is open-ended. This aporia invites the reader to start philosophising. Vico characterises the 18th century as an age of complete humanity (una compiuta umanità).18 The completeness in reaching the third phase foreshadows a third barbarism. There even seems to be a barbarism of reflection (la barbarie della riflessione).19 Barbarism is definitely not a thing of the past. In any case, there is no doubt that Vico criticises contemporary culture and its predominant rationalism. In one of his early inaugural orations Vico compares the mind’s power of philosophical ratiocination to a spinning top (turbo).20 Both the spinning top and the rationalist’s mind, rotate continuously without any progress in reasoning or locomotion. The more they spin, the more they appear to stand still. Vico’s fondness for cyclic metaphors is striking.

140

Metaphors.indb 140

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

3/07/13 09:54

But what can man do to avoid the threatening fall into dark barbarism? Human prudence may help to delay or even prevent the decay of nations. In the chapter ‘Pratica della Scienza nuova’, which was composed in 1731, Vico claims: ‘This entire work has so far been treated as a purely contemplative science concerning the common nature of nations. It seems for this reason to promise no help to human prudence towards delaying if not preventing the ruin of nations in decay’.21 Vico drafted these words for incorporation in the last edition of the New Science in 1744. Unfortunately, he soon gave up that plan, and with the removal of this chapter, the reader’s consolation and hope that human prudence will do its job to save mankind vanishes. The descent of culture and a new ricorso appear to be unavoidable. Vico’s parallelisation of phylogenesis and ontogenesis supports the naturalistic assumption of the absolute necessity of the death of cultures. The course of a nation is compared to the maturation of man.22 Hence Vico characterises the course of cultures as natural.23 The naturally necessary development of a nation is in any case consistent with its free choice. Vico argues that people voluntarily dissolve their nations to start anew in the wilderness, like a phoenix that is willing to rise again from the ashes. ‘Nations seek to disband, but their fragmented peoples take refuge in isolated regions from which nations rise again, like the phoenix. In all these cases, the agent is mind, since people have acted with intelligence. It was not fate, for they acted by choice. It was not chance, for the results of such consistent actions are always the same.’24 Vico does not only operate with cyclic metaphors to give expression to his concept of development in history. In De antiquissima Italorum sapientia he also uses the metaphor of blood circulation to explain the phenomenon of movement in the universe. Refusing Cartesian coordinates because of the unrealistic supposition of fixed and static positions in space, Vico unfolds a dynamic cosmology, in which a cyclic movement of things in nature is explained by centrifugal and centripetal powers. In Vico’s view, these centrifugal and centripetal powers in the universe resemble a pumping heart, in so far as they make things in nature circulate in the same way the heart causes the blood to circulate in the body.25 The cyclic concept of nature and history and finally the removal of the promising ‘Pratica della Scienza nuova’ might be attributed to Vico’s pessimism. In his Autobiography Vico portrays himself as a man with a melancholy temperament. In his own view, his melancholy was caused by a fall from a staircase in his childhood. Having fractured his skull he remained motionless or unconscious (senza moto e privo di senso) for a good five hours on the floor.26 It seems highly likely that Vico even divides his biography into epochs of corso and ricorso. His biography becomes a verification of

Vanessa Albus

Metaphors.indb 141

 141

3/07/13 09:54

the principles of his own philosophy. His life is described as a continuous rhythm of defeat and new exertion. The first barbarism seems to range from the fall from the staircase to the end of his unconsciousness.27 Usually, scholars visualise Vico’s concept of corso and ricorso with a vertical spiral.28 The attempt to interpret Vico’s metaphors leads to the invention of new metaphors. The metaphor of the spiral illustrates convincingly both the cyclic and progressive motions, and the synchronic and diachronic character of corso and ricorso. Lakoff and Johnson rightly point out that the metaphors ‘up’ and ‘down’, which have their origin in our embodiment, stand for the concepts ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘future’ and ‘past’ in all cultures.29 However, the model of the vertical spiral can hardly show that the second barbarism is more terrible and darker than the one before. An upright spiral symbolises constant progress. Perhaps the model of a flat spiral fixed in the middle is a more appropriate illustration.

human human human

heroic

human

heroic

heroic barbarian barbarian

divine

barbarian

divine

divine

heroic

divine divine

human

heroic

The dynamic metaphors corso and ricorso originate from the idea of a walking man. Without a doubt, the tertium comparationis can be found in the action, movement or change, which running man and history have in common. However, the direction, or the way of movement, is open to interpretation. In addition to the metaphor of the spiral used by many scholars to explain Vico’s concept of history, some scholars illustrate the Vichian concept by the metaphor of ascending stairs. In contrast to the continuous and steady movements that can be observed when someone is walking on a circuit, the movements on stairs are rather sudden and jerky. Supposing a time-structure resembling stairs, historical events happen unpredictably and on a significant scale. Gian Galeazzo Visconti visualises his interpretation in the following diagram.30

142

Metaphors.indb 142

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

3/07/13 09:54

dèi

eroi

uomini

dèi

eroi

uomini

The stairs on the left represent the corso, the stairs on the right symbolise the ricorso. This diagram clearly illustrates the high level of the ricorso, but it shows neither the high degree of horror in the second barbarism compared to the first, nor the continuity of the uninterrupted flow of time in history. However, Vico does emphasise the constant and uninterrupted order (costante e non mai interrotto ordine) not only in the second New Science but also in the first New Science.31 Later on, Vico even uses the metaphor of a strong chain (forte catena) in order to illustrate the constant and perpetual orderly succession (costante perpetua ordinata successione).32 In contrast to Vico’s metaphor of the strong chain, Visconti’s sketch of the stairs does not illustrate a constant succession because there is no contact between the corso and the ricorso. The missing link between the stairs can easily be misunderstood as an interruption of the time-flow. The different metaphors used by scholars to explain Vico’s concept of development clearly reveal different underlying ideas. It is definitely not the purpose of this essay to provide an answer to the question which metaphor – stairs or spiral – is best used to explain Vico’s concept of corso and ricorso. The fact of the matter is that not only Vico, but also his commentators, use metaphorical language to determine, or to explain, a philosophical concept of development in history. They all make their points very graphically. This means that we can treat corso and ricorso as ‘absolute metaphors’. The term ‘absolute metaphor’ was coined by Hans Blumenberg. Absolute metaphors as fundamental elements of philosophy are, in Blumenberg’s view, not translatable into conceptual language. They leap into a void that concepts are unable to fill and indicate a state of logical embarrassment.33 In the case of corso and ricorso, philosophers present the idea of passing time in history by movements in space; apparently, the idea of time-structure cannot be divorced from space. According to Blumenberg, the spatial representation of time by means of dynamic metaphors clearly exemplifies the function of absolute metaphors.34 Absolute metaphors function as orientations in the world and structure pragmatic views of the world.35 They constitute the perception of reality as a whole. The quarrel over adequate views of time-structure in history turns out to be a dispute on the most adequate metaphor. Philosophers may disagree about the supposed direction and way of movement, but what they all have in common is not only the spatial representation of time but also the irreducible coincidence of dynamic metaphors and historicism. The awareness of transitoriness, the deeper insight into temporality and the increasing interest in history is illustrated by the frequent use of dynamic metaphors. The underlying dynamism of these metaphors suggests a worldview that can be described as historicism.

Vanessa Albus

Metaphors.indb 143

 143

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Albus, V. (2001). Weltbild und Metapher. Untersuchungen zur Philosophie im 18. Jahrhundert, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann Berlin, I. (1976). Vico and Herder. Two Studies in the History of Ideas, New York, Viking Blumenberg, H. (1998). Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Blumenberg, H. (2007). Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Burke, P. (1985). Vico, Oxford, Oxford University Press Caponigri, A.R. (20043). Time & Idea. The Theory of History in Giambattista Vico, New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers Dallmayr, F.R. (1980). ‘Natural History and Social Evolution: Reflections on Vico’s Corsi e Ricorsi’, in M. Mooney – G. Tagliacozzo – D.Ph. Verene eds, Vico and Contemporary Thought, London, Macmillan, pp. 199-215 Erny, N. (1994). Theorie und System der ‘Neuen Wissenschaft’ von Giambattista Vico. Eine Untersuchung zu Konzeption und Begründung, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann Feder, L. (1971). Ancient Myth in Modern Poetry, Princeton, Princeton University Press Hösle, V. (1990). ‘Einleitung. Vico und die Idee der Kulturwissenschaft. Genese, Themen und Wirkungsgeschichte der Scienza nuova’, in G.B.Vico, Prinzipien einer neuen Wissenschaft über die gemeinsame Natur der Völker, transls V. Hösle – Ch. Jermann, Hamburg, Meiner, vol. 1, pp. XXXI-CCXCIII Jong-Seok N. (2002). Praktische Vernunft und Geschichte bei Vico und Hegel, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann Lakoff, G. – Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press Löwith, K. (1983). Weltgeschichte und Heilsgeschehen. Zur Kritik der Geschichtsphilosophie, ed. K. Stichweh (Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 2), Stuttgart, Metzler Miller, C. (1993). Giambattista Vico. Imagination and Historical Knowledge, Hampshire – New York, Palgrave

144

Metaphors.indb 144

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

3/07/13 09:54

Mooney, M. (1985). Vico in the Tradition of Rhetoric, Princeton, Princeton University Press Otto, S. (1989). Giambattista Vico. Grundzüge seiner Philosophie, Stuttgart – Berlin – Cologne, Kohlhammer Pandimakil, P.G. (1994). Das Ordnungsdenken bei Giambattista Vico als philosophische Anthropologie, Kulturentstehungstheorie, soziale Ordnung und politische Ethik, Frankfurt – Berlin – Bern, Peter Lang Schmidt, R.W. (1982). Die Geschichtsphilosophie G.B. Vicos. Mit einem Anhang zu Hegel, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann Verene, D.P. (1991). The New Art of Autobiography. An Essay on the Life of Giambattista Vico Written by Himself, Oxford, Clarendon Press Vico, G.B. (1914). Le orazioni inaugurali, il De Italorum sapientia e le polemiche, eds G. Gentile – F. Nicolini, Bari, Laterza Vico, G.B. (1928). La scienza nuova, giusta l’edizione del 1744 con le varianti dell’edizione del 1730 e di due redazioni intermedie inedite, ed. F. Nicolini (Opere, vol. 4, 1-2), Bari, Laterza Vico, G.B. (1931). La scienza nuova prima, ed. F. Nicolini (Opere, vol. 3), Bari, Laterza Vico, G.B. (1974). Opere giuridiche. Il diritto universale, introd. N. Badaloni – ed. P. Cristofolini, Firenze, Sansoni Vico, G.B. (1976). ‘Practice of the New Science’ (Pratica della scienza nuova [1731], §§ 1405-1411), transls Th.G. Bergin – M.H. Fisch, in G. Tagliacozzo – D.Ph. Verene eds, Giambattista Vico’s Science of Humanity, Baltimore – London, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 451-454 Vico, G.B. (1979). Liber metaphysicus (De antiquissima Italorum sapientia liber primus) 1710. Risposte 1711-1712, transls S. Otto – H. Viechtbauer, Munich, Fink Vico, G.B. (1989). Institutiones oratoriae, ed. G. Crifò, Napoli, Istituto Suor Orsola Benincasa Vico, G.B. (1992). Autobiografia, ed. F. Nicolini, Bologna, Il Mulino Vico, G.B. (1999). New Science. Principles of the New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations, transl. D. Marsh, London, Penguin Books

Vanessa Albus

Metaphors.indb 145

 145

3/07/13 09:54

Vico, G.B. (2000). Universal Right, transls & eds G. Pinton – M. Diehl, Amsterdam – Atlanta, Rodopi Vico, G.B. (2002). The First New Science, transl. L. Pompa, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Visconti, G.G. (2007). ‘Vico. I corsi e i ricorsi. La provvidenza istorica e umana’, in Bollettino del Centro di Studi Vichiani 37, pp. 106-112 Voegelin, E. (2003). Giambattista Vico – La Scienza Nuova, Munich, Fink Walton, C. (1993). ‘Corsi, Ricorsi and the Way Out of Modern Barbarism in Vico’s New Science’, in C. Cesa – N. Hinske eds, Kant und sein Jahrhundert. Gedenkschrift für Giorgio Tonelli, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, pp. 5-27 Woidich, S. (2007). Vico und die Hermeneutik. Eine rezeptionsgeschichtliche Annäherung, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann

Endnotes 1

Albus (2001).

2

Cf. Walton’s (1993) long list of well-known philosophers, from Immanuel Kant to Hannah Arendt,

3

The development of Vico’s thought is also emphasized by Voegelin (2003), pp. 67-72 and Hösle

4

Vico (1974), pp. 207, 209. In this edition, Vico’s Latin term recursus is translated as ricorso. This

who have interpreted Vico’s concept of corso and ricorso (p. 5).

(1990), p. CCXXV.

translation must be criticised, as the recursus in Il diritto universale differs from the ricorso in the

New Science. Regarding the difference between ricorso and recursus cf. Voegelin (2003), p. 67. Giorgio Pinton and Margaret Diehl choose the English term recourse for recursus; cf. Vico (2000), p. 128.

5

Vico (1974), pp. 159, 241.

6

Vico (1974), p. 445.

7

Vico (1931), p. 229 (§ 400); Vico (2002), p. 234. Making use of the metaphor again, Vico continues:

146

Metaphors.indb 146

‘The uniformity of the course (corso) that humanity takes among the nations can readily be seen

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

3/07/13 09:54

from a comparison of two very dissimilar nations, the Athenians and the Romans, one a nation of philosophers, the other a nation of soldiers’.

8

Vico (1931), p. 142 (§ 247); Vico (2002), p. 145.

9

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 162-163 (§§ 1105-1106); Vico (1999), pp. 487-489.

10

Vico (1931), p. 142 (§ 247); Vico (2002), p. 145.

11

Vico (1979), p. 34. On the genesis of the verum factum principle in Vico’s works cf. Erny (1994), p. 32.

12

Vico (1999), p. 75 (§ 119).

13

Vico (1989), p. 92.

14

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 78-80 (§§ 960, 962-963), 87 (§ 977), 95-96 (§ 989), 97-98 (§ 992), 104 (§

1002), 113-114 (§ 1019), 131-133 (§ 1046-1050); Vico (1999), pp. 416-418, 424, 431-433, 438, 446-447, 461-463.

15

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 162-163 (§ 1106); Vico (1999), pp. 488-489.

16

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 131 (§ 1046), 143-144 (§ 1074); Vico (1999), pp. 461, 471-472.

17

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 152-153 (§ 1094), 165-166 (§ 1110); Vico (1999), pp. 479-480, 490-491.

18

Vico (1928), vol. 2, p. 150 (§ 1089); cf. also p. 149 (§ 1087); Vico (1999), p. 478; cf. pp. 476-477.

19

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 162-163 (§ 1106); Vico (1999), pp. 488-489.

20

Vico (1914), p. 12.

21

Vico (1928), vol. 2, p. 268 (§ 1405); Vico (1976), p. 451.

22

Vico’s metaphors of growth and decay are analysed in Albus (2001), pp. 244-251.

23

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 115 (§ 1020), 132 (§ 1047); Vico (1999), pp. 448, 461-462.

24

Vico (1928), vol. 2, p. 164 (§ 1108); Vico (1999), pp. 489-490.

25

Vico (1979), p. 186.

26

Vico (1992), p. 14.

Vanessa Albus

Metaphors.indb 147

 147

3/07/13 09:54

27

Verene describes the cyclic structure of Vico’s Autobiography in detail. Verene (1991), pp.161-207.

28

Berlin (1976), p. 63; Miller (1993), p. 33; Schmidt (1982), p. 51; Pandimakil (1994), pp. 219, 225; Jong-Seok Na (2002), p. 249; Hösle (1990), p. CCXXV. Craig Walton finds fault with the metaphor of the spiral: cf. Walton (1993), p. 21. Löwith does not use the metaphor of the spiral, but he

understands corso and ricorso as cyclic motions on ‘different levels’; cf. Löwith (1983) p. 148. Löwith’s

interpretation is critisised by Dallmayr (1980), p. 201. The cyclic pattern is also emphasized by Feder

(1971), p. 270; Burke(1985), p. 56; Mooney (1985), p. 253; Otto (1989), p. 113; Woidich (2007), p. 83; Caponigri (20043), p. 142. Caponigri shows in detail the contradiction of an interpretation

that regards the succession of ricorsi as a linear process. See: p. 140. 29

Lakoff - Johnson (1980), Chapter 4.

30

Visconti (2007), p. 106.

31

Vico (1928), vol. 2, pp. 49-50 (§ 915); Vico (1999), p. 395; Vico (1931), pp. 66 (§ 90), 223 (§ 390);

Vico (2002), pp. 66, 227-228.

32

Vico (1928), vol. 2, p. 89 (§ 980); Vico (1999), p. 426.

33

Blumenberg (1998), p. 10.

34

Blumenberg (2007), p. 107.

35

Blumenberg (1998), p. 25.

148

Metaphors.indb 148

Motion without Locomotion. Vico’s Cyclic Metaphors and his Concept of Development

3/07/13 09:54

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

Eric v.d. Luft

P

hilosophy is concerned with concepts. The style of writing philosophy should always be germane to the presentation and exposition of concepts. Even though a great many styles – e.g. treatise, aphorism, dialogue, chain of propositions, formal argument, etc. – are adequate to this purpose, philosophical writing fails if it makes gratuitous, arbitrary, extraneous, or superfluous use of literary tropes or figures. Above all, philosophical writing should not be self-consciously or affectedly literary. Its form must defer to its content. In other words, when writing fiction or non-philosophical essays, form could sometimes have legitimate ascendancy over content, but when writing philosophy, content must remain paramount, with form its obedient servant. Yet, despite having said this, note that I ended the above paragraph with a metaphor. I did not say that philosophical writing should never use literary forms, but only that any such use must never be gratuitous, arbitrary, extraneous, or superfluous. This ‘obedient servant’ metaphor shows none of those faults, but, on the contrary, makes a key systematic point about the proper relationship between form and content in philosophical writing. Hegel was well aware of this important stricture in philosophical writing. He used metaphors infrequently, but when he did, he always had systematic purposes for them, purposes which, if not immediately clear, would become at least fairly obvious after a bit of study. Before proceeding to consider Hegel’s skillful use of metaphors, we should mention that his most frequent – and apparently his favorite – literary device was the pun, which he used even more skillfully. He seems truly to have loved puns. George Kline’s definitive article on the use of puns as philosophical tools identifies several standard patterns of puns,1 in two broad categories: semantic and syntactical. Adding examples from Hegel, Kline’s taxonomy includes:

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 149

 149

3/07/13 09:54

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Sonic puns (slant-rhyme or echo), e.g. sittliche Gewissheit / sinnliche Gewissheit, Rhodos / rhodos, unbefriedigender Friede; Etymological puns, e.g. Wahrnehmung / nehmen wahr, Wesen / gewesen, Gesetz / gesetzt; Ambiguity puns, e.g. mein / meinen / Meinung, des Glaubens (genitive of either der Glaube or das Glauben), the three concurrent senses of Aufhebung; Neologistic puns, e.g. Gemeinschaft and Eigenschaft in special senses juxtaposed to each other; Prefix-switching puns, e.g. inwendig / auswendig, Aussöhnung / Versöhnung, holen / erholen; Article-switching puns, e.g. der Moment / das Moment, ein Nichts / das Nichts. Preposition-shifting puns, e.g. an sich / für sich / an und für sich; Compositional puns, e.g. eigener Sinn / Eigensinn; Permutational puns, e.g. verständige Vernunft / vernünftiger Verstand, geistige Natur / natürlicher Geist.

Kline argues that although puns function primarily in philosophical writing as mnemonic, pedagogical, or heuristic devices, they can, and perhaps should, function also systematically in the exposition or clarification of philosophical concepts.2 In Hegel’s case, they almost always do. But puns do not translate easily. Hegel’s hardly ever work in English. His metaphors, however, manage quite well in both languages. No such precise taxonomy as Kline’s for puns is possible for metaphors. Yet Hegel’s metaphors fall generally into three categories: 1. 2. 3.

Organic life and growth; Animal imagery; Degeneration and death.

Hegel’s likening of truth to a Bacchic orgy at which everyone is drunk3 fits into none of these three categories. It seems at first derogatory, which is puzzling because of what we already know about Hegel’s honorific conception of truth. Why would Hegel insult truth, when he affirms in the second preface to the Encyclopedia4 that his entire life’s work in philosophy has been to discover the ‘systematic cognition of truth’ (wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis der Wahrheit)? Clearly Hegel has only respect for truth. The solution to this puzzle lies in seeing this apparent ‘metaphor’ as not a metaphor, but a historical reference to ancient Greek mysteries.5 Hegel supports this interpretation by elucidating, in the ‘Sense Certainty’ section of the Phenomenology, what he means by connecting truth to the Eleusinian mysteries.6 There he speaks of participants in these religious devotions learning secrets, passing through stages, and gradually moving beyond merely sensuous things toward more complete awareness. This process seems analogous to that of the Hegelian dialectical quest for truth, the

150

Metaphors.indb 150

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

concept, or the absolute idea. The Bacchanalian indulgence, to the extent that it reveals the logos, could thus be a metaphor for Aufhebung itself. Yet at this particular stage in their initiation, participants gawk dumbly at sense objects as if they were ultimate reality, thus displaying their lack of a degree of pragmatism that even horses possess. Animals instinctively know that sense objects are there to be used and consumed, not worshipped. Yovel extends this interpretation even further, considering the learning process as a non-vicious ‘circle of mutual negations’ in which participants dance and thereby transcend themselves.7 Nietzsche, as Yovel mentions, would later use similar images of Dionysian ecstasy to make points about the nature of life, just as Hegel uses this one to make points about the nature of knowledge, knowing, and learning.

Organic life and growth Hegel employs several metaphors to show the dialectic as a living process of organic growth. The most famous is the bud-blossom-fruit metaphor, which occurs almost at the very outset of the Phenomenology, in the second paragraph of the preface.8 The blossom is contained in the bud, the bud disappears yet is in a sense preserved when the blossom appears, the fruit is contained in the blossom, and the blossom disappears yet is in a sense preserved along with the bud when the fruit appears. The bud and blossom, as well as all their respective contributory factors, are necessary preconditions, i.e. the ‘means’ or ‘parts’, for the emergence of the fruit, i.e. the ‘end’ or ‘whole’. The idea of the multivalent succession of necessary relationships which underlies this metaphor was not original with Hegel, but is fundamentally Neo-Platonic, was somewhat common in contemporary German romanticism, and can be traced back at least as far as Plotinus’ theory of the convoluted relationships among the one and the many. Specifically, two couplets among Schiller’s contributions to his and Goethe’s Xenien express such relationships: ‘Wahrheit’ ‘Eine nur ist sie für alle, doch siehet sie jeder verschieden; Dass es eines doch bleibt, macht das Verschiedene wahr.’ ‘Truth’ ‘Truth is only one for everyone, yet each sees it differently; That it still remains one, is what makes the differentiation true.’ ‘Pflicht für jeden’ ‘Immer strebe zum Ganzen, und kannst du selber kein Ganzes Werden, als dienendes Glied schliess an ein Ganzes dich an!’

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 151

 151

3/07/13 09:54

‘Everyone’s Duty’ ‘Always strive for the whole, and if you yourself cannot become The whole, then attach yourself to a whole as a serviceable member!’ Schiller here adopts the frequently encountered romantic tension between individuals as free, atomic, integral beings and individuals as bounded, interconnected, perhaps expendable parts of a whole. Like individuals themselves, truth must be differentiated, various, individuated, and separately adequate to itself in each individual; yet it is still meaningless without its participation in the single whole of truth. Truth in and for individuals is unmediated; truth in and for the whole, of which individuals are parts, is mediated in and through each individual member, seen as both a free being and a member of this whole. The many comprise the one, are essential to it, and necessary for it, so that the one is empty without the many. But at the same time, without the one, the many are only meaningless vapors. The many exist successively and connectedly in time as well as atomically and discretely in space. The dialectic constitutes things and events ‘as phases of an organic unity’ (zu Momenten der organischen Einheit) and their ‘mutual necessity’ (gleiche Notwendigkeit) constitutes the emergence, sustenance, and ‘life of the whole’ (Leben des Ganzen). The bud-blossom-fruit image is the ideal metaphor for Aufhebung. The main truth which Hegel intends it to express is that, in any orderly process of growth and development, all previous phases are aufgehoben, i.e. preserved, cancelled, and raised to a higher dialectical level. Prior phases entail present and subsequent phases, just as present and subsequent phases entail prior phases. Hegel also expresses this corollary truth metaphorically by claiming that, when we see an acorn, we can correctly infer the possible future existence of an oak, and conversely, when we see an oak, we do not need also to see the acorn in order to know that the acorn once existed.9 This acorn-to-oak metaphor has for centuries been a standard illustration of Aristotle’s theories of formal and final causality, potentiality and actuality, and the entelechy, even though it does not occur in Aristotle’s own texts. In reprising this image, Hegel thus alludes favorably to the entire Aristotelian tradition of ontology and physics. The whole, the end of any process, continues to contain that process within it as a defining feature. As the British Hegelian Stirling wrote: ‘Aristotle’s conception of an Entelechy (...) dominates Hegel. An entelechy is a something that is there on its own account, and realises itself into a whole through assimilation of something other than, different from, itself. Every living thing is an entelechy: it is a principle of life, of something on its own account that realises itself into a whole, a completed system (the particular living being), through assimilation of another, something different from itself. The acorn realises itself into the oak through assimilation of another (...) This is the general principle; and Hegel sees it everywhere in the universe – sees the universe as nothing but this, as everywhere in

152

Metaphors.indb 152

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

entelechies, Ideas, less and less crass, more and more perfect, ascending to this’.10 Hegel also characterizes spirit throughout the Phenomenology in terms of its birth and rebirth, i.e. persistent and recurring episodes of rebirth after its first ‘birth’ in the ‘Phrenology’ section. Spirit’s birthplace is material, namely, the ‘inner’ living brain and the ‘outer’ dead skull, but it immediately transcends them in order to become – spiritual, and, in the next phase, to actualize rational self-consciousness, which has just become free of the narrow, empirical strictures of observing reason. Krell wonders whether ‘spirit, if it is dialectical, and if it is alive, must continue to bear the traces of its birth and its birthplace, must continue to show its birthmarks’.11 This is a legitimate question, but not easily answered. If any particular Aufhebung of any particular phase in the dialectic of spirit is fully valid, then all these marks and traces would remain in the new phase, and mediation would proceed toward its goal. But what of memory? Does spirit remember all this? Or are early phases only necessities that are passed through and then forgotten, as we have each forgotten our own intrauterine lives? If they are not remembered, even subconsciously, can we say that they are retained? In Hegel’s view of the dialectical progress of spirit as a logically informed sequence of processes of either birth or rebirth, breaks are complete with past eras, yet each newly born or reborn era contains, in spirit, all the past eras which have generated it. Old worlds are subsumed or aufgehoben in new worlds. Realms of spirit which are no longer adequate to the full expression of spirit in its proper time for each phase are superseded by fresh versions of spirit to create new realms in which it may productively dwell, adequate to each respective and successive phase. The growth of spirit is thereby primarily qualitative, not quantitative. Ever-renewing as a newborn child, spirit is constantly full of promise; and in emerging from the pains of childbirth, spirit is a living, omnipresent reminder of its likewise ever-renewing mother, the dialectic of logic, history, and psychology.12 At the end of the ‘Phrenology’ section, Hegel expresses admiration for the depth of spirit insofar as it has created the irony that, in humans and most vertebrates, the organ of one of the highest functions, generation (Zeugung), is identical with the organ of one of the lowest functions, urination (Pissen).13 He neglects, however, to mention the third aspect of this identity, namely, that the organs of urination, generation, and copulation are all the same.14 That is, the male of the species, at least, not only in a single bodily locus performs the merely physical functions of excretion and procreation, but also, through this exact same orifice, enjoys the transphysical and perhaps on some occasions even spiritual pleasure of ejaculation. Hegel thus missed his chance to encapsulate all of Plato’s tripartite soul in the penis: the rational (logos) as the organ of urination, insofar as to get rid of waste before it kills you is reasonable; the emotional or inspired (thumos) as the organ of generation, i.e. the ‘highest fulfilment’ (höchste Vollendung) of the whole organism; and the appetitive (erôs) as the organ of copulation, i.e. the pure fun and base gratification therein. Any of the three may

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 153

 153

3/07/13 09:54

govern the other two and so determine the constitution of the whole organism and its spirit.15 Alternately, Hegel could have correlated this threefold functionality of the penis with Aristotle’s theory of the soul, so that generation would correspond with the nutritive function by which plant souls preserve and perpetuate themselves, copulation with the appetitive or sentient function by which animal souls enjoy themselves, and urination with the rational function by which human souls decide that to evacuate the bladder whenever it becomes full is a good idea. If Hegel had noticed and used any of this, he would not likely have missed the opportunity to make a pun on the Stoic and Neo-Platonic idea of ‘seminal reasons’ (logoi spermatikoi).16 But spirit cannot be constrained to any particular locus, even metaphorically. Hegel illustrates this ever unfinished, never circumscribable, character of spirit with the metaphor of the building (Gebäude),17 which, under construction, is far from finished, and indeed may never be finished, even though its foundation, even perhaps its strongest possible foundation, has already been solidly laid. Just like the unfinished building, the acorn does not satisfy us; we wish it to become an oak; but the oak does not satisfy us either. The dynamic restlessness of spirit, mostly progressive but occasionally retrogressive or even regressive for the sake of further progress, simultaneously seeks, accepts, disregards, and rejects dialectical growth and necessary change, all with coincident but not contradictory shrieks of optimism and snarls of contempt. In the same vein, and the same paragraph, Hegel writes: ‘So ist die Wissenschaft, die Krone einer Welt des Geistes, nicht in ihrem Anfange vollendet’.18 This ‘crown’ is not the ‘crowning achievement’ of spirit, since it remains always subject to change, revision, rejection, or replacement, and thus can never become a final ‘achievement’ (Vollendung). ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’,19 so even spirit’s crown, systematic knowledge, will be thrown down over and over again in world history by hordes of dialectical regicides. Spirit’s world, in any particular configuration (Gestalt) or at any particular phase (Moment), is only a world, or one particular world among many, not the world. It is always ripening for neverending transition, which Nietzsche would later call Untergang and Übergang, a complementary twofold process, and which Hegel typically sees as the threefold movement of Aufhebung: preservation, cancellation, and elevation to a higher dialectical level. This crown, in other words, is not the ultimate crown, but just a stage along the way, in which there already have been many crowns and will be many more, some tyrannical, some beneficent, all preliminary and prerequisite. The mixed metaphors in this paragraph – newborn infant, building, acorn/oak, crown – all tend toward the same message, namely, that not only life and consciousness, but also truth, existence, and reality in general, are a process, neither an entity nor a set or series of entities. To reify any of it, or even to speak of any of it in static terms, is to falsify it. With this insight Hegel anticipates Alfred North Whitehead. Negation drives this eternal and universal process. Alienation is a species of negation. In the context of discussing alienation or, more specifically, spirit alienated from itself, Hegel uses the image of the division and development of nature in the

154

Metaphors.indb 154

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

four ancient Greek elements, air, water, fire, and earth, as a metaphorical analogy to the division and development of spirit (Geist) as culture (Bildung).20 Thus, in showing how spirit, when alienated from itself within and over against an actual cultural milieu, can use the factors indicated by this metaphor of the four elements to escape or overcome this alienation, or to achieve unity in division, he shows more than just a simple juxaposition of nature and spirit, but rather also evokes the complex interplay of the one and the many by showing four facets of the many within the one for both nature and spirit, namely, air the universal, water the transient, fire the energizer, and earth the permanent, each with their counterparts in both nature and spirit and each interacting with all the others. This interaction is growth, development, dialectic. Both alienation and its overcoming are natural and necessary phases in the growth of spirit. The alienation of alienation is the Aufhebung of alienation, a major step in the progress toward actualizing the concept (Begriff) for spirit in a way that is germane to the emergence and recognition of the natural essence of spirit as a self-conscious unity. In thus asserting that alienation, though necessary, is not permanent, Hegel anticipates and refutes Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Alexandre Kojève.

Animal imagery The opposition (Gegensatz) or juxtaposition of feeling and immediacy, on the one hand, and reason and mediation, on the other, is a frequent topic for Hegel. This opposition is intrinsic to the whole dialectic and, after the dawn of consciousness and self-consciousness, may even drive it, insofar as these two poles are basic negations of each other and, to a large extent, define, posit, or determine each other. Hegel holds that feeling and immediacy are essentially but not entirely passive or reactive, while reason and mediation are essentially but not entirely active or creative. To illuminate this dichotomy, he uses a pervasive metaphorical association of the former with plants and the latter with animals. This extended metaphor of passive, reactive plants and active, creative animals is multifaceted and multivalent. In the Phenomenology § VII.A.b. (‘Natural Religion: Plant and Animal’),21 Hegel suggests that the spirituality of passive immediacy is fundamentally peaceful and vegetative or plantlike, at home in its being-for-itself; while the spirituality of active immediacy is belligerent, territorial, and hateful in accordance with its hungry animal nature, uncomfortable, even itchy, in its being-for-itself. Plant nature is indifferent, disinterested, indeed incapable of being interested, almost spiritless in its apathy, while animal nature is excited, excitable, curious, engaged, driven by its lusty sense of either individual or communal self-importance. Thus, in this passage, plant and animal serve Hegel respectively as metaphors for quiescent religions such as Taoism, some forms of Hinduism, and monastic Christianity, as opposed to aggressive missionary religions such as Islam, particularistic national or tribal religions, and proselytic Christianity.

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 155

 155

3/07/13 09:54

In the Philosophy of Right Hegel claims that men are to women as animals are to plants.22 Even though this metaphor is not in Hegel’s own text, but in Hotho’s and Griesheim’s additions, there is no reason to believe that this opinion differs from Hegel’s own, insofar as the metaphor expresses the standard contemporary German opinion of the nature and role of women. Moreover, there is support for this interpretation from Hegel’s own hand. For example, in stating that animals are severally distinguished by their natural weapons, but plants by their reproductive capacities, Hegel implies that men are distinguished by their power, but women by their gender.23 The aggressive self-interest that typifies animals is manifest – almost satirically – in what Hegel calls das geistige Tierreich (i.e. ‘the cultural menagerie’ or ‘the intellectual zoo’).24 Hegel’s purpose in this section of the Phenomenology is to criticize those who would advance culture by, paradoxically, promoting their own individual self-interests, particularly in the sphere of academia. Hegel plainly had in mind some of his academic colleagues who seemed to him more concerned with gaining fame or notoriety than with seeking truth, advancing science, or upholding integrity. We academics each keep in the backs of our minds a private list of such blots on our profession, those for whom ‘my work’ is more important than ‘the work’. First on Hegel’s list was probably Jakob Friedrich Fries. Such professorial animals are more sly than the guileless, hungry, practical animals in the aforementioned Bacchanalia passage,25 since, although both types put their particular self-interests first and are quite practical in doing so, the latter, without much conscious reflection, serve only their innocent appetites, while the former, with self-conscious awareness and willful disregard of their own spiritual corruption and cultural ambivalence, deliberately serve their own pride and egotism. It is also slyness, albeit of another sort, that sacrifices animals, fruits, and blood to the gods, consumes Ceres and Bacchus themselves,26 and exchanges what it sees as a non-essential entity (Nichtwesen) for an essence-in-itself (ansichseiendes Wesen), or non-essentiality (Unwesentlichkeit) for divine substance (göttliche Substanz).27 Just as professorial slyness seeks to achieve higher cultural levels, so this priestly slyness seeks, in an analogously roundabout or perverse way, to achieve higher spiritual levels. In both sorts of slyness, the sly agent, i.e. the manipulative consciousness or the self-consciously selfish animal, substitutes its own teleology for the teleology of the manipulated entity. The proper teleology of ‘the work’ is sacrificed to the selfish teleology of ‘my work’; the innocence of animals, birds, fish, and fruits in unaffected nature is sacrificed to the arcane desire to manipulate the gods, or at least to obtain their blessings. Yet Hegel also gives the particular and uncompromised teleology of animals, birds, fish, etc., its due in the ‘Observing Reason’ section of the Phenomenology,28 where the naturalness of these living things implies nothing beyond their immediate selves. Besides these aforementioned animals that metaphorically express aggression, activity, power, or self-interest, there are two other famous instances of animal metaphor in Hegel’s corpus that seem to have little or nothing to do with this general theme. First, there is the metaphor of the dog,29 with which Hegel likens the basest aspects of canine nature to the ideal of Christian piety, but only if such Christianity is

156

Metaphors.indb 156

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Schleiermacher’s religion of the immediate existential feeling of absolute dependence on something wholly other, wherein the appropriate response is just a grovelling, unreflective simplicity at the heel of God, like that of the dog at the heel of its master. Hegel’s main point here is not to denigrate either feeling or immediacy, or even the feeling of absolute dependence as a legitimate aspect of revealed religion, but to claim that Schleiermacher’s thought about religion does not go far enough, stops short at a mere feeling of God (Gottesgefühl) rather than continuing toward reason and a defensible concept of God (Gottesbegriff), and leaves the Christian at the level of the unspiritual or anti-spiritual one-sidedness (Einseitigkeit) of the dog rather than proceeding toward the wholeness or spiritual fulfillment of the human. The metaphor does not implicate Hegelian Christianity as the fully mediated ‘rational religion’. Second, the owl30 serves Hegel as an unusually clear metaphor for the limits of philosophical reason. Speculative thought, properly employed, cannot predict, prescribe, or speak meaningfully of anything in the future, which does not yet exist to be known. Hence the owl must take flight only at the metaphorical dusk, when shapes of consciousness have already established their places in the dialectic, phenomena have already passed into history, and nascent concepts have already become ripe for their respective Aufhebungen as mediated concepts developed through overarching speculative analysis. Speculation for Hegel is contemplative and consummately rational, like Aristotelian theôria or nous, and does not indulge in conjecture or fantasy. It always aims toward the concept, i.e. the concretely mediated idea. Accordingly, just as the owl must not fly during the day, when it is inadequately equipped to capture its prey, so philosophy must wait until its data, the phenomena, feelings, and mental images (Vorstellungen) of consciousness, are dialectically ready to emerge from their abstract immediacy and pass over into concrete thought. The twofold purpose of philosophy is to create the concrete out of the abstract and to understand this creation sub specie aeternitatis, but such creation and understanding cannot occur unless there already exists something specific and definable for philosophy to work with.

Degeneration and death It was a brilliant stroke on Hegel’s part to have spirit (Geist) first arise in the dialectic as a phoenix from the ashes of empiricism, physicalism, and naive realism, as it were, in the ‘Phrenology’ section of the Phenomenology, rather than somewhere or somehow else.31 This section is an extended death metaphor. Hegel’s point is that the previous dialectical phases of consciousness, sense certainty, perception, force, the understanding, self-consciousness, the encounter with the other, the life-and-death struggle, master/ slave, mutual recognition, stoicism, scepticism, the unhappy consciousness, reason, self-certain reason, and the scientific study of nature all culminate in an essentially meaningless farce of observing reason, from which nothing worthwhile can ensue. That

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 157

 157

3/07/13 09:54

is, the dialectic has reached an aporia. For example, in the ‘Lust and Necessity’ section of the Phenomenology, self-consciousness is so immersed in the immediacy of physical life that it sees the higher aspects of spiritual, mental, cultural, and philosophical life as a mere shadow, a vanishing, lifeless fog.32 But, having gone through all these phases to reach this barren endpoint, spirit can at last arise as a logical consequence of this failed movement. The barren endpoint of self-conscious reason is in fact only penultimate. The phases that generated it were in fact degenerative phases, but degenerative only insofar as they pushed self-conscious reason to where it would realize that death always entails some sort of resurrection. Thus self-conscious reason reinvents itself and emerges as spirit. Phrenology’s equation of the externally dead (the skull) with the internally alive (the brain and – ultimately – the mind) was folly, but necessary insofar as it enabled a culturally fertile Geist to arise concrete, alive, and mediated from a reason that was abstract, dead, and unmediated. In this context, the skull is the metaphor for all the lifeless objects of the reason that observes according to a strict, Cartesian, subject/object dualism, while the brain (or mind) is the metaphor for life as spirit and spirit as life. In the ‘Hinrichs-Foreword’ Hegel discusses ‘das reine Negative selbst, das caput mortuum, eines nur abstrakten Wesens’.33 Even though it is indeed the negative that drives the dialectic, nevertheless, the ‘pure’ negative, i.e. the negative that does not interact, is terminally abstract, incapable of generating further development. Whereas the living dialectic is pure negative movement, the merely abstract is just pure negativity without movement, and therefore dead. Abstraction takes many forms for Hegel, each of them either dead in itself or else just dead relative to the inexorable movement and therefore capable of being superseded by something more nearly concrete, thereby overcoming the aporia, perhaps as spirit rising out of the spiritless like the living phoenix out of the dead ashes. The central metaphor that Hegel uses to show this particular aspect of the complicated and dynamic relationship between the ‘concrete’ and the ‘abstract’ – using those two terms in the Hegelian technical sense, not in the ordinary sense, where they mean nearly the opposite of what Hegel means by them34 – is the caput mortuum,35 ‘das caput mortuum der Abstraktion’.36 In the Philosophy of Nature Hegel writes: ‘Das Rohe besteht darin, dass das äussere caput mortuum, der tote Stoff, in dem die Chemie ein erstorbenes Leben zum zweitenmal getötet hat, für das Wesen eines lebendigen Organs, ja für seinen Begriff genommen wird’.37 Here observing reason, i.e. empirical science in the form of chemical analysis, renders living spirit not only utterly dead, but twice dead, that is, not only rotten, deteriorating matter, but also dialectically sterile spirit. Such investigation learns nothing valuable and frustrates the emergence of the concept. The context of these remarks is Hegel’s philosophy of medicine, which appears in §§ 350-376 of the Encyclopedia as the culmination of his Philosophy of Nature. Specifically, in § 359 he criticizes various popular, contemporary, dualistic or ‘romantic’ systems of therapeutics such as John Brown’s theory that all disease is either ‘sthenic’, in which the body is overly excited and too sensitive, or ‘asthenic’, in which the body

158

Metaphors.indb 158

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

is insufficiently excited and not sensitive enough, and that the appropriate cure is effected by forcing the patient in the opposite direction, even if this force must be violent. Brown and his followers relied upon large doses of alcohol and opium and savage interventions such as bloodletting and purgation, which often resulted in the patient’s death when the disease itself would not have done so. Hegel notes with some derision that Schelling, among others, embraced Brunonian medicine.38 Hegel’s wider implication in this passage is that any ‘philosophy’ which sees humanity or any aspect of it in dualistic terms is a failed metaphor, and thus not really a philosophy at all. Directly confronting Brunonian and related theories, he writes: ‘For a long time now, certain formal and material relationships in the theory of stimulation have been regarded as philosophical, although (...) they are as unphilosophical as any other scientific hodgepodge of reflection-determinations. (...) As the result of this, the difference in the organism (...) has fallen into the formalism of a merely quantitative variety of increase and decrease, strengthening and weakening, i.e. into the uttermost violation of the concept (Begriff). A theory of medicine based on these arid determinations is completed in half a dozen propositions, so it is not surprising that it should have spread rapidly and found plenty of adherents’.39 In other words, the formal, material, and quantitative kill, but the conceptual, spiritual, and organic give life. To reduce either natural organisms or spirit itself to their quantifiable properties or observable phenomena is to kill them, but to respect them as interactive individuals is the way to life and the concept, as well as, in medicine, to healing. Similarly, in the realm of law, Hegel identifies the conceptual content of spirit with life or fertility and formal study with death or sterility. Yet he is clear that, wherever the dialectic contains the least spirit, there it says the most about spirit: ‘(...) wo sie am geistlosesten ist, am meisten vom Geiste spricht’.40 The rational content of law can be a liberating and enlivening force, but the despiritualized form of law begets an anti-rational legal formalism which functions as a shackle (Fessel)41 and ultimately as a stifling, dehumanizing, unspiritual force. To the extent that the law shackles freedom, it kills spirit. Even so, too much human freedom, as we learn from Hegel’s example of the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, leads to death, and not only death, but the worst kind of death, the meaningless death of cabbages.42 The absolute, unchecked freedom of the Terror entails a degree of amorality and anarchy that cannot foster civilization, culture, or any kind of progress, collective or individual, spiritual or material. Freedom must therefore be tempered, not by either formalistic law or legalistic tradition, but by what Kant calls ‘good will’ or what Hegel calls Sittlichkeit (i.e. ‘coherent social morality’ or the ‘ethical order of life’), which exists only at rather high levels of the dialectic. Below such levels, death is only ‘pure being’ (das reine Sein),43 a natural but meaningless state.

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 159

 159

3/07/13 09:54

Could Hegel have expressed his thought just as well, or better, without metaphors? Are they integral to his exposition or only lively heuristic devices or memorable illustrations? Or do they make his philosophy richer, more fully mediated, or clearer? Even though Hegel himself would say that they are only mental images (Vorstellungen) rather than concepts (Begriffe), yet they point toward concepts, and as such, in a sense, lead toward concepts. The question is whether they are necessary or extraneous pointers and leaders. If they are parts of or participants in the dialectic as they point and lead toward concepts, then Hegel needs them, but if they are extraneous, then he does not. The answer to this question, in typical Hegelian fashion, is: ‘Both!’44 It may depend on the metaphors’ degree of literalness. For example, the heads lopped off by the guillotine were, of course, not really cabbages, but to the sansculottes they might as well have been. Thus, the heads-qua-cabbages are actual participants in the dialectic insofar as they reveal the motivating psychology of the sansculottes. Well-placed metaphors may actually help both the philosopher and the reader to discover, in a Platonic way, something either new or previously unknown about truth – which process is the authentic calling of philosophy – rather than the philosopher just serving warmed-over leftovers to the reader.45 For Hegel, such inquiry is the heart of genuine science or ‘systematic knowledge’ (Wissenschaft) and thus also of spirit and culture. He recognizes that the tension between Wissenschaft and its cultural detractors, especially those who prefer immediacy, emotion, and religion to mediation, reason, and philosophy, is der hauptsächlichste Knoten, literally ‘the most important knot’, i.e. the Gordian knot itself.46 Metaphors, such as these of the leftovers and the knot, may help to bridge this gap, overcome this oppostion (Gegensatz), relieve this tension, and so promote the ‘spiritual culture of systematic knowledge’ (wissenschaftliche Bildung).

160

Metaphors.indb 160

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Desmond, W. (1989). ‘Can Philosophy Laugh at Itself ? On Hegel and Aristophanes’, in The Owl of Minerva 20, pp. 131-149 Figala, K. (1974). ‘Der alchemische Begriff des Caput Mortuum in der symbolischen Terminologie Hegels’, in Hegel-Studien, Beiheft 11, Stuttgarter Hegel-Tage 1970, Bonn, Bouvier, pp. 141-151 Hegel, G.W.F. (1952). Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. J. Hoffmeister, Hamburg, Meiner Hegel, G.W.F. (1955). Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, ed. J. Hoffmeister, Hamburg, Meiner Hegel, G.W.F. (1966). ‘Who Thinks Abstractly?’, transl. W. Kaufmann in Hegel. Texts and Commentary, Garden City, New York, Anchor Books, pp. 113-118 Hegel, G.W.F. (1969a). Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, eds F. Nicolin – O. Pöggeler, Hamburg, Meiner Hegel, G.W.F. (1969b). ‘Wer Denkt Abstrakt?’ in Hegel-Studien 5, pp. 161-164 Hegel, G.W.F. (1970). Philosophy of Nature, transl. M.J. Petry, 3 vol., London, George Allen & Unwin Hegel, G.W.F. (1976). Philosophy of Right, transl. T.M. Knox, New York, Oxford University Press Hegel, G.W.F. (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit, transl. A.V. Miller, Oxford, Clarendon Press Hegel, G.W.F. (1991a). Elements of the Philosophy of Right, transl. H.B. Nisbet, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Hegel, G.W.F. (1991b). The Encyclopaedia Logic, transls T.F. Geraets – W.A. Suchting – H.S. Harris, Indianapolis, Hackett Heidegger, M. (1997). Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. I. Görland, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 32, Frankfurt, Vittorio Klostermann Heidegger, M. (2006). Die Metaphysik des deutschen Idealismus. Zur erneuten Auslegung von Schelling, Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 161

 161

3/07/13 09:54

Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände, ed. G. Seubold, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 49, Frankfurt, Vittorio Klostermann Hinrichs, H. F. W. (1822). Religion im inneren Verhältnisse zur Wissenschaft, Heidelberg, Groos Kline, G.L. (1974). ‘Philosophical Puns’, in C. Walton – J.P. Anton eds, Philosophy and the Civilizing Arts. Essays Presented to Herbert W. Schneider, Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press, pp. 213-235 Kline, G.L. (1985). ‘Concept and Concrescence. An Essay in Hegelian-Whiteheadian Ontology’, in G.R. Lucas, Jr. ed., Hegel and Whitehead. Contemporary Perspectives on Systematic Philosophy, Albany, SUNY Press, pp. 133-151 Kordelas, L. (1998). Geist und Caput Mortuum. Hegels Kritik der Lehre Galls in der ‘Phänomenologie des Geistes’, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann Krell, D. F. (1984). ‘Pitch: Genitality/Excrementality from Hegel to Crazy Jane’, in Boundary 2. A Journal of Postmodern Literature and Culture 12, pp. 113-141 Krell, D. F. (1998). Contagion. Sexuality, Disease, and Death in German Idealism and Romanticism, Bloomington, Indiana University Press Luft, E. v. d. (1983). ‘A Reply to Professor Williams’, in The Owl of Minerva 14 (3), pp. 7-8 Luft, E. v. d. (1987a). ‘The Birth of Spirit for Hegel out of the Travesty of Medicine’, in P.G. Stillman ed., Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, Albany, SUNY Press, pp. 25-42 Luft, E. v. d. (1987b). Hegel, Hinrichs, and Schleiermacher on Feeling and Reason in Religion. The Texts of Their 1821-22 Debate, Lewiston, New York, Edwin Mellen Luft, E. v. d. (2010). Ruminations. Selected Philosophical, Historical, and Ideological Papers, North Syracuse, New York (e-book accessed 19 August 2011, http://www.gegensatzpress.com/ruminations.html) Plato (1971). The Republic, transl. F. M. Cornford, London, Oxford University Press Stirling, J. H. (1873). Lectures on the Philosophy of Law, London, Longmans, Green

162

Metaphors.indb 162

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

Verene, D. Ph. (1994). ‘Hegel’s Spiritual Zoo and the Modern Condition’, in The Owl of Minerva 25, pp. 235-240 Yovel, Y. (2005). Hegel’s Preface to the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’, Princeton, Princeton University Press

Endnotes 1

Kline (1974).

2

Kline (1974), pp. 234-235.

3

Hegel (1952), p. 39; Hegel (1977), pp. 27-28: ‘Das Wahre ist so der bacchantische Taumel, an dem

4

Hegel (1969a), p. 3.

5

Surprisingly, Heidegger, even for all his concern with truth and his immersion in ancient Greek

kein Glied nicht trunken ist’.

culture, does not mention this connection in Heidegger (1997) and mentions it only in passing in

Heidegger (2006), p.175. 6

Hegel (1952), p. 87; Hegel (1977), p. 65.

7

Yovel (2005), pp.153-154.

8

Hegel (1952), p. 10; Hegel (1977), p. 2; cf. Heinrich Gustav Hotho’s Zusatz in Hegel (1976), p. 225;

9

Hegel (1952), p. 16; Hegel (1977), p. 7.

10

Stirling (1873), pp. 72-73.

11

Cf. Krell (1998), p. 206, n. 12.

12

Cf. Hegel (1952), pp.15-16; Hegel (1977), pp. 6-7.

13

Hegel (1952), p. 254; Hegel (1977), p. 210.

14

Cf. Krell (1984).

Hegel (1991a), p. 25; Luft (1987b), p. 152.

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 163

 163

3/07/13 09:54

15

Plato (1971), pp. 306-309 (Republic 580d-583a).

16

On Hegel’s sometimes ribald sense of humor, cf. Desmond (1989).

17

Hegel (1952), p. 16; Hegel (1977), p. 7.

18

Hegel (1952), p. 16; cf. Hegel (1977), p. 7.

19

William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1, line 31.

20

Hegel (1952), pp. 353-354; Hegel (1977), p. 300.

21

Hegel (1952), pp. 485-486; Hegel (1977), pp. 420-421.

22

Hegel (1955), § 166 Zusatz (pp. 154-155); Hegel (1976), p. 263; Hegel (1991a), p. 207.

23

Hegel (1952), p. 187; Hegel (1977), p. 149.

24

Hegel (1952), pp. 285-301; Hegel (1977), pp. 237-252. Cf. Verene (1994).

25

Hegel (1952), p. 87; Hegel (1977), p. 65.

26

Hegel (1952), p. 500; Hegel (1977), p. 434.

27

Hegel (1952), pp. 499-500; Hegel (1977), p. 433.

28

Hegel (1952), p. 194; Hegel (1977), pp. 155-156.

29

Hinrichs (1822), pp. xviii-xix; Luft (1987b), pp. 153-154, 258-260; Luft (1983), p. 8. Cf. also Luft (2010), Chapter III.2, ‘The Place of the ‘Hinrichs Foreword’ Within the System of Hegel’s

Philosophy of Religion’. 30 31

Hegel (1955), p. 17; Hegel (1976), pp. 12-13; Hegel (1991a), p. 23. Hegel (1952), pp. 237-254; Hegel (1977), pp. 195-210; Luft (1987a); Luft (2010), Chapter XIII.1,

‘The Birth of Spirit for Hegel out of the Travesty of Medicine’. Cf. Kordelas (1998).

32

Hegel (1952), p. 262; Hegel (1977), p. 218.

33

Luft (1987b), pp. 145, 249, 497.

34

Hegel (1969b); Hegel (1966); cf. Kline (1985), especially 137-138.

164

Metaphors.indb 164

Hegel’s Use of Metaphors

3/07/13 09:54

35

Cf. Figala (1974).

36

Hegel (1969a), § 112 (p. 123); cf. Hegel (1991b), p. 175.

37

Hegel (1969a), § 359 (p. 298); cf. Hegel (1970), vol. 3, p. 143.

38

Cf. Luft (2010), Chapter XIII.2, ‘Hegel’s Philosophy of Medicine’.

39

Hegel (1970), vol. 3, p. 142, translation slightly modified; Hegel (1969a), p. 297.

40

Hegel (1955), p. 10; Hegel (1976), pp. 6-7; Hegel (1991a), p. 16 (Hegel’s emphasis). Cf. Luft (1987b),

41

Hegel (1955), p. 10; Hegel (1976), p. 7; Hegel (1991a), p. 17. Cf. Luft (1987b), p. 137.

42

Hegel (1952), pp. 418-421; Hegel (1977), pp. 360-362.

43

Hegel (1952), pp. 321-322; Hegel (1977), pp. 270-271.

44

Whereas Kierkegaard would attack Hegel with the slogan ‘either/or’, Hegel himself, when faced

pp. 140-141.

with mutually exclusive alternatives, would insist upon ‘both/and’, and would find a dialectical way to circumvent their mutual exclusivity and thus to have both.

45

Cf. Hegel (1955), p. 5; Hegel (1976), p. 2; Hegel (1991a), p. 11.

46

Hegel (1952), p. 17; Hegel (1977), p. 8.

Eric v.d. Luft

Metaphors.indb 165

 165

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 166

3/07/13 09:54

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

Koenraad Verrycken

I

n the first book of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer explains how the world consists of two levels of reality. On the one hand there is the world as representation or phenomenal world, which only exists insofar as it is an object of cognition for a subject.1 On the other, there is the metaphysical world of the will, which we immediately experience via our body. The very existence of the world as representation, including matter, depends on there being a subject for which the object can be an object. In this respect, Schopenhauer is an idealist.2 At the same time, however, any cognition is dependent, Schopenhauer says, on the material existence in the world as representation of the organs of cognition, starting with the brain. Consequently both idealism (which makes matter depend on cognition) and materialism (which makes cognition depend on matter) seem to be true.3 But how can the organs of cognition be both the condition of representation and representations or objects themselves? At first sight this is a complete deadlock, as the author himself admits: ‘To the assertion that knowledge is a modification of matter there is always opposed with equal justice the contrary assertion that all matter is only modification of the subject’s knowing, as the subject’s representation’.4

In the literature on Schopenhauer, this problem is known as ‘the circle of Zeller’ (Zellerscher Zirkel) or ‘paradox of Zeller’ (Zellersches Paradoxon). The 19th century historian of Greek philosophy, Eduard Zeller, considered the mutual exclusion of idealism and materialism as the main contradiction in Schopenhauer’s system. According to Zeller, it is Schopenhauer’s untenable position ‘that representation is a product of the brain, and the brain a product of representation’.5

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 167

 167

3/07/13 09:54

The antinomy of cognition Schopenhauer, however, speaks of an ‘antinomy in our faculty of cognition’.6 He argues that the world as representation and the world as will are two sides of one coin, and that the former is the external appearance of the latter. But this solution creates a problem hardly less impossible to solve, namely that of the origin of cognition.7 The materialistic side of Schopenhauer’s antinomy indeed implies that cognition originates only at a certain level of complexity of matter, since the existence of the organs of knowledge, i.e. the brain and the senses, presupposes lower or earlier stages in the development of matter.8 In Schopenhauer’s view, inorganic matter preceded organic matter, and organic matter itself developed in several stages. Plants existed before animals, fishes before terrestrial animals, and man is the last link in the chain of life. Consequently, Schopenhauer writes, the original mass of matter had to go through a long series of changes before the first eye could open. ‘The earth’, he says, ‘can be compared to a palimpsest that has been written on four times’.9 For his view of the succession of different stages or levels in the history of nature Schopenhauer depends on Cuvier’s theory of catastrophes, which was accepted by most scientists during the first half of the 19th century. According to Cuvier, there was a series of independent periods in the development of life on earth, separated from each other by large catastrophes that destroyed all life.10 For Schopenhauer this means that the world existed long before the beginning of cognition at animal level, in other words that the existence of the world as will preceded the existence of the world as representation. Apparently the logic of a materialistic approach to reality gets Schopenhauer into great trouble. Is it still possible to speak of an antinomy or of two sides of the same coin when matter is supposed to have existed without cognition? In principle there seems to be only one way to escape a total impasse, namely to give up the idea of an antinomy, and in the end to take the side of idealism. Actually, in the second volume of The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer does admit that idealism prevails over materialism, for in contrast to matter consciousness is immediately certain.11 Several commentators have concluded from this that idealism is indeed Schopenhauer’s last word. They claim that on Schopenhauer’s own premises the existence of matter and the development of life leading up to the appearance of the world as representation at the level of animal cognition, are only representations themselves, and consequently that Schopenhauer’s ‘materialism’ is not the equivalent counterpart of his idealism.12 Other commentators by contrast emphasise the importance of Schopenhauer’s materialistic adaptation of the idealistic theory of cognition.13 In my view any purely idealistic interpretation of the antinomy of cognition fails to appreciate its central role in Schopenhauer’s system and its relevance to his ideas on philosophical conceptuality and philosophical language. It is true that Schopenhauer himself admits that the materialistic approach to cognition is itself nothing more than a representation of consciousness. It is striking, however, that he advances this

168

Metaphors.indb 168

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

conclusion rather discretely and with full respect for the antinomy of idealism and materialism. Apparently he does not attach too much importance to such an all too easy and merely formal solution, and is ready to take seriously the materialistic challenge to his idealism. Schopenhauer repeatedly emphasises that his idealism is transcendental, i.e. that it is at the same time an empirical realism.14 The fact that the phenomenal world, including our organs of cognition, is only a representation of consciousness does not change its reality as an object of experience. Cognition presupposes the reality of the brain, and the brain presupposes cognition in order to be a real object. However difficult it may be to accept this antinomy, it is based on the correlativity of subject and object, on the impossibility of there being a subject without an object and an object without a subject. But Schopenhauer’s own view of the development of matter and life leads him to accept that cognition did not always exist and that, before the origin of cognition and therefore of the subject-object correlation, there was a world without cognition, a ‘word as will’ without a ‘world as representation’. In the second book of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer describes the origin of cognition at animal level. The will to life, he says, strives to ever-higher objectifications. In inorganic nature, will is a plurality of blind forces without cognition. Plant life also has no need for cognition: plants only react to stimuli, and for such a passive reaction no cognition is required. Animals, by contrast, get their food by actively moving on the occasion of motives, which are causes perceived by cognition. Consequently cognition originated, Schopenhauer argues, as an instrument of the will to ensure the preservation of the animal individual and the survival of its species. Like any other determination of the will, cognition also objectifies itself into an organ of the animal body, namely the brain ‘or a larger ganglion’. Together with the emergence of cognition, the world as representation, including the relation between subject and object, time, space and causality, comes into existence at once. From now on the world as representation is the other side of the world as will.15 For Schopenhauer any animal is as such endowed with intuitive cognition and therefore with intellect (Verstand). At a later stage human reason (Vernunft) emerges: man is capable of forming abstract and general concepts, which allow him to go beyond the immediate objects of intuition. The general and reflective nature of reason shows itself at three levels: in language, in considered action (which takes the past and the future into account), and in science.16 The distinction Schopenhauer makes between human rational knowledge (Wissen, which is a specific form of Erkenntnis or cognition in general) and intuitive cognition (which is Erkenntnis at the level of animal intellect or Verstand) implies that the antinomy is indeed an antinomy of cognition. Of course it is human reason that is capable of conceiving and understanding this antinomy, including the problem of the origin of cognition resulting from it, but this does not make it an antinomy of rational knowledge itself. What is antinomic is the correlation of the brain and representation starting from the lowest level of animal cognition.

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 169

 169

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphysics and metaphor At this point we can introduce the subject of the metaphorical element in Schopenhauer’s metaphysical language. His view of the dependence of cognition on the existence of the animal brain reminds us of a problem as old as metaphysics itself: how can the concepts and the terminology by means of which human reason tries to understand empirical reality be applied to a reality beyond the phenomenal world? From the beginning of the metaphysical tradition, metaphorical language was considered as a way to cope with this problem to a certain extent. Prominent examples of the presence of metaphor in metaphysics are the light metaphor in Parmenides, Plato, Neoplatonism, the Church Fathers and medieval philosophy,17 or the mirror as a metaphor for the mind in modern philosophy.18 But it is also characteristic of traditional metaphysics to make a clear distinction between the metaphors it may have to resort to and its ideal of a pure conceptual language for articulating the truth about the objective nature of reality. Descartes, for example, was guided by the ideal of a philosophical language consisting of clear and distinct concepts that can be perfectly defined, a language in which nothing obscure or provisional is left.19 As regards his own metaphysics, Schopenhauer emphasizes that it is based on a ‘transfer’ from our self-experience to nature in its entirety. My self-experience teaches me that the voluntary movements of the object I call ‘my body’ are movements of my Self, that they are acts of my will caused by motives.20 By extension, my entire body must be the phenomenal appearance of my Self as will or the will inside myself, and the notion of ‘will’ must be taken to include all our desires, all our emotions, all pleasure and pain, and even the unconscious vital functions of our body.21 By further extension, the will appears to be the inner essence of all reality, of animals, plants and even inorganic nature. Accordingly, metaphysics, which tries to understand reality in its entirety, necessarily uses our experience of ourselves as subjects of willing as the ‘key’22 to the knowledge of the essence of nature. In the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer claims that his metaphysics is not based on pure concepts. The key (Schlüssel), one could say, that opens the secret of nature is not a ‘conclusion’, nor is it the result of a concatenation of abstract syllogisms (Schlüsse).23 On the contrary, it starts from experience as a whole and tries on that basis to understand the essence of the world as the thing-in-itself. Therefore, it is a meta-physics properly speaking.24 In the first volume of his main work, Schopenhauer speaks of a transfer (übertragen) from our inner experience of will to the world as a whole.25 And he explains that this transfer of the concept of will is a denominatio a potiori. By this he means that it is legitimate to extend the notion of ‘will to life’ from ourselves to the inner essence of the universe as a whole, because the clearest manifestation of that universal force is our own ‘willing’. Therefore the notion of ‘force’ (which refers to the forces of nature like magnetism or gravity) must be subsumed under the notion of ‘will’ and not the other way around.26

170

Metaphors.indb 170

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

According to Schopenhauer, the denominatio a potiori just mentioned is the transfer of the concept of will from a species (the human will) to its genus (the will in all forces of life and nature).27 It is well known that Aristotle considered the transition from species to genus as one of four different types of metaphor. When Homer mentions the ‘ten thousand’ (muria) noble deeds of Ulysses, this is a metaphorical way of speaking for Aristotle, since ‘ten thousand’ is used here as a species of the genus ‘many’.28 Schopenhauer, however, avoids speaking of a metaphorical use of the concept of will, because in his view it is literally true that the vital force in plants, electricity or gravity are forms of willing or striving. He is fully aware that this position depends on the assumption that willing without cognition is possible and that cognition is only a secondary phenomenon.29 Strictly speaking Schopenhauer begs the question here, since his conclusion (the metaphysical essence of the entire world is will) presupposes itself (namely: will is not limited to willing accompanied by cognition). Anyhow, he is convinced that blind willing or desire is at work both in the life of plants and even at the level of inorganic nature. ‘Here also the seeking shows itself as gravitation, the fleeing as reception of motion; and the mobility of bodies by pressure or impact, which constitutes the basis of mechanics, is at bottom a manifestation of the effort after self-preservation which dwells also in them. (…) In fact, we can regard elastic bodies as the more courageous, which try to repel the enemy, or at least to deny him further pursuit.’30 In line with this, in the first book of The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer quotes the beautiful passage from Augustine’s City of God (XI, 28) on striving and love as the driving forces even in inorganic nature.31 From our point of view, this is just an accumulation of anthropomorphic metaphors, but it is apparently the price Schopenhauer is willing to pay in order to maintain the univocity of his concept of will, a univocity presupposed by his view that the transfer of the concept of will to the whole universe is a transfer from species to genus. To put it differently: by reducing the obviously metaphorical extension of the notion of will to a mere transition from species to genus, Schopenhauer apparently tries to divert the reader’s attention from the metaphorical character of the operation on which his entire metaphysics is based.32 Nonetheless, the alternative solution of only assuming an analogy between the will in ourselves and the will in the universe is not entirely absent from Schopenhauer’s texts. For Aristotle, analogy is also a type of metaphor, e.g. what the evening is for the day, old age is for life. Consequently we can metaphorically speak of the old age of the day or the evening of life.33 Occasionally Schopenhauer downgrades the univocity of the will to the level of analogy. We know our own body in two different ways, both as representation and will. Analogically, Schopenhauer argues, we may assume that all other representations, which we only know as representations or external phenomena,

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 171

 171

3/07/13 09:54

are in themselves or metaphysically speaking will.34 On closer consideration, in this case he attaches little importance to the distinction between univocity and analogy. Whether we call the fundamental operation of metaphysics, namely the transfer of the concept of will to nature in its entirety an analogy or not, for Schopenhauer will is the only concept that does not stem from the world of external representations but from within, from our inner self-experience, and therefore will is the direct key to the riddle of the universe.35 However, despite our direct access to will as the thing-in-itself behind all re­ presentations, we have to admit that we can never fully understand even the simplest and smallest thing, and that in everything an inexplicable rest remains, which means that metaphysics can never entirely achieve its goal. This is due, Schopenhauer argues, to the fact that the concepts of human reason can only clarify relationships between representations and are in principle unable to go beyond the world as representation.36 The cause of this ‘metaphysical’ inadequacy of rational thought lies in the origin of intellect in general, as the author explains in the following passage: ‘That we cannot comprehend the world on the direct path, in other words, through the uncritical, direct application of the intellect and its data, but are ever more deeply involved in insoluble riddles when we reflect on it, points to the fact that the intellect, and so knowledge itself, is already something secondary, a mere product. It is brought about by the development of the inner being of the world, which consequently till then preceded it; and it finally appeared as a breaking through into the light from the obscure depths of the striving without knowledge, and the true nature of such striving exhibits itself as will in the self-consciousness that simultaneously arises in this way. That which precedes knowledge as its condition, whereby that knowledge first of all became possible, and hence its own basis, cannot be immediately grasped by knowledge, just as the eye cannot see itself. (…) Just because the world has made itself without the aid of knowledge, its whole inner being does not enter into knowledge (…)’.37 All the same, Schopenhauer remains convinced of the possibility of metaphysics via our self-experience. It is the task of the metaphysician, he says, to ‘decipher’ the whole of experience, which is like a ‘cryptograph’.38 But given the inadequacy of the concepts of reason to understand the essence of the world, the result will always be unsatisfactory, nothing more than a ‘parabolic translation into the forms of cognition’ of a metaphysical reality beyond all representation.39 In principle, Schopenhauer cannot consider his metaphysics as being merely metaphorical. But this does not prevent him from claiming that it is based on a ‘transfer’ or ‘analogy’, which are actually forms of metaphorical language according to Aristotle’s classical doctrine of metaphor. In the first volume of The World as Will and Representation, the emphasis is on the clearness of the presence of will in ourselves

172

Metaphors.indb 172

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

rather than on the various degrees of obscurity of its presence in the rest of nature. By contrast, in the second volume the author tends to underline the difficulty for metaphysics to penetrate the obscurity of the thing-in-itself. The neutral transfer now becomes a parabolic translation of the reality of the metaphysical will in nature outside man into the forms of cognition on the basis of our self-consciousness. This sounds like an admission that metaphysics cannot base itself on the univocity of the will properly speaking. Schopenhauer seems to conclude that the language of metaphysics can only be literally true to a certain extent, or, as he puts it with a quotation from Horace, that it can only quadam prodire tenus, advance to a certain point or limit.40 Beyond this limit metaphysics apparently becomes metaphorical, as we would be inclined to say. But what does this mean? Probably it means that our metaphysical approach to an understanding of will in nature as a whole is divided in two parts, a first part in which we can literally or univocally transpose our self-experience to nature (at animal level), and a second part (at plant and a fortiori inorganic level) in which we have to operate with analogical language. According to Schopenhauer there are clear limits between animal, plant and inorganic levels. Animals in general and man have in common the faculty of cognition and consequently the capacity of acting according to motives, i.e. representations that trigger action. But animals also act instinctively, without any motive, e.g. the oneyear-old bird has no representation of the eggs for which it builds its nest.41 Calling this instinct or calling the blind vegetative functions in our bodies or in plants ‘will’ is already a transgression of the proper meaning of the verb ‘to will’. Consequently, any extension of the concept of will beyond its primary meaning (namely that of human or animal action caused by motives) and therefore even the lowest degree of metaphysical ‘transfer’ boils down to an analogical or metaphorical way of thinking.42 For obvious reasons Schopenhauer avoids the conclusion that his metaphysics is based on a metaphorical transfer of the concept of will. But in his Parerga and Paralipomena he quotes assentingly the passage of the Poetics where Aristotle considers metaphorical inventiveness (to metaphorikon) as ‘a mark of genius’, and connects it with the passage of the Rhetorics where the Stagirite says that ‘also in philosophy the ability to discover the homogeneous, even in widely separated things, is a sign of sagacity’.43 There can be little doubt that Schopenhauer, always a model of modesty, was also thinking of himself when he wrote this page. Therefore it seems legitimate to regard it as a late, casual and indirect admission of the importance of metaphor in his own metaphysics. Schopenhauer refuses to admit explicitly the central role of metaphorical thought in his metaphysics. However, his metaphysics can actually be considered as a meta­ phorical metaphysics par excellence. In order to veil this fact, he bypasses the use of the term ‘metaphor’ in two different ways. In the first volume of The World as Will and Representation, he speaks of a ‘transfer’ or an ‘analogy’, terms apparently intended to be more neutral, more general and less literary than the term ‘metaphor’. In the second volume, by contrast, he uses terms like ‘deciphering’ and ‘parabolic translation’, which are much more specific than ‘metaphor’. An understatement (‘transfer’) on the one

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 173

 173

3/07/13 09:54

hand, an overstatement (‘translation’) on the other, and the absence of metaphor in the middle between the two extremes: this seems to be the result of Schopenhauer’s policy with regard to the metaphorical nature of his metaphysics. From our point of view there is both an attempt at what we might call a relative ‘de-metaphorisation’ (‘transfer’) and a ‘metaphorisation’ (‘translation’) of the concept of metaphor itself. As we have seen, Schopenhauer is aware of the incapability of most of our concepts to grasp the metaphysical reality of will behind all phenomena of nature, and he explains it by the fact that intellect and a fortiori reason is only a secondary by-product of the development of will. The world has made itself without the help of cognition, and therefore its inner essence escapes our understanding. At this point, the problem of the possibility of metaphysics and of the nature of metaphysical language meets the antinomy of cognition as already described. In Schopenhauer’s view the will or thing-in-itself is on the one hand the eternal metaphysical essence of the world and on the other, the condition of the world preceding the origin of the brain, of cognition and of the world as representation. In the first volume of his main work, the author concentrates on the origin of time. This is how he explains the fact that time appears both to have a beginning and no beginning: ‘But the world as representation, with which alone we are dealing here, certainly begins only with the opening of the first eye, and without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and hence before this it did not exist. But without that eye, in other words, outside of knowledge, there was no before, no time. For this reason, time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time. Since, however, it is the most universal form of the knowable, to which all phenomena are adapted by means of the bond of causality, time with its whole infinity in both directions is also present in the first knowledge. The phenomenon which fills this first present must at the same time be known as causally connected with, and dependent on, a series of phenomena stretching infinitely into the past, and this past itself is just as much conditioned by this first present as, conversely this present is by that past. Accordingly, the past, out of which the present arises, is, like it, dependent on the knowing subject, and without this it is nothing. It happens of necessity, however, that this first present does not manifest itself as the first, in other words, as having no past for its mother, and as being the beginning of time; but rather as the consequence of the past according to the principle of being in time, just as the phenomenon filling this first presence appears as the effect of previous states filling that past according to the law of causality’.44 We can see here how the antinomy of cognition gives a new form to the problem of the possibility of metaphysics and the metaphorical nature of metaphysical language,

174

Metaphors.indb 174

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

namely: how can we know and say anything about the ‘metaphysical’ development of matter and life which ‘preceded’ the beginning of the world as representation?

‘A kind of figurative language’ In Hesiod’s Theogony, Kronos conspires with his mother Gaia against the suffocating omnipotence of Ouranos, and castrates his father with a sickle.45 Schopenhauer refers to the myth of Kronos as the symbolic expression of the transition from the world as mere will to the world as will and representation. The origin of time (Kronos, chronos) is connected with insight and cunning, in other words with cognition. The ruse of Gaia and Kronos ends the reign of Ouranos, who did not allow any of his children to see the daylight and forced them to remain hidden in the depths of Mother Earth. For Schopenhauer, this is an allusion to the condition of the world and the successive stages of the development of matter and life before the break out of cognition. None of these ‘crude productions of Heaven and Earth’ appeared in the daylight of representation, but before Kronos’ rebellion they were all kept imprisoned in the obscurity of the metaphysical reign of mere Will.46 Schopenhauer does not exploit the ancient ‘etymology’ of the name ‘Kronos’ – in which is found a combination of koros (either ‘boy’, ‘purity’ or ‘satiety’) and nous (‘intellect’) – although the connection of time and intellect in ‘Kronos’ could have inspired him to do so. If he omitted it consciously, this may have been due to the fact that nous refers to reason and not to animal intellect in Schopenhauer’s sense.47 Anyhow, the mythological allusion is an interesting illustration of the ontological and epistemological status of ‘metaphysical events’ preceding the beginning of time. We have already seen that strictly speaking, i.e. on the basis of Aristotle’s account of metaphor, Schopenhauer’s metaphysics must be regarded as a metaphorical enterprise. Whereas in the first volume of The World as Will and Representation the author tries to avoid this conclusion by the understatement that it is based on a ‘transfer’, he seems to resort in the second volume to the overstatement that his metaphysics is a ‘translation’ of metaphysical reality into the forms of representation. Obviously, calling the metaphorical language of metaphysics a translation or deciphering is itself a metaphor intended to get round the notion of metaphor and its literary rather than scientific connotation. In the Parerga and Paralipomena the notion of metaphysics as a translation reappears: ‘Thus, on the one hand, it must be admitted that all those physical, cosmogonical, chemical, and geological events existed even before the appearance of a consciousness and so outside this since, as conditions, they were necessarily bound to precede such an appearance by a long interval of time. Yet, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that, as those events first appear in and

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 175

 175

3/07/13 09:54

through the forms of a consciousness, they are absolutely nothing outside it and are not even conceivable. In any case, it might be said that, by virtue of its forms, consciousness is the condition of the events in question, but that again these condition it by virtue of their matter. At bottom, however, all those events that cosmogony and geology urge us to assume as having occurred long before the existence of any knowing creature are themselves only a translation into the language of our intuitively perceiving intellect from the essence-in-itself of things which to it is incomprehensible. For those events have never had an existence-in-itself, any more than have present events. But with the aid of the principles a priori of all possible experience and following a few empirical data, the regressus leads back to them; it is itself, however, only the concatenation of a series of mere phenomena that have no absolute existence’.48 The metaphysical events in the ‘world before representation’, the birth and hiding of the children of Ouranos, are not strictly speaking events but the results of a ‘translation’ from the depths of the thing-in-itself. In this respect, Schopenhauer argues that there is no fundamental difference between what one might call ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’ metaphysical language. In both cases metaphysics starts where our empirical knowledge ends, and tries to elucidate the dark essence of the world on the basis of the fact that we experience ourselves as subjects of willing.49 Nonetheless, the concept of a ‘diachronic’ metaphysics leads Schopenhauer to distinguish between the two modalities of metaphysics and to admit that a metaphysics of the world before representation is only possible in ‘a kind of figurative language’ (eine Art Bildersprache). Finally, we are tempted to say, the author seems to recognize that at least this type of metaphysics is inevitably metaphorical in character, although he does not use the term ‘metaphor’ here either. ‘The geological events that preceded all life on earth did not exist in any consciousness at all, either in their own because they had none or in the consciousness of another because no such consciousness existed. Therefore through the lack of any subject, they had absolutely no objective existence, that is, they did not exist at all; but then what does their having existed signify? At bottom, it is merely hypothetical, namely, if a consciousness had existed in those primeval times, then such events would have appeared in it; thus far does the regressus of phenomena lead us. And so it lay in the very nature of the thing-in-itself to manifest itself in such events. When we say, in the beginning let there have been a luminous primordial nebula that formed itself into a sphere and started to rotate; then suppose it thus became shaped like a lens and its extreme periphery became detached in the form of a ring that was then formed into a planetary sphere, and the same process was repeated again and again – the whole

176

Metaphors.indb 176

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

Laplace cosmogony in fact; and when we add also the earliest geological phenomena up to the appearance of organic nature, then everything we say is true not in the literal sense, but is a kind of figurative language. For it is the description of phenomena that have never existed as such; for they are spatial, temporal, and causal phenomena that, as such, can exist positively only in the mental picture or representation of a brain. This brain has space, time and causality as the forms of its knowing and consequently without it, those phenomena are impossible and have never existed; and so that description merely states that, if a brain had existed at that time, then the aforesaid events would have appeared in it. On the other hand, in themselves, those events are nothing but the dull craving, devoid of knowledge, of the will-to-live for its first objectification. Now after brains come into existence, this will must manifest itself in their range of ideas and by means of the regressus which is necessarily produced by the forms of their representations, as those primary cosmogonical, and geological phenomena. In this way, these acquire for the first time their objective existence; but on this account, the objective existence is no less in keeping with the subjective than if it had occurred simultaneously therewith and not merely after countless thousands of years.’50 The figurative metaphysics of the world as mere will, preceding the world as re­ presentation, differs from ‘synchronic’ metaphysics by its transfer of the forms of cognition (time, causality, space) from representation to the thing-in-itself. The result of this retrospective projection of the forms of representation on the world before representation is a ‘physical’ or even ‘historical’ metaphysics of formless will. The dependence of all cognition on the existence of the brain implies a development of will leading up to the origin of the brain and cognition, a development consisting of successive changes and processes that are at the same time necessary and impossible. The corresponding metaphysical language is called hypothetical and figurative. It cannot aim at categorical and literal truth, but we cannot help applying it to will before representation either. Schopenhauer apparently makes an implicit distinction between the transfer of the concept of will from ourselves to nature in its entirety, and the inevitable projection of the forms of cognition on will before representation. The analogical extension of will to the world as a whole does not involve a projection of the forms of cognition on the metaphysical will. On the contrary: will is considered as the thing-in-itself that a priori resists all ‘objectivation’ or objectification. Consequently, Schopenhauer avoids any application of time, causality or space to the ‘synchronic’ will as the thing-in-itself. Our direct experience of the presence of will in ourselves does not justify a literal, but only an analogical understanding of the essence of nature and life as will. It does, however, justify the categorical affirmation of the analogy. In ‘diachronic’ metaphysics, by contrast, an explanation is needed for the origin of the brain from pure will. This

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 177

 177

3/07/13 09:54

explanation cannot do without time and causality: it is inevitable to apply the forms of cognition to the thing-in-itself in order to explain the brain as the product of will. In other words, it is inevitable to consider will as the thing-in-itself and not the thing-in-itself at the same time. The only way Schopenhauer finds of explaining this paradox is to downgrade the application of time and causality to the thing-in-itself from a categorical to a hypothetical status and from analogical to ‘figurative’ language. Obviously, however, the ‘kind of figurative language’ metaphysics has to resort to when it deals with the world as mere will that precedes the world as representation, is not strictly figurative or metaphorical. The language metaphysics uses when dealing with this ‘metaphysical’ stage of the development of matter and life is nothing more than the plain empirical language of the natural sciences (physics, cosmogony, chemistry, geology, botany, zoology etc.). Consequently, Schopenhauer’s account of the successive main stages in the history of nature (inorganic nature, plant life, animal life, man) is at the same time a summary of the results of contemporary science with regard to the history of the earth and life, and a metaphysical account of the development of the world as will even before the origin of cognition.51 This means that the description of the stages preceding the origin of the animal brain is written both in the proper language of science and in the ‘figurative’ language of metaphysics. One and the same text turns out to be literally true and not literally true. At this point the antinomy of cognition reappears at the level of metaphysical language: just as cognition is both the effect and cause of the brain, so also the ‘kind of figurative language’ at issue is literal and metaphorical at the same time. We are faced here with another instance of what I have already called the ‘metaphorisation’ of the concept of metaphor. The ‘figurative’ language at issue is indeed not figurative at all: it is nothing else than the proper language of popularized empirical science. In ‘diachronic’ metaphysics, however, that same language receives another status: it becomes ‘the description of phenomena that have never existed as such’. Accordingly, there is a fundamental difference between ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’ metaphysical language. ‘Synchronic’ metaphysics can be called metaphorical in the true sense of the term. But Schopenhauer, as we have seen, avoids the term ‘metaphor’ and instead, besides using the more neutral ‘transfer’, uses metaphors for the concept of metaphor itself, e.g. ‘translation’. ‘Diachronic’ metaphysics, by contrast, is considered as ‘a kind of figurative [or metaphorical] language’, but this description is also metaphorical, since the language at issue is strictly speaking anything but metaphorical. Calling, in a ‘synchronic’ metaphysics, electricity or magnetism a form of ‘will’ is for us a metaphorical way of speaking, but that does not detract from the reality of these forces of nature. Calling, by contrast, in a ‘diachronic’ metaphysics, the transition e.g. from inorganic nature to plant life an event or process that occurred before the origin of the animal brain means that this transition is not a reality as such, but only the result of the retrospective application of the forms of representation to the world as will before representation.

178

Metaphors.indb 178

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

According to Schopenhauer, his ‘kind of figurative language’ on the development of the world as pure will, up to the origin of the brain and representation, has no categorical, but only ‘hypothetical’ status. It is not strictly speaking figurative, but we can consider it as ‘metaphorical’ in so far as it basically consists of a transposition or transfer of the forms of representation to the thing-in-itself. The figurative language of ‘diachronic’ metaphysics is identical with the language of the natural sciences. The only way to consider this language as figurative seems to be, following Schopenhauer’s logic, to accept an analogy between figurative language in the figurative sense and figurative language in the true sense of the term. The four terms of this analogy are as follows: (A) the representational language of the natural sciences that deal with the development of the world as will before representation; (B) the metaphysical reality of the world as will before the origin of representation; (C) figurative language in the true sense of the term; (D) the empirical reality of the world as representation. The result of the analogy (A:B = C:D) is that A is not really figurative language but ‘a kind of figurative language’, or figurative language in a figurative or metaphorical sense of the term. This means that the ‘metaphorisation’ of the description of A, i.e. calling A a kind of figurative language, is a metaphor of the analogical type. Apparently the claim that A is analogous to C is based on yet another analogy. Figurative language (C) is indeed opposed to a proper language (let us call it C’) with regard to the world as representation (D). In the same way, the ‘figurative’ language of the sciences (A) has to be opposed to a proper language (let us call it A’) with the same referent. A’ is the hypothetical metaphysical language about the thing-in-itself before the origin of cognition. It is contradictory and therefore impossible. But its relationship to the language of the sciences is the same as the relationship of proper to metaphorical language regarding the world as representation (A:A’ = C:C’). Therefore the language of the sciences A can be called ‘a kind of figurative language’: it has the same relationship to the hypothetical metaphysical language A’ as figurative language in the proper sense (C) has to proper language (C’) about the world as representation.

Conclusion In conclusion, we can say that for Schopenhauer both modalities of metaphysical language have an analogical character. As far as ‘synchronic’ metaphysics is concerned, he admits it is based on an analogy, without calling that analogy a metaphor. Conversely, he recognizes the ‘figurative’ character of ‘diachronic’ metaphysics without specifying that the metaphor be of the analogical type. In the first case, Schopenhauer seems to be interested in minimising as much as possible the metaphorical character of his metaphysics. In the case of ‘diachronic’ metaphysics, by contrast, he emphasises its figurative or metaphorical nature. The reason for this emphasis is clear. Given the

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 179

 179

3/07/13 09:54

identification of ‘diachronic’ metaphysical language with the proper language of the sciences dealing with the same reality, it is of crucial importance to distinguish the metaphysical use of this language from its scientific use. Otherwise the antinomy of cognition and the equivalence of materialism (the development of the brain is the cause of the origin of cognition) and idealism (the development of the brain is a representation of cognition) would disappear. Understanding the account of the history of nature before the existence of the brain in its literal sense only, would amount to a purely materialistic explanation of cognition and representation. The logical impossibility of a temporal and causal succession of phenomena before the origin of cognition and time or the perspective of idealism necessarily transforms the proper language of natural science into the ‘figurative’ language of metaphysics. In the end, an asymmetry remains in Schopenhauer’s view of ‘synchronic’ and ‘diachronic’ metaphysical language. When we consider e.g. the elasticity of bodies as their degree of courage,52 we know this is only an analogy with our own conscious will, but at the same time we have at least some understanding of this blind force of nature. At first sight, no such understanding of the development of the thing-in-itself before the origin of representation seems possible, because that development, though necessary, is impossible. Therefore the figurative language of ‘diachronic’ metaphysics is said to be purely hypothetical. Perhaps, however, the difference is smaller than Schopenhauer suggests. We should indeed not lose sight of an obvious element of symmetry between the two forms of metaphysics. In ‘synchronic’ metaphysics, we extend the concept of will beyond the limits of will strictly speaking. In ‘diachronic’ metaphysics, by contrast, we extend the forms of cognition beyond the limits of cognition. But what exactly is the difference between the extension of the forms of representation beyond the beginning of cognition and, for example, the attribution of courage to an elastic body? In both cases, one might argue, a ‘transfer’ is at work from what we know or experience to what we cannot know or experience. As we have seen, both ‘synchronic’ and ‘diachronic’ metaphysics are based on an analogy. Therefore, we may conclude that the logic of Schopenhauer’s system still requires a third analogy, namely that between the two modalities of metaphysical language themselves. The two languages of metaphysics are not identical, but the relationship between the analogical language of ‘synchronic’ metaphysics and the metaphysical reality of will behind representation is the same, as is the relationship between the analogical language of ‘diachronic’ metaphysics and the metaphysical reality of will before the origin of representation. If that is correct, metaphor lies a little closer to the centre of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics.

180

Metaphors.indb 180

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Aristotle (19715). Rhetorica, De Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, De Poetica, transls W. Rhys Roberts, E.S. Forster, I. Bywater, The Works of Aristotle, ed. W.D. Ross, vol. XI, Oxford, Clarendon Press Augustine (1968). City of God, vol. 3 (Books 8-11), transl. D.S. Wiesen (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Blumenberg, H. (1998). Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Blumenberg, H. (2001). ‘Licht als Metapher der Wahrheit. Im Vorfeld der philo­ sophischen Begriffsbildung’, in Idem, Ästhetische und metaphorologische Schriften, ed. A. Haverkamp, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 139-171 Hesiod (2007). Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, ed. & transl. G.W. Most (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Hübscher, A. (19822). Denker gegen den Strom. Schopenhauer: Gestern – Heute – Morgen, Bonn, Bouvier Janaway, C. (1989). Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy, Oxford, Clarendon Press Konersmann, R. (1988). Spiegel und Bild. Zur Metaphorik neuzeitlicher Subjektivität, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann Kreuzer, J. (20113). ‘Licht’, in R. Konersmann ed., Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 207-224 Kuhn, K. (20113). ‘Spiegel’, in R. Konersmann ed., Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 375-388 Malter, R. (1991). Arthur Schopenhauer. Transzendentalphilosophie und Metaphysik des Willens, Stuttgart – Bad Cannstatt, Frommann – Holzboog Nietzsche, F. (1980). Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden (KSA), eds G. Colli – M. Montinari, Munich – Berlin – New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag – de Gruyter

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 181

 181

3/07/13 09:54

Plato (1926). Cratylus, Parmenides, Greater Hippias, Lesser Hippias, transl. H.N. Fowler (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Plotinus (1984). Ennead V, transl. A.H. Armstrong (Loeb Classical Library), London – Cambridge Mass., Heinemann – Harvard University Press Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, Princeton University Press Schopenhauer, A. (1960). Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Sämtliche Werke, ed. W. von Löhneysen, vol. 1-2, Stuttgart – Frankfurt, Cotta – Insel Schopenhauer, A. (1966). The World as Will and Representation, transl. E.F.J. Payne, 2 vols, New York, Dover Publications Schopenhauer, A. (1963-1965). Parerga und Paralipomena. Kleine philosophische Schriften, Sämtliche Werke, ed. W. von Löhneysen, vol. 4-5, Stuttgart – Frankfurt, Cotta – Insel Schopenhauer, A. (1974). Parerga and Paralipomena. Short Philosophical Essays, transl. E.F.J. Payne, 2 vols, Oxford, Clarendon Press Spierling, V. (1984). Materialien zu Schopenhauers ‘Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung’, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Zeller, E. (1873). Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Leibniz, Munich, Oldenbourg

Endnotes 1

For the translation of Erkenntnis as ‘cognition’ and of Wissen as ‘knowledge’ I follow Janaway (1989), pp. 160-161. ‘Cognition’ is the general term, which applies already to the intuitive understanding of

the animal intellect. ‘Knowledge’ is for Schopenhauer abstract, conceptual cognition at the level of

human reason. Cf. Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 12, pp. 97-102; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp.

53-57. Payne translates Erkenntnis as ‘knowledge’ and Wissen as ‘rational knowledge’. Accordingly, in my quotations from Payne’s translation ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowing’ refer to ‘cognition’.

2

E.g. Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 1, pp. 11-30; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, pp. 3-18.

3

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 1, p. 23; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, p. 13.

182

Metaphors.indb 182

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

4

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 7, p. 63; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 28.

5

Zeller (1873), p. 885, quoted after Spierling (1984), p. 185. Cf. e.g. Hübscher (19822), pp. 255-256;

6

Schopenhauer’s antinomy of cognition is intended to replace Kant’s fourfold antinomy of pure

Malter (1991), pp. 268-271.

reason: Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 7, p. 66; Anhang. Kritik der kantischen Philosophie, pp. 660-680;

Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 30; Appendix. Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, pp. 492-507. 7

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 7, p. 65-67; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 29-31.

8

Schopenhauer’s use of the term ‘matter’ is a clear illustration of the antinomy of cognition. On the one hand, matter is for him the substance which exerts causality, and therefore it is part of the

world as representation: Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 4, pp. 38-42; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 8-12. On the other hand, he also uses the term ‘matter’ for the condition of the world as mere

will preceding the origin of cognition. Cf. Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 24 ‘On Matter’, pp.

394-411; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, pp. 305-326. 9

Schopenhauer (1963-1965), vol. 2, § 85, pp. 169-171; Schopenhauer (1974), vol. 2, pp. 142-144.

10

Cf. Spierling (1984), pp. 20-22, 66-67.

11

E.g. Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 1, pp. 13, 25; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, pp. 4-5,14.

12

E.g. Malter (1991), pp. 268-271.

13

E.g. Spierling (1984), pp. 48-55, 80-82, who speaks of a ‘Copernican turning point’ in the theory

14

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 1, p. 32; § 5, p. 46; vol. 2, Ch. 1, pp. 16-17; Ch. 2, p. 31; Schopenhauer

15

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 27, pp. 222-226; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 149-152.

16

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 8, pp. 72-77; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 35-39.

17

Cf. Blumenberg (2001); Kreuzer (20113).

18

Rorty (1979), pp. 12-13; Konersmann (1988); Kuhn (20113).

19

Blumenberg (1998), p. 7.

of knowledge.

(1966), vol. 1, pp. 4, 14-15; vol. 2, pp. 7-8, 19.

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 183

 183

3/07/13 09:54

20

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 18, pp. 156-161; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 99-103.

21

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 20, pp. 165-169; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 109-110.

22

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 19, p. 164; § 21, p. 170; vol. 2, Ch. 17, pp. 232, 239; Schopenhauer

23

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 22, p. 172; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 111.

24

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 17, pp. 232-241; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, pp. 179-186.

25

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, §§ 21-22, pp. 170-172; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 109, 111.

26

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 22, pp. 171-173; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 110-112.

27

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 22, p. 171; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 111.

28

Aristotle (19715), Poet. 1457b6-16.

29

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 23, p. 378; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, p. 293.

30

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 23, p. 386; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, p. 298.

31

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 24, pp. 191-192; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 126-127.

32

The metaphorical character of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics is emphasised by Nietzsche, Menschliches,

(1966), vol. 1, pp. 105, 109; vol. 2, pp. 179, 184.

Allzumenschliches II, Aph. 5, KSA 2, 382-383: ‘Schon das Wort ‘Wille’, welches Schopenhauer zur gemeinsamen Bezeichnung vieler menschlicher Zustände umbildete und in eine Lücke der Sprache

hineinstellte, (…) schon der ‘Wille’ Schopenhauer’s ist unter den Händen seines Urhebers, durch

die Philosophen-Wuth der Verallgemeinerung, zum Unheil für die Wissenschaft ausgeschlagen: denn dieser Wille ist zu einer poetischen Metapher gemacht, wenn behauptet wird, alle Dinge in der Natur hätten Willen; (…)’ 33

Aristotle (19715), Poet. 1457b16-33.

34

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 19, p. 164; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 105; cf. Schopenhauer

35

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 22, pp. 172-173; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 112.

36

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 22, p. 371; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, pp. 286-287.

184

Metaphors.indb 184

(1960), vol. 2, Ch. 23, p. 384; Ch. 25, p. 416; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, pp. 297, 321.

Schopenhauer’s Antinomy of Cognition and his Conception of a Metaphysical Language

3/07/13 09:54

37

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 22, p. 372; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, p. 287.

38

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 17, p. 236; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, p.182.

39

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 22, p. 374; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, p.288.

40

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 2, Ch. 22, p. 374; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 2, p.288.

41

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 23, pp. 175-176; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, pp. 114-115.

42

Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, KSA 7, 483 emphasises that even the mere extension of will

43

from man to animal is metaphorical.

Schopenhauer (1963-1965), vol. 2, § 289, pp. 646-647; Schopenhauer (1974), vol. 2, pp. 550-551;

Aristotle (19715) Poet. 1459a6-8; Aristotle (19715) Rhet. III, 1412a11-13.

44

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 7, p. 67; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 31.

45

Hesiod (2007), Theog. 154-181.

46

Schopenhauer (1960), vol. 1, § 7, p. 67; Schopenhauer (1966), vol. 1, p. 31. Cf. Schopenhauer

(1963-1965), vol. 2, § 197, pp. 484-485; Schopenhauer (1974), vol. 2, pp. 409-410.

47

Plato (1926), Crat. 396B; Plotinus (1984) V, 1, 4.

48

Schopenhauer (1963-1965), vol. 2, § 85, p.167; Schopenhauer (1974), vol. 2, p. 140.

49

Schopenhauer (1963-1965), vol. 2, § 85, pp. 167-168; Schopenhauer (1974), vol. 2, pp. 140-141.

50

Schopenhauer (1963-1965), vol. 2, § 85, pp. 167-168; Schopenhauer (1974), vol. 2, pp. 140-141.

51

Schopenhauer (1963-1965), vol. 2, § 85, pp. 169-171; Schopenhauer (1974), vol. 2, pp. 142-144.

52

Cf. supra, p. 171.

Koenraad Verrycken

Metaphors.indb 185

 185

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 186

3/07/13 09:54

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

1

Falko Schmieder

W

hether or not Feuerbach’s approach to religion is of marginal or central interest, it has become commonplace to explain it, together with the approach taken by many other past authors, through the metaphor of projection. But Feuerbach himself never used the metaphor – either in his writing on the theory of religion or elsewhere. In the light of the fact that the metaphor addresses a core aspect of Feuerbach’s critique of religion, this fact can only be considered remarkable. This is all the more the case when we consider the few published discussions critically examining the metaphor’s unreflected insertion into Feuerbach’s texts. For a start, to judge from the very brief remarks to this effect (often in notes) the assumption seems to have been that simply criticizing the projection concept is enough to deny its justification in general. It is nevertheless clear that critical literature has not treated a single, substantively clear concept, but rather various concepts that are sometimes mutually supplementary and sometimes contradictory. A critique concerned with only a single concept of projection can thus hardly succeed. In this essay I wish to offer an alternative to this impasse. In the first part, I will look at previous critiques of the use of the projection metaphor. I will show that although this criticism has remedied a whole series of misunderstandings and mistaken interpretations, in total it cannot claim to have adequately treated the problem of the projection metaphor. A more probing exploration of the question requires consideration of the metaphor’s historical development, the central junctures that are explored in the second part. This historical reconstruction will help to clarify the question of why the concept of projection began to emerge as a category for religious critique in the mid-19th century, together with the significance of the insertion of the concept into past versions of that critique. In the third part, I will explore the connection between Feuerbach’s new materialist philosophy and the projection metaphorics in his critique of religion.

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 187

 187

3/07/13 09:54

Part 1 Many objections have been raised to the projection metaphor’s usage in the context of Feuerbach: objections centred on fictionalism, idealism (rationalism), anthropologism, and psychologism/individualism. I will now consider each of these categories in turn. In some interpretations of Feuerbach – for instance in the very influential interpretation of Eduard von Hartmann – the metaphor is largely used in the sense of simple illusion.2 According to Hartmann, for Feuerbach, ‘from the anthropological or sensualistic standpoint (…) the gods or objects of the religious relationship’ were ‘pure fictions that the human heart’s longing had projected outward from itself, pure wishful entities (Wunschwesen) without any real foundation outside the human being, and all of religion a dream woven from nothing but illusions’.3 Hartmann argues that Feuerbach only began to consider nature as the ‘real foundation’ of the gods after the philosopher descended to naturalism (the gods, to be sure, remained wishful beings now as before). Erich Schneider has correctly described this interpretation4 as an abbreviation of Feuerbach’s views, in particular as failing to mention ‘that Feuerbach also explains the concept of God entirely differently from mere fictions of wishful thinking. Feuerbach does not first assume, as a supposed naturalist, that the concept of God constitutes a real foundation, but already sees such a foundation present in The Essence of Christianity, namely the essence of the human being (…), the species or society’.5 Hence generally speaking the metaphor of projection, in the sense of a simple fiction or illusion, has to be rejected because it does not take in the objective contents of religious reification. We should also note that in the second edition of The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach himself rebutted – albeit not in relation to the concept of projection – the idea that he understood religion as pure illusion.6 Hartmann’s interpretation also helps us to understand the objections centred on idealism or rationalism. According to Schneider, Hartmann’s description gives the impression that Feuerbach ascribes projection to individual believers as a voluntary activity, although in fact Feuerbach usually presumes that the idea of a God emerges from unconscious activities. If the projection metaphor is understood in terms of a conscious, voluntary outwardly directed process, it is out of place, since it bypasses the unconscious character of religious externalization analysed by Feuerbach. Thilo Holzmüller’s critique of Hans-Martin Barth’s idea of projection is useful for understanding the next objection, centred on anthropologism. As one of several authors using the projection metaphor in relation to Feuerbach, Barth is aware that Feuerbach never used it in his writings.7 Barth himself finds the metaphor useful for explaining Feuerbach’s approach. Using a phenomenological vocabulary, Barth defines the metaphor as follows: ‘Projection is the interpretation of something being as it is (or something not-being) as being otherwise and having other effects’.8 As Holzmüller has convincingly shown, Barth’s use of the projection metaphor fails to do justice to Feuerbach’s position, with the basic difference lying in the fact that Barth ‘wishes to understand projection in a purely phenomenological manner, as a structural

188

Metaphors.indb 188

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

statement of religious life, as the description of a form of human transcending’, while Feuerbach on the contrary ‘explains projection substantively as an objectification of the consciousness of the human species’,9 i.e. of the unique capacity of human beings to be aware of their own species. To summarize, if it is meant to signify an ‘anthropological constituent’,10 the projection metaphor has to be rejected because it is irreconcilable with Feuerbach’s idea of the religious Weltanschauung as something that can be historically annulled or transcended. Repeatedly, the concept of projection we find in Freud’s writings has been linked to Feuerbach’s.11 A question that emerges in our context is to what extent the above-outlined critique of Hartmann also applies to Freud. Whereas Hartmann’s theory of wish projection creates the impression that Feuerbach ascribes voluntary, active projection to individual believers, Freud’s theory focuses on projection’s unconscious nature. In addition, Freud understands the process, again in distinction from Hartmann, not as mere fiction but as a deeply significant form of human self-objectification. But as such, in contrast to Barth’s approach, it is manifestly not an anthropological constituent, a synonym for the activity of human fantasy, but an inferior form of the human appropriation of the world, a form that can be overcome. But however close Freud’s approach seems to be to Feuerbach’s, separate objections have been levelled at it as well, above all the objection of individualism or psychologism. Freud remains trapped, Jens F. Dwars argues, ‘in the primacy of the psychological’.12 In his concept of projection, Freud’s starting point is the naturalistic individual, in sharp contrast with the focus on the human species that is at the centre of Feuerbach’s basic critique of religion. Repeatedly, authors in debt to historical materialism have underscored that in Feuerbach’s view, religion involves an ‘ideology’, an institutionally secured form of collective imagination or super-individual ‘objective illusory structures’13 already provided to individuals and incapable of being derived from them. With acknowledgment of the antecedent nature of these objective structures, the projection metaphor would appear to have little intrinsic merit. Nevertheless those deeming its use justified can take solace in a series of studies showing full awareness of the primacy of the human species for Feuerbach and making use of precisely that metaphor to explain it. We thus find Hans-Jürg Braun observing that the basic approach of The Essence of Christianity involves ‘an examination of fundamental religious structures affecting humanity and the general community, never the individual’,14 which he then illustrates with, among other things, the projection metaphor.15 That this interpretative framework does not necessarily mean dispensing with the social contents and material fundament of different conceptions of divinity was already made clear in 1886, before the emergence of psychoanalysis, in Wilhelm Bender’s Das Wesen der Religion und die Grundgesetze der Kirchenbildung (The Essence of Religion and the Basic Laws of Church Formation).16 As its title already suggests, Bender’s book centres on the phenomenon of religion in connection with the cultural forms of its transmission. In referring to the simple fact that no religion survives without corresponding ‘media’ preceding individuals and offering them religion’s conceptual and

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 189

 189

3/07/13 09:54

practical substance, Bender offers a sharp rebuttal to psychologising interpretations of Feuerbach’s theory of religion. The ideal religious world, he clearly states, is ‘projected from the cultural process’.17 In the light of such arguments, critiques aimed at the projection metaphor’s general justification appear, in turn, to have reached a dead end. Although they can demonstrate that an abbreviation of Feuerbach’s approach is at work in many of the metaphor’s applications, other conceptions of projection are unaffected. Hence, when in Holzmüller’s critique – the most detailed offered thus far – the projection metaphor is interpreted in a psychological framework, in the light of the above arguments this can be understood as being itself a psychologising narrowing of the metaphor. With the general critique of the metaphor, one aspect of it in particular emerges as problematic, namely the explanation of the basis for its use. In critical literature, the anthropologistic or psychologistic understanding of projection quite often encountered in theological writing, is derived from the natural need of theologians to remove or blunt the barb of Feuerbach’s critique of religion by circumventing the claim to truth embedded in the ‘what’, the contents of projection.18 But since not only theologians but also philosophers use the projection metaphor with striking frequency, the explanation in terms of a theological need has to be considered insufficient. Representatives of historical materialism have seen the reading of the projection metaphor into Feuerbach’s work as an expression of both bourgeois theory’s waning interest in socially centred questions and a progressive loss of critical perspective.19 As accurate as this interpretation may be in many cases, it by no means holds for all approaches to projection, as we can see in the approach taken by Manuel Kellner. Like Barth, Kellner points to the absence of any use of the metaphor by Feuerbach. But Kellner also points out that it is no accident that it is found in nearly all the literature on the subject of Feuerbach, since it clearly ‘imposes itself on a series of concepts and stereotypes repeatedly used by Feuerbach (…) in its context, for example “objectification” (Vergegenständlichung), “reification” (Objektivation) or “positing oneself outside of oneself ” (außer-sich-setzen)’.20 In contrast to Holzmüller, who advises against the use of the metaphor because he fears a levelling of Feuerbach’s idea of objectification21 and thus of the critical content of his theory, for Kellner the metaphor is well suited for explaining precisely this idea, and this leads him to place it at the centre of his study, with its orientation towards social theory. In his own words: ‘We consider the concept of projection to be a critical conceptual model that attempts to do justice to the self-alienation in human consciousness, the human tendency to construct illusory worlds. We are concerned with showing how this concept works, how Feuerbach tested it on the object of religion, and that after Feuerbach it has been used in questions relevant to social policy and can continue to be used productively today’.22

190

Metaphors.indb 190

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Part 2 As Kellner emphasises, in the field of the critique of religion, and particularly in the context of describing Feuerbach’s ideas, the use of the projection metaphor does not have to involve a loss of either a social-theoretical or a critical perspective. On the contrary, with the metaphor’s own critical application, Feuerbach’s ideas can help us to clarify some present problems. But while this means overcoming objections raised to the metaphor up to now (as Holzmüller indirectly acknowledges at the end of his essay), the problem of the metaphor’s application persists. For one thing, we need to understand why the metaphor emerged on the scene as a theoretical category in the first place, and did so only after Marx defined the enterprise of critique of religion as ‘essentially finished’.23 To clarify this question, we need to reconstruct the history of the metaphor. For reasons of space I will limit myself to the main points of transition, one of which is the transposition of the metaphor to the field of religious theory. In the history of philosophy, the projection metaphor first becomes relevant at the beginning of the modern period, particularly in connection with experiments in central perspective and with the camera obscura, as carried out most prominently by Kepler and Descartes. Between the end of the 16th and the middle of the 19th century, no model was used as frequently as that of the camera obscura to describe the possibilities of seeing and to explain the relationship of the subject to the external world.24 Based on the laws of optical physics, the emergence of images in the instrument served as a model for developing rational methods of reconstruction of our knowledge of the world. Perception was meant to offer an image of reality as insightful and comprehensible as the image’s emergence in the camera obscura or at the eye’s background. The concept of projection was thus transferred from the optical dimension to that of cognitive theory and served to characterise methods for objectively grasping the world, with procedures of construction from the natural sciences and optical-physical apparatuses for perception as models. The contradictions resulting from analogising the eye and the camera or from the difference between rational perception and pictorial reproduction, constituted a point of debate in a great deal of cognitive theory in the wake of Descartes. The insolubility of the problem was perhaps most clearly demonstrated in George Berkeley’s Essay towards a New Theory of Vision. According to Berkeley, philosophy has the task of explaining the manner in which the human spirit sees, something very different from studying the refraction or reflection of light rays, which belongs to the realm of geometry, or the mechanics of the eye, which belongs to the realm of anatomy among other disciplines.25 In the course of the 19th century, the contradictions in epistemology pointed out by Berkeley led to an intensive discussion of the projection metaphor. Here the central theme and challenge was to bridge the gap between philosophical and physiological knowledge, a gap that, to be sure, only emerged from the appropriation of the optical model and the premises of the philosophy of consciousness grounded in cognitive theory.26 The unsatisfactory outcome of these discussions and

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 191

 191

3/07/13 09:54

the increasing prominence of ways of mechanistic or organological thinking from the natural sciences led to the gradual disappearance of the projection metaphor in philosophical contexts, and to its increasing use in descriptions of unconscious (neuro-) physiological processes. An important step in this development was the publication in 1874 of Wilhelm Wundt’s Principles of Physiological Psychology. In connection with his discussion of the problems and contradictions in contemporary theories of vision (or in the ‘formation of visual representations’), Wundt distanced himself from the traditional speculative concept of projection, opting for a limitation of the metaphor to those views ‘which postulate an innate or at least a firmly established relationship of the retinal points to the points in outside space’,27 a viewpoint that, among others, champions of ‘materialist research on nature’ also made their own.28 A second transformation took place in the mid-19th century through the increasing removal of the metaphor from the framework of a rational investigation of the world and its increasing use as a critical characterisation of pre-rational systems of world interpretation. In other words, the category of projection now became a category for the critique of religion. It was presumably used for the first time by Alois Emanuel Biedermann in 1849, in the context of a description of Feuerbach’s critique of religion.29 Transferred to the previously alien realm of religious theory, the metaphor could now take on a critical and polemical meaning, but one that could only become fully activated from the 1870s onwards, after its earlier epistemological meaning had become fundamentally problematic. If we review, to the extent this is possible, the main texts orbiting Feuerbach’s theory of religion, two stages appear to have been in play in the change of meaning of the metaphor. In the first stage, roughly speaking from 1850 to 1900, the metaphor was used very sporadically.30 In the second stage, beginning roughly with the new century, it became increasingly widespread, with the above-cited presentations of Feuerbach by Eduard von Hartmann and Friedrich Jodl probably playing a catalytic role. In any event, in developing his own cultural theory Freud already had a broadly present concept of projection at his disposal, a concept he could endow with a new and distinct profile in his psychoanalytic framework. In this way, we again arrive at a fundamental shift in the history of the projection metaphor, namely its transformation into a psychoanalytic category, something Freud first undertakes, tellingly, in connection with an examination of a pathological phenomenon, paranoia: ‘The purpose of paranoia is (…) to ward off an idea that is incompatible with the ego, by projecting its substance into the external world’.31 Later, Freud would focus his psychoanalytic insight on the problem of the development of religion. In accordance with the method of using psychological knowledge regarding individuals to illuminate societal phenomena, Freud understands religion, according to the model of disorder suffered by the individual subject, as collective neurosis: ‘As a matter of fact, I believe that a large portion of the mythological conception of the world which reaches far into the most modern religions is nothing but psychology projected into the outer world. The dim perception (the

192

Metaphors.indb 192

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

endo-psychic perception, as it were) of psychic factors and relations of the unconscious was taken as a model in the construction of a transcendental reality, which is destined to be changed again by science into psychology of the unconscious’.32 If we look back from Freud to the starting point of the projection metaphor at the beginning of the modern era, it appears that from a positive metaphor developed both in the context of the project of active exploration of the world and for characterising the methods of philosophical enlightenment, a metaphor emerged at the start of the 20th century that was negative and critical in a double respect. It was used by Freud to designate unconscious defence mechanisms systematically impeding an adequate grasp of reality, and in the context of descriptions of collective forms of misjudging reality. Characteristic of both profound changes is that, when used in its earlier positive sense, the metaphor was applied to bourgeois society in general, whereas in its more recent negative sense it confronts that society’s ‘other’, the neurotic patient and the situation prevailing in the religious age. Going beyond this framework, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno use the metaphor in their discussion of bourgeois social forms in Dialectic of Enlightenment. At the centre of their discussion is an analysis of modern anti-Semitism, which rests, as Horkheimer and Adorno bluntly and repeatedly put it, ‘on false projection’.33 But the projection process they discover in the individual is essentially the same as that identified by Freud in the context of paranoia: ‘The psychoanalytic theory of pathetic projection has identified the transference of socially tabooed impulses from the subject as the substance of that projection. Under the pressure of the superego, the ego projects aggressive urges emanating from the id which, through their strength, are a danger to itself, as malign intentions onto the outside world, and succeeds in ridding itself of them as reactions to that outside world’.34 A second use of the projection metaphor by Horkheimer and Adorno is connected with their analysis of the culture industry, seen as engaging in a process of ‘psychoanalysis in reverse’.35 Whereas psychoanalysis is concerned with rendering unconscious processes conscious, reconstructing early childhood fantasies and impeded formative processes, and liberating human beings from the images that rule over them, for Horkheimer and Adorno the production of the culture industry has a strictly opposite dynamic: conserving dependence on products and authorities, reducing human beings to unconscious behavioural modes, and tending to restore the situation of early childhood in the framework of ‘institutionally employed primitivity’. With respect to the dictum of ‘psychoanalysis in reverse’, Gertrud Koch has observed the following:

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 193

 193

3/07/13 09:54

‘Just as in prejudice a projection of images becomes operative from inner to outer nature, for Horkheimer and Adorno the culture industry projects, in an identical manner, the image of socially congealed, reified second nature, as if a critical negation of this no longer existed, as if it contained pure positivity itself ’.36 For the two critical theorists, then, the culture industry is a prime example of the regression of the Enlightenment to mythology, a regression more precisely characterised, in line with the principle of technological reproduction of the modern media, as the ‘myth of that which is the case’.37 Against the backdrop of such observations, the fundamental revaluation of the projection metaphor, and especially its development into a category for the critique of religion, can be understood as a reaction to the formation of new technologies of perception. More precisely, the altered reception of Feuerbach, Marx and many other authors, documented in the involuntary reading of the metaphor in texts on the philosophy of religion, becomes evident here as the unconscious expression of a fundamental change in social awareness, a change in the course of which bourgeois society re-established, in a new and powerful form, the fixation on the image which it had previously criticised in its pre-bourgeois, feudal-religious context.38 Hence, to the extent that their own cultural forms restore religion on a profane basis, religion appears to the representatives of bourgeois society in the categories of that society’s own form. At first, the dominant form involved here is photography, a development through which the problem of image worship again becomes acute. The invention of this medium was greeted with enthusiasm, but the attitude towards it shifted as a new society and mentality developed, which clearly contradicted the claim of a historical realisation of reason. The development of the projection metaphor underscores the great difficulty theories firmly rooted in the Enlightenment had in acknowledging this phenomenon. The increasing distance between the metaphor of projection and the project of rational knowledge of the world, and its accompanying investment with negative and critical substance, is the expression of a growing unease at the return of archaic, picture dominated forms of communication. At the same time, bourgeois theory, in its critical dynamic could only apply the concept of projection, which is inextricably linked to the development of the bourgeois society, to the societal ‘other’: in Freud’s psychoanalysis, to the ill subject whose faith in the premises of bourgeois society has been shaken; in the realm of the theory of religion, to the views of traditional religion, which now appears, some time after the invention of photography, but only fully so after the arrival of cinema, as a gigantic projection system. For this reason, the historical development of the projection metaphor can be viewed as a paragon of the dialectic of the Enlightenment’s shrinking back from itself, a process encapsulated in the idea that within religion a phantasmagoric world of images is being ‘projected’, and that the core of the enterprise known as ‘the Enlightenment’ consists in unmasking religious ‘projections’.

194

Metaphors.indb 194

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Part 3 In the last part of this essay I will argue, in a necessarily cursory form, that reflection on the conditioning of perception by the development of the media not only clarifies the problem of the appearance of the projection metaphor as a category for the critique of religion, but also can contribute significantly to explaining Feuerbach’s break with speculative philosophy and his transition to materialism. Feuerbach understood his new philosophy to be, as he put it in his Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, ‘in truth itself religion’.39 This characterisation may initially be surprising, since the philosopher had, after all, been a critic of religion. And after his parting of the ways with Hegel he had championed a philosophy strictly oriented toward material reality. Nevertheless, this self-characterisation – Feuerbach also refers to the new philosophy as a ‘position of religion’40– should be taken seriously.41 It is true that, since Feuerbach’s materialism intends to reach an ‘unfalsified objective’42 view of reality, its religious dimension cannot lie, as in traditional religion, in a fictive surpassing of reality. But the idea of a general religious essence, as worked out by Feuerbach in the course of a long confrontation with Christian faith and its institutional pillar, theology, goes far beyond, and cannot be reduced to the transcending forms of religion. This can be clarified with two concepts used by Feuerbach. The first of these concepts, of central importance with respect to the essence of religion, is the concept of image. ‘Whoever removes the image from religion’, he declares in The Essence of Christianity, ‘takes away the object itself ’.43 The second concept, closely linked with the image, is that of feeling. For Feuerbach, religion is basically a relationship of feeling between one person and another. It is closely connected with man’s practical needs, his striving for satisfaction and sensory happiness. When the reality of human beings as a species renders a satisfaction of their elementary needs impossible, Feuerbach argues, a mechanism of alienation enters into play, with individuals now obtaining what they have to do without in the form of images. It does not follow from Feuerbach’s analysis that either the content of these images or the feelings involved are necessarily connected to some transcendent reality: both can be of a secular nature. Feuerbach presents his new philosophy in extremely close connection to the social and cultural conditions of his epoch. For him, humanity in the modern period has lost ‘the organs for the supersensible world and its secrets’.44 In line with its basic materialist tendency, humanity has created new ‘organs’, which are essentially a ‘deification of what is real and materially existing’,45 and constitutively incapable of receiving transcendent, metaphysical messages. Instruments such as the telescope, the microscope, the camera obscura simply register what really exists ‘outside the human being’.46 Correspondingly, the modern individual assembles ‘his castles in the air (…) from natural materials alone’.47 On this practical foundation, Feuerbach calls for the creation within the theory of a new ‘view of things out of our own flesh and blood’:48 things are to be viewed ‘in the original, in the Ursprache’, in an ‘undistorted and objective’ manner.49 The Essence of Christianity thus understands itself as an ‘optical remedium’

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 195

 195

3/07/13 09:54

or ‘optical water-bath’,50 the natural impact of which is meant as a liberation from the flowery and imagistical way of seeing (what the theologian Karl Schwarz would term the ‘peculiar visual illness’51) of traditional religion, and as a step in establishing a sober perspective that grasps the world as it is. In this way, the new religion can be distinguished from the old particularly through its altered organ. The old religion basically lives from the faculty of subjective imagination; it works in the service of the subject’s needs and wishes, and constantly tries to move beyond the given reality, which is experienced as inadequate. By contrast, the organ of the new religion does not need the spontaneity of the subject. Strictly speaking it in fact excludes such spontaneity, as reality is meant to be portrayed objectively and without distortion, hence in a certain sense without subjective mediation. Nevertheless, the new religion remains itself oriented towards the needs of the subject. The satisfaction the subject derived in traditional religion from a phantasmagoric surpassing of reality is furnished in the new religion by an objective representation of the materially given. It is clear that the new view of things can only be technical in nature, and can only function on the basis of modern industry, especially against the backdrop of Feuerbach’s reference to the practical fundaments and specific modernity of his enterprise. Feuerbach thus presents his project of a new religion as the articulation of a strictly scientific approach, and strives for a synthesis of the subjective-religious (a-theoretical) and the objective-scientific (theoretical) perspective. The technification of our imaginative faculty, the technical objectification of an ‘objective’, ‘undistorted’ way of seeing – a way of seeing that can only be described in this way on the basis of the advances of technology and science in the modern era – associates the subject with reality in a historically novel way. The new photographic form of representation makes it possible to let the ‘thing itself ’ speak without direct subjective intervention.52 In the new Anschauung that Feuerbach proclaims, the totality of reality is united into one single point of suggestive immediacy, which functions as both an objective image of reality and as its ‘loving contemplation’. In the ‘Concluding Application’ of The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach once again puts great emphasis on the way the new religion emerges: ‘the normal, usual course of things simply has to be interrupted in order to derive uncommon significance from the usual, and religious significance from life as such’.53 I have argued that the reading of the projection metaphor into the critique of religion by Feuerbach (and other authors) should be understood as a reaction to the coming into prominence of a new form of religion founded on technical media. I can now add that Feuerbach’s ‘break with speculation’54 and his shift to sensualistic materialism represented a first theoretical response to the emergence of the new medium of photography. In other words, as a vehicle for the critique of religion, the projection metaphor contains the experience of the emergence of that technology of optical perception, which laid the basis for the ‘new religion’ of contemplative materialism. The problem of the role of that metaphor in the critique of religion and the problem of the ‘new religion’ proclaimed by Feuerbach are thus inseparable. Both

196

Metaphors.indb 196

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

problems can only be adequately solved when the ‘revolutionary break in 19th century thought’55 is considered in relation to the fundamental transformation of perception in contemporary media.

Bibliography Adorno, Th.W. (1963a). ‘Prolog zum Fernsehen’, in Idem, Eingriffe, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 69-80 Adorno, Th.W. (1963b). ‘Fernsehen als Ideologie’, in Idem, Eingriffe, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 81-98 Adorno, Th.W. (1995a). ‘Postscriptum’, in Idem, Soziologische Schriften, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, vol. 1, pp. 86-92 Adorno, Th.W. (1995b). ‘Beitrag zur Ideologienlehre’, in Idem, Soziologische Schriften, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, vol. 1, pp. 457-477 Ascheri, C. (1969). Feuerbachs Bruch mit der Spekulation. Einleitung zur kritischen Ausgabe von Feuerbach, Notwendigkeit einer Veränderung (1842), mit einem Vorwort von K. Löwith, Frankfurt, Europäische Verlagsanstalt Barth, H.M. (1970). ‘Glaube als Projektion. Zur Auseinandersetzung mit Ludwig Feuerbach’, in Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 12, pp. 363-382 Bender, W. (1886). Das Wesen der Religion und die Grundgesetze der Kirchenbildung, Bonn, Cohen Bender, W. (1888). ‘Der Kampf um die Seligkeit’, in Preußische Jahrbücher Biedermann, A.E. (1849). ‘Unsere junghegelsche Weltanschauung oder der sog. neuste Pantheismus’, in Die Kirche der Gegenwart 5 Bolin, W. (1891). Ludwig Feuerbach. Sein Wirken und seine Zeitgenossen, Stuttgart, Cotta Braun, H.J. (1972). Die Religionsphilosophie Ludwig Feuerbachs, Stuttgart – Bad Cannstatt, Frommann-Holzboog

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 197

 197

3/07/13 09:54

Claussen, D. (1994). Grenzen der Aufklärung. Die gesellschaftliche Genese des modernen Antisemitismus, Frankfurt, Fischer Crary, J. (1996). Techniken des Betrachters. Sehen und Moderne im 19. Jahrhundert, Dresden – Basel, Verlag der Kunst Dembowski, H. (1969). Grundfragen der Christologie, Munich, Kaiser Dwars, J.F. (1985). Anthropologische Historie – Historische Anthropologie? Darstellung und Entwicklung des Feuerbachschen Geschichtsdenkens, Jena, Diss. FriedrichSchiller-University Engels, F. (1975). Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie, in K. Marx – F. Engels, Werke, Berlin, Dietz, vol. 21, pp. 259-307 Esser, A. (1983). ‘Einleitung’, in Ludwig Feuerbach, Das Wesen der Religion. Ausgewählte Texte zur Religionsphilosophie, Heidelberg, Schneider Evans, M. (18812). L. Feuerbach. The Essence of Christianity, transl. M. Evans, London, Chapman Feuerbach, L. (1984). Das Wesen des Christentums, Gesammelte Werke, ed. W. Schuffenhauer, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, vol. 5 Feuerbach, L. (1990a). Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft, Gesammelte Werke, ed. W. Schuffenhauer, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, vol. 9 Feuerbach, L. (1990b). Vorläufige Thesen zur Reformation der Philosophie, Gesammelte Werke, ed. W. Schuffenhauer, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, vol. 9 Frede, W. (1984). Ludwig Feuerbach. Zur Genese der materialistischen Methode, Göttingen, Verein zur Förderung gesellschaftstheoretischer Studien Freud, S. (1914). Psychopathology of Everyday Life, transl. A.A. Brill, London, Fisher Unwin Freud, S. (1964). Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens, Gesammelte Werke, eds A. Freud – E. Bibling – W. Hoffer – E. Kris – O. Isakower, Frankfurt, Fischer, vol. 4 Freud, S. (1966). ‘Draft H. Paranoia’ (enclosed with letter of January 24, 1895), transl. J. Strachey, in Extracts from the Fliess Papers, The Standard Edition of the

198

Metaphors.indb 198

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 1 (1886-1899), London, Hogarth, pp. 206-212 Freud, S. (1986). ‘Manuskript H. Paranoia’ (Beilage zum Brief an Wilhelm Fliess vom 24.1.1895), in Sigmund Freuds Briefe an Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904, ed. J. Moussaieff Masson, Frankfurt, Fischer, pp. 106-112 Girkon, H. (1914). Darstellung und Kritik des religiösen Illusionsbegriffs bei Ludwig Feuerbach, Tübingen, Laupp Gruhn, R. (1979). Die Wirklichkeit Gottes in Theologie und Theologiekritik. Zur Rezeption der Religionskritik Ludwig Feuerbachs in der neueren systematischen Theologie. Zwischenbilanz ein Jahrhundert nach Feuerbach, Bielefeld, Kleine Grün, K. (1874). Ludwig Feuerbachs philosophische Charakterentwicklung. Sein Briefwechsel und Nachlaß, Leipzig – Heidelberg, Winter Habermas, J. (1990). Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp von Hartmann, E. (1900). Geschichte der Metaphysik, vol. 2: Seit Kant, Leipzig, Haacke Hemecker, W. (1991). Vor Freud. Philosophiegeschichtliche Voraussetzungen der Psychoanalyse, Munich, Philosophia Holzmüller, Th. (1986). ‘Projektion? – Ein fragwürdiger Begriff in der Feuerbachrezeption?’, in Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 28, pp. 77-100 Horkheimer, M. – Adorno, Th. W. (2002). Dialectic of Enlightenment. Philosophical Fragments, ed. G. Schmid Noerr, transl. E. Jephcott, Stanford, Stanford University Press Jeremias, J. (1980). Die Theorie der Projektion im religionskritischen Denken Sigmund Freuds und Erich Fromms, Oldenburg, Diss. Oldenburg University Jodl, F. (1904). Ludwig Feuerbach, Stuttgart, Frommans Kellner, M. (1988). Feuerbachs Religionskritik, Frankfurt, ISP Kern, U. (1998). Der andere Feuerbach. Sinnlichkeit, Konkretheit und Praxis als Qualität der ‘neuen Religion’ Ludwig Feuerbachs, Münster, Lit

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 199

 199

3/07/13 09:54

Koch, G. (1992). Kracauer zur Einführung, Hamburg, Junius Kulenkampff, A. (2000). ‘‘Skeptischer’ und ‘dogmatischer’ Idealismus – Berkeley als Kritiker Descartes’, in W.F. Niebel – A. Horn – H. Schnädelbach eds, Descartes im Diskurs der Neuzeit, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 143-166 Küng, H. (1981). Existiert Gott? Antwort auf die Gottesfrage der Neuzeit, Munich, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag Lenk, K. (1961). Ideologie. Ideologiekritik und Wissenssoziologie, Neuwied, Luchterhand Löwith, K. (1995)[19411]: Von Hegel zu Nietzsche. Der revolutionäre Bruch im Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts, Hamburg, Meiner Marx, K. (1976). Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. Einleitung, in K. Marx – F. Engels, Werke, Berlin, Dietz, vol. 1, pp. 378-391 Meyer, M. (1992). Feuerbach und Zinzendorf. Lutherus redivivus und die Selbstauflösung der Religionskritik, Hildesheim – New York, Olms Müller-Tamm, J. (2005). Abstraktion als Einfühlung. Zur Denkfigur der Projektion in Psychophysiologie, Kulturtheorie, Ästhetik und Literatur der frühen Moderne, Freiburg, Rombach Pfleiderer, O. (1878). Religionsphilosophie auf geschichtlicher Grundlage, Berlin, Reimer Rau, A. (1882). Ludwig Feuerbachs Philosophie, die Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik der Gegenwart, Leipzig, Barth Rawidowicz, S. (1931). Ludwig Feuerbachs Philosophie. Ursprung und Schicksal, Berlin, Reuther & Reichard Rosenkranz, K. (1870). Hegel als deutscher Nationalphilosoph, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot Schneider, E. (1972). Die Theologie und Feuerbachs Religionskritik. Die Reaktion der Theologie des 19. Jahrhunderts auf Ludwig Feuerbachs Religionskritik. Mit Ausblicken auf das 20. Jahrhundert und einem Anhang über Feuerbach, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Schuffenhauer, W. (1963). ‘Einleitung’, in L. Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, Leipzig, Reclam

200

Metaphors.indb 200

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Schwarz, K. (1856). Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, Leipzig, Brockhaus Selsam, H. – Martel, H. eds (1986). Reader in Marxist Philosophy, New York, International Publishers Sommer, M. (1987). Evidenz im Augenblick. Eine Phänomenologie der reinen Empfindung, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp Starcke, C. N. (1885). Ludwig Feuerbach, Stuttgart, Enke Starcke, C. N. (1891). ‘Über Wilhelm Benders Religionsphilosophie’, in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 99, pp. 87ff Wallmann, J. (1970). ‘Ludwig Feuerbach und die theologische Tradition’, in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 67, pp. 56-86 Weser, H. A. (1936). Sigmund Freuds und Ludwig Feuerbachs Religionskritik. Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des 19. Jahrhunderts, Bottrop, Postberg Wundt, W. (1874). Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie, Leipzig, Engelmann Ziegler, Th. (1899). Die geistigen und sozialen Strömungen Deutschlands im 19. Jahrhundert, Berlin, Bondi

Endnotes 1

Translated from German by Joel Golb.

2

Some authors have traced the continued association of the concept of projection with Feuerbach to

the influence of specific interpretations of the philosopher. Schneider (1972) p. 222 sees the highly

influential discussion of Feuerbach in Hartmann (1900) as the starting point. Dwars (1986) p. 2

gives the credit to Friedrich Jodl, the author who steered ‘bourgeois interpretations of Feuerbach into a fateful dead end’ ( Jodl [1904]). But such interpretations remain on the problem’s surface

and suffer from a certain arbitrariness. The many authors involved in catalysing the shift in the reception of Feuerbach or placing a strong stamp on that reception, the stubbornness with which

the concept of projection has maintained itself, and the extent of the concept’s significance going

far beyond Feuerbach, all call for a more probing treatment of the problem. 3

Hartmann (1900), pp. 442f.

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 201

 201

3/07/13 09:54

4

It is important to note that Hartmann also offers another interpretation which Schneider (1972),

5

Schneider (1972), p. 223.

6

Feuerbach (1984), pp. 19f.

7

Cf. Barth (1970), p. 367. The same is the case for Wallmann (1970), Kellner (1988), p. 13 and Meyer

8

Barth (1970), p. 368: ‘Projektion ist Deutung von So-Seiendem (oder Nicht-Seiendem) als anders

9

Holzmüller (1986), p. 97. On the critique of Barth’s interpretation: cf. also Gruhn (1979), pp. 37ff.

10

Barth (1970), p. 366. For a similar approach cf. Küng (1981), p. 339.

11

Cf. Rawidowicz (1931), pp. 348f.; Weser (1936); Lenk (1961), p. 28; Esser (1983), pp. 34f.; Hemecker

12

Dwars (1985), p. 3.

13

Dwars (1985), p. 147. Cf. also Girkon (1914), pp. 16f., 48; Schuffenhauer (1963), p. XXVI; Schneider

14

Braun (1972), p. 91.

15

Braun (1972), p. 113.

16

As Rawidowicz (1931), p. 359 indicates, Bender was viewed by his contemporaries as Feuerbach

p. 222 sees as describing Feuerbach in an ‘essentially correct’ way.

(1992), p. 35.

seiend und anders geltend’.

(1991), pp. 52ff.

(1972), pp. 252f.; Frede (1984), pp. 78, 95.

redivivus, because of the many passages in his work originating from Feuerbach. In any event,

Bender’s goal was to demonstrate the truth of traditional Christian religion, fixed on transcendence: cf. Bender (1888); Starcke (1891), pp. 88f.

17

Bender (1886), p. 184; cf. also p. 228. Jeremias (1980), p. 201 speaks of the ‘projector society’ in the

18

Cf. Holzmüller (1986), p. 99.

19

Cf. Dwars (1985), pp. 133, 168.

20

Kellner (1988), p. 13.

202

Metaphors.indb 202

same sense as Bender.

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

21

Before Holzmüller, Dembowski (1969), p. 119 had already suggested it was preferable ‘to speak of

22

Kellner (1988), p. 13.

23

Marx (1976), p. 378.

24

Cf. Crary (1996).

25

Cf. Kulenkampff (2000), pp. 154f.

26

Cf. Müller-Tamm (2005).

27

Wundt (1874), p. 632 n. As Sommer (1987), pp. 147f. indicates, Friedrich Albert Lange offered an

objectification rather than projection’.

assessment of the most recent research on ‘brain and soul’ in the second edition of his Geschichte

des Materialismus (1875). Wundt’s Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (1874) was praised by Lange because Wundt champions a programme for the ‘derivation of intellectual activity from reflexive activity’.

28

Cf. also the discussion of the Feuerbach follower Albrecht Rau (1882), pp. 27-34.

29

Biedermann (1849), esp. p. 109.

30

Cf. e.g. Biedermann (1849), p. 98; Evans (1881), pp. 29f.; Rosenkranz (1870), p. 312; Ziegler (1899), p. 22; Hartmann (1900), pp. 422f.; Jodl (1904), pp. 63, 87; and, with striking frequency, Bender

(1886). The metaphor does not appear in Grün (1874), Pfleiderer (1878), Starcke (1885), Engels (1975), pp. 259-307, Bolin (1891). 31

Freud (1986), pp. 108f., transl. J. Strachey, Freud (1966).

32

Freud (1964), pp. 287f., transl. A. A. Brill, Freud (1914).

33

Horkheimer – Adorno (2002), pp. 155, 158, 165.

34

Horkheimer – Adorno (2002), p. 158.

35

Adorno (1963a), p. 78; Adorno (1963b), p. 93; Adorno (1995b), p. 475; Adorno (1995a), p. 90.

36

Koch (1992), p. 61. Cf. also Claussen (1994), p. 11.

37

Horkheimer – Adorno (2002), p. XII.

Falko Schmieder

Metaphors.indb 203

 203

3/07/13 09:54

38

In a more general form, this shift has been pointed out in many works, e.g. Horkheimer – Adorno

(2002), pp. XIf. Habermas (1990), pp. 292, 337 has defined the return of archaic forms of communication in modern media conditions as a process of ‘refeudalisation of the public sphere’.

39

Feuerbach (1990a), p. 340.

40

Feuerbach (1990b), p. 256.

41

Albeit to other ends, Kern (1998) has also argued this.

42

Feuerbach (1990a), p. 326.

43

Feuerbach (1984), p. 6.

44

Feuerbach (1990a), p. 286.

45

Feuerbach (1990a), p. 285.

46

Feuerbach (1984), p. 45.

47

Feuerbach (1984), p. 207.

48

Feuerbach (1990b), p. 236.

49

Feuerbach (1990a), p. 326.

50

Feuerbach (1984), pp. 8f.

51

Schwarz (1856), p. 207.

52

In the definition of the concept of matter offered in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Lenin

speaks openly about the mediatic a priori of his materialism, which claims to give an ‘undistorted’

picture of things: ‘Matter is a philosophical category designating the objective reality which is given

to man by his sensations, and which is copied, photographed, and reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them’ (Selsam – Martel [1986], p. 151).

53

Feuerbach (1984), p. 454.

54

Cf. Ascheri (1969).

55

Cf. Löwith (1995).

204

Metaphors.indb 204

On the Significance of the Projection Metaphor for Feuerbach’s Critique of Religion and Materialist Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Part III Metaphors in Contemporary Philosophy

Metaphors.indb 205

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 206

3/07/13 09:54

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

Benjamin Biebuyck

‘Kitschy’ Nietzsche

I

n the first issue of the Nietzsche-Studien Hermann Wein published a provocative article entitled ‘Nietzsche ohne Zarathustra. Die Entkitschung Nietzsches: Der kritische Aufklärer’.1 Wein advocated strongly against relativist and anti-rationalist readings, who reminded him of the nihilism of early 20th century expressionists and the Nietzsche-admirers of the interbellum period. Nietzsche was first and foremost, he claimed, an unmasker of myth and mendacity, the ‘free-thinker’ who authored the critical aphorisms from Human All too Human to On the Genealogy of Morality, in which he strips values and truths of their metaphysical aspirations.2 This liberating dimension of Nietzsche’s writings had been overlooked by several generations of readers, Wein argued. They focused one-sidedly on the aristocratic vocabulary in his work and thus narrowed him down to the expressionistic obscurantism of his ‘literary’ experiments. But this was not the real Nietzsche, the Mythenzerstörer and supporter of critical enlightenment, Wein provocatively concluded, this was a kitschy caricature – Hitler’s Nietzsche.3 The Nietzsche-archive in Weimar had turned out to be the ideal bree­ ding ground for the monstrous coalition between fascist politics and Nietzschecontemplation, reaching a climax in Hitler’s visit to Villa Silberblick in 1933 and the ancient, oversized Dionysus-statue donated by Mussolini in 1938, abolished during allied bombings at the end of World War II.4 In this context, Wein perceptibly refers to a myth cultivated in circles of vindictive homecomers in the early Weimar republic: that of the front soldiers reading Zarathustra

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 207

 207

3/07/13 09:54

in the trenches.5 Thus spoke Zarathustra, the philosophical novel Nietzsche wrote in the first half of the 1880s and published in four parts, with a varying degree of public accessibility,6 played a crucial role in this historical misreading. Its hymnic style clearly appealed to an early readership immersed in moral relativism and expressionist irrationalism. Possibly alarmed by the earliest exponents of French poststructuralist Nietzsche hermeneutics and referring explicitly to Adorno, Wein feared that the renewed popularity of the novel would give cause to a re-emergence of such readings and hoped that the imaginary removal of the book from our view of Nietzsche would safeguard his Entkitschung. But what is so ‘kitschy’ about Zarathustra? Readers interested in the history of philosophy may indeed feel irritated by the baroque, even pathetic language of ‘the book for all and for no one’, a book that claims to see through all the shortcomings of its time, but – if we may believe its opponents – does not manage to gain access to basic human and societal interactions. Next to this, we cannot deny that Zarathustra, as a literary work of art, does not convey a complex or ingeniously elaborated narrative universe. Compared to the literary traditions of his time, Nietzsche writes an at first sight very simple narrative, free of a clear setting in time and place, with a conventional narrative framework, a coaching, empathic, omniscient narrator, yet without a lot of psychological nuance or depth in the character design. It focuses one-sidedly on the protagonist’s vicissitudes, whereas the characters he meets seem to be little more than convenient puppets made to transform the hero’s monologues into a dramatic mode. And, finally, the book testified of a somewhat adolescent ambience: a longing for self-elevation, for transgressing the boundaries and limitations imposed by a deceitful, repressive intellectual and moral order. Particularly the first parts of the book, written after Nietzsche’s split with Lou von Salomé, are permeated with traces of infatuation and existential disappointment. But is it possible that Hermann Wein misunderstood the ‘kitschy’ Zarathustra just as much as his expressionistic and esoteric adversaries, because he failed to take Nietzsche’s philosophical revaluation of a literary style seriously? Because he was unable to acknowledge that Nietzsche’s use of metaphor is not part of an obscuring expressionistic communicative mode, but a consequential and strategic answer to his own conspicuous analysis of the interconnection between language, knowledge and will to power? In the following, I will elaborate on the meaning of Nietzsche’s use of metaphors in Zarathustra in its attempts to both capture what is considered ‘real’ and to convey this to an audience which he wants to reach in an appropriate way within the confines of his analysis. Nietzsche’s metaphors fit well to Hans Blumenberg’s historical project of metaphorology; accordingly they are well represented in Ralph Konersmann’s Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern.7 But they do more than that. By occupying a negotiable position within a larger and polyphonic framework of figurative forms, they unfold a narrative complement not only to the story being told, but also to the philosophy that is being uncovered. The key concept in this rhetorical and narrative enterprise is Nietzsche’s notion of indirectness. The indirectness of

208

Metaphors.indb 208

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

Nietzsche’s general semiotic, metaphoric and narrative framework will lead us to an exploratory analysis of the metaphorical denominations of the protagonists in Nietzsche’s unusual philosophical novel – not as a contingent stylistic peculiarity, but as a way to put a philosophy into action while designing it.

Ways of indirectness Metaphor and sign Josef Simon and Werner Stegmaier have written extensively on Nietzsche’s concept of sign, and although, he does not unfold a systematic semiotic theory in his writings, the polyvalence of Nietzschean ‘semiotics’ received a vivid reception in French poststructuralist philosophy. Nietzsche agrees with the traditional idea that language and cognition operate solely on the basis of signs. But he does not simply comply with this tradition: he integrates it in his encompassing view of reality as the circulation of will to power. A sign thus becomes more than a simple instrument of reference: it is the expression of and the appeal to a specific will to power. Consequently, the sign not only refers to the signified, it also shows power and is supposed to activate available will-power potential and even to generate new voluntative capacity. Interestingly, Nietzsche combines his notion of sign regularly with one of two figurative complexes: metaphors of sign. The first complex is in consonance with his ambition to be or to become a medical diagnostician of culture, and evolves around a symptomatological concept of semiotic reference. A sign is here not so much an index leading the perceiver onwards towards the focus of semiotic attention, but exactly by doing so, it displays its secondary semiotic potential: it directs reversely to an underlying field of reference that is ‘smuggled in’ with the sign.8 It is not the intention that the receiver of the sign detects this underlying field of reference; the sign will affect him or her unawares. Not surprisingly, Nietzsche often relates this notion of sign to sickness or health. Only the expert’s eye can unveil this symptomatological dimension of the sign; others are merely subjected to it. The second figurative complex operates in quite a different manner. Here, the sign is not a clandestine carrier of a double load, but rather an invitation to the hearer to undertake an interpretive effort, in order to decipher, or even to guess the contents semiotically referred to. This figurative field replaces the diagnostic seriousness of the expert by the much more playful and conjectural attitude of the Zeichendeuter.9 But it is not merely a frivolous counterpart of the first. The decidedness of an action prompted by the will to power is often linked by Nietzsche with an affirmative stance towards time – exemplified by the figure of the dice-thrower. The invitation addressed by a sign to the interpreter must hence be conceived of as a strong appeal not to merely follow the path prescribed by the sign, but to impose one’s own will to give meaning to the sign.

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 209

 209

3/07/13 09:54

In Nietzsche’s writings of the middle and the later periods, the two figurative complexes lose visibility, but important connotations will be preserved. On an epistemological level, Nietzsche conceives of a sign as a necessary and conventionalised abbreviation of a thinking process – an abbreviation reducing the unknown to the known. Often he associates it with a subliminal and secretive message, with which the sender of the sign penetrates unwontedly the private sphere of the receiver. Hence Nietzsche frequently criticizes ambivalent signs (zweideutige Zeichen),10 because they claim one thing, but simultaneously whisper another – such as the sign of the fortune-teller in the fourth part of Zarathustra, whose cry announces the coming of the so-called higher men, but also induces the ‘temptation’ of the protagonist.11 But Nietzsche also makes mention of a positive counterpart of this type of sign – a sign that delivers the material for a form of exegesis understood as an ‘extraction’. This may lead up to an erroneous interpretation of the sign, but it requires in any way an act of transformation or even of invention (ein vieldeutiges Zeichen).12 Thus, the sign lines up with Nietzsche’s frequently occurring conceptions of masks and riddles. Insofar as the sign functions vis-à-vis the receiver as a mask placing itself in front of a ‘real’ face, then the receiver’s claim to power will be undermined and his or her will fragmented. But when he or she can take the sign as an opportunity to unfold his or her proper will to power, since that which seems to be hidden behind the mask does not appear until it is invented or manufactured by guessing, then it will serve as a catalyst for the dynamics of the will. In this way, the sign becomes a medium of selection. This may explain why Nietzsche steers most of his literary experiments towards a semiotic climax: at the end of the dramatic or narrative design a longed for, future, and still unrealized sign creates the quintessential culmination.13 As a medium of (linguistic) indirectness the metaphors of sign offer us practical handles to better understand the position of other forms of figurativeness in his overall view of mediation and immediacy as well. Signs are understood in an encompassing framework associating readership and mantic expertise with creative exegesis and extraction within an openly narrative context – that is: a context presupposing change within an inconstant flow of time.

Metaphors and metaphors A lot of research has been done into the meaning of Nietzsche’s concept of metaphor – a term belonging to the tools of the classical philologist Nietzsche never ceased to be.14 He used the term particularly in his lectures at the university of Basel in the early 1870s. After 1875 it is largely replaced by the German purism Gleichnis – a tendency that takes place with other philosophical or philological jargon as well. It is well known that Nietzsche recurs to classical rhetoric (Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian), to romantic philosophy of language ( Jean Paul Richter, Ralph Waldo Emerson) and to contemporary philosophy of language (Gustav Gerber), and that

210

Metaphors.indb 210

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

he combines these with his proper insights.15 A lot of attention has been paid to the evolutionary model he unfolds in On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense, an unfinished ‘essay’ which is in fact a mixture of exact transcripts from Gerber and loose personal reflections, not destined for publication.16 What strikes in this text, however, is the way in which Nietzsche occasionally replaces the standard translation of metaphor as Übertragung,17 with its strong transitive orientation, by the much more dynamic paraphrase Überspringen (jump across), in which the subject position is fore-grounded.18 This paraphrase emphasises that metaphors are not a linguistic product to Nietzsche, but rather a cognitive operation, and as such not something one can observe from without, but can only be experienced from within the action of jumping itself. The leap from one sphere into the next is motivated initially by a perception of analogy. In this manner, Nietzsche discovers that metaphors are not lies, which produce distance or a detour from ontological reality, and he grows to appreciate that they can also procure a figurative and graphic specification of knowledge – as such they are the result of a figurative ‘fundamental drive’ (Fundamentaltrieb)19 or even an ‘instinct’. Such a specification is the result of a multiple transfer, linking the physiological level of the nervous impulse and the consequent cognitive image to the linguistic sound and, as a result of stabilization and habituation, the epistemic concept. Thus, Nietzsche unfolds a much more positive evaluation of metaphor: metaphor does not pretend to touch upon the ‘things in themselves’, but rather marks a fundamental relationality – the speaker’s approach to or grasp on a reality that may be the object of address in language, but not the object of comprehension. Only through this address and relationality, the speaker can make reality graspable or understandable. If the speaker continues to follow ever again the same path to make this grasp, the initial, creative, analogy will be ultimately replaced by a form of identity conceived of as an ontological truth. At this point, Nietzsche switches to other figurative complexes, geological (pe­ trification), thanatological (mummification, columbarium) and zoological (moulting). Traditional philosophy, resulting from a fixation of originally mobile metaphors, is characterised by a belief in what Nietzsche calls imaginary connections and causalities. This is why this tradition is rejected as foolish and characterised by a loss of sensuality and vitality of language. Exactly because they claim to be true, such dead metaphors turn out to be anthropomorphic lies. This explains why Nietzsche puts the revitalisation of language in the hands of artists, who do not rest upon the conventional, but create their own metaphorical language and thus escape the stadium of the (conceptual) relict. Artists discover analogies that they do not believe to be part of the ‘things themselves’, but are the result of an active response to the nervous impulse humans receive in the course of their interaction with the world outside. On the basis of this perspective, Nietzsche manages to integrate his views on language and metaphor into his encompassing philosophy of the will to power during the 1880s. Here, the creation of metaphor is explained as an act of the will with which speakers make identical things that are different, and by doing so extend their power over the reality

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 211

 211

3/07/13 09:54

referred to as well as over the persons they address. The metaphorical transgression of a conventional linguistic norm forces the addressees to establish a new hierarchy of wills in themselves and thus to unfold their proper claim to power autonomously.

Metaphors and parables Although the concept ‘metaphor’ actually disappears from Nietzsche’s vocabulary from the mid 1870s onwards, the frequency of metaphor use remains unaltered and, depending on the text genre, even increases. From this moment on, Nietzsche distinctly presents himself as a ‘philosopher-poet’, who searches through the development of a dynamic metaphor language the rebirth of critical, philosophical thinking. It is no coincidence that as early as April 1873, Nietzsche writes in a letter that perhaps his ‘Parnassus of the future’ might be to become a modest writer (ein mäßiger Schriftsteller), even if, as he ironizes himself, this would imply his becoming modest in writing (mäßig im Schriftstellern).20 As far as his stylistic palette is concerned, he clearly prefers genitive and identity metaphors, which – in varying degrees of virtuality – get more and more elaborated into complex and narratively layered configurations, with a manifest narrative infrastructure. Obviously, Nietzsche was very familiar with biblical and old testament narrative forms such as parables, fables, allegories and exempla, all subsumed in 19th century German theory of genre under the generic term ‘Gleichnis’. Gleichnisse are supposed to transmit a concrete, visual image of what is believed to be a general, abstract insight or rule. Whereas Nietzsche associates in his early writings the Gleichnis with typically Apollonian media, such as a veil or a dream, functioning as a shelter, a dividing wall separating the perceiver from the splendour of Dionysian knowledge, he transforms it in his aphoristic writings into a much more productive and hence much more appreciated form of indirectness. Often he puts the genre-indication Gleichnis at the end of an aphorism and thus manipulates the receiver of the text into multiple reading.21 Thus, the reader is forced into an intensified act of interpretation. Gleichnisse offer tools to represent facts in an enigmatic manner and by doing so open up new perspectives for understanding. In order to spell out the enigma, Gleichnisse dispose of a broad set of narrative means: they foreground a narrator, who not only addresses the reader (implicitly or explicitly), but also dissociates the metaphoric narrative from the argumentative surroundings of the text and stage them in an alternative setting. By disconnecting the time of narration from the narrated time, they also enhance the reader’s sensibility for temporality and exchange the timelessness of traditional philosophical reflection for a genealogically self-reflexive thinking within time. Furthermore, Gleichnisse unfold a narrative dynamics of their own, which is not part of the conventional philosophical exercise. All this is necessary, because the contents at which the Gleichnisse hint, have been subjected to a process of figuralization and hence are not ‘present’ as they are. Here, Nietzsche falls back on a communicative interaction we already noticed when dealing with his semiotic design: the reader has

212

Metaphors.indb 212

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

to guess, or rather, he is lured into uncovering the enigma by conjectures. In the spirit of the ancient sophists, a Gleichnis is not made to prove or show – it has to persuade. This is what Nietzsche explicitly opts for in Zarathustra, the book to which he referred as his son. The best Gleichnisse, the protagonist claims, are those that speak about time and becoming – or rather: they do not speak, they only wave or beckon.22 They do not simply transmit contents onto the reader, but rather invite the readers or even summon them up to undertake action – although the expression of content on behalf of the speaker is a fundamental part of his claim to power. Insofar as the competences of the reader as ‘guesser’, as ‘decipherer’, are put to the test, the Gleichnis takes part in a procedure of combined selection and transformation that is prototypical for Nietzsche’s thinking in general. It addresses readers, who are also ‘thinkers’, ‘writers’ or even ‘artists’ or are underway to become so. Nietzsche already put this principle of selection into practice in his reading of David Friedrich Strauss’ Der alte und der neue Glaube in his first Untimely Meditation (1873), in which he harshly criticised Strauss’ incapacity to produce ‘good metaphors’.23 In the 1880s, however, he transfers this principle primarily to the level of reception. The narrator of Gleichnisse and his readership are ‘between themselves’ (unter sich) – they perform an exclusive communicative exchange with one another due to the power of metaphor to conceal and to riddle. Within this exclusivity, Zarathustra suggests in the third part of the book, a new, mobile form of truth opens up to the persons speaking. This explains why the early association of Gleichnis with the Apollonian ‘dream’ is replaced in the later writings by a connection with the Dionysian motif of the ‘dance’, which alludes to corporeality and communality.

Metaphorical self-denomination Let us summarize. Nietzsche’s concept of sign is deeply drenched in a semiotic universe in which evaluation and selection occupy key positions. A sign expresses a prior claim to power on behalf of the speaker and provokes a subsequent claim on behalf of the hearer. We also concluded that semiotic reference, as a statement concerning a future event, as a sort of promise, is frequently integrated in a narrative setting, in which it can serve both as a temptation and as a climax. Nietzsche’s idea of metaphor is characterised by a strong activist impulse, a focus on relationality, and the awareness that living metaphors actively engage in making identical the different as an exponent of the speaker’s and the reader’s exertion of power. Both concepts lead up to a notion of metaphoric narration, characteristic for Nietzsche’s later writings. The Gleichnis is the acumen of his outlook on indirectness and reunites a selective, a transformative and a performative dimension. The question now is: how does all of this fit with the search for immediacy and directness, which seems to be so typical for Nietzsche’s uninterrupted affirmative discourse on the Dionysian? How can this be reconciled

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 213

 213

3/07/13 09:54

with the deep suspicion he shows vis-à-vis what he claims to be a detour, a form of sneakiness, or dishonesty, frequently associated with Christianity? How can it be made consonant with the seemingly naïve straightforwardness or even bluntness attributed to his huge anthropological project of the future: the Übermensch? To answer these questions to their full extent is obviously impossible. But when we have a closer look at the practice of metaphoric narration in Also sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s metaphoric work par excellence and the book which he considered his most accomplished achievement, we may find some clues showing that the combination of a philosophical inclination towards directness with a narrative style saturated with indirectness is not a contradiction in adiecto. The figurative style of the famous philosophical novel contributes vastly to its characteristic prophetic, untimely tone. Already the opening lines of the ‘Prologue’ wallow in synecdoches. The protagonist’s first words consist of a personifying apostrophe of the sun and a combined metaphoric and synecdochic denomination as a ‘tranquil eye’, followed by a multiple figurative self-characterisation as a ‘bee’, a ‘cup’ ready to empty itself, and concluding as presenting himself as a counterpart of the sun – a reverse metaphor, albeit attributed not to the speaker, but to ‘the people’: ‘Like thee must I go down, as men say, to whom I shall descend’.24 A close-reading of the text shows that the most prominent metaphorical networks relate to pregnancy, illness and health, nature (also in the sense of weather or cosmology) and navigation. It is important not to forget that Nietzsche also deploys these metaphoric networks in his more traditional philosophical writings, and that although they operate much more interactively in Zarathustra, they are not specific for the novelistic project of this book. Much more idiosyncratic are the ways in which the characters of this book typify both themselves and other characters by means of metaphoric denominations. Here, it becomes clear that Nietzsche’s use of metaphors occurs much more in interaction with contemporary literary practice than might be expected – yet precisely with a philosophical objective.

Omniscience and narratorial insight When Nietzsche makes a first series of notes that will end up as building blocks of Also sprach Zarathustra, he writes within the literary historical context of late poetic realism and early naturalism in German and in European literature. Both his private correspondence and his public communication betray that he has a strong inclination towards the poetics of Biedermeier literature and the impressionistic and introverting influence it has on subsequent literary production: he reads with great admiration Adalbert Stifter’s Nachsommer and engages in an appreciative correspondence with the Swiss novelist Gottfried Keller.25 This literary tradition relies heavily upon the representation of personal impressions recorded by a susceptible, but isolated outsider. Its focus on psychological, affective and cognitive interiority does not prevent, however, that it shows a remarkable respect for the ‘real’, turning out to be the starting point,

214

Metaphors.indb 214

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

the tangible equivalent of the personal impression. This ambivalent attitude towards the ‘real’ is not astonishing in a cultural and intellectual context meandering between immediacy and mediation. Particularly the early naturalist writers display a fascination towards the immediate, that which is believed to expose itself nakedly, without (or with negligible) intervention of a medium. Such diverse cultural practices as the consultation of a medium26 to communicate with the absent or the dead and the self-referential focus of aesthetic schools such as the early l’art pour l’art-movement underline the force of indirectness. But how did Nietzsche position the characters of his own philosophical novel in this interplay? In the literary and cultural framework of his time, it was common practice to present deep characters, with an intense and clearly describable inner life, with extensive psychological elaboration. Compared to this standard, Nietzsche’s own characters are remarkably flat. The protagonist, for instance, does indeed evolve, but his evolution follows the trace of his movements in space: his descending the mountain, his wandering in the valley and to the so-called ‘blissful isles’ (an allusion to Homer), and his return to the cavern. His evolution reaches its acumen in the chapter entitled ‘The recovering’ (Der Genesende), in which he suffers a sudden collapse, from which he only gradually recovers.27 Der Genesende has a double significance: he who recovers from illness, but also he who gives birth. This chapter does not offer the reader a glimpse into the transformation the protagonist is said to go through. We learn from the comment the animals give, but the protagonist laughs it off as a ‘lyre-song’.28 But he does not rebut their denomination as Genesender: he who recovers from himself by giving birth to himself, yet in a non-depictable manner.

Character display and novelistic identity The first point to be noticed is that in Zarathustra Nietzsche reverted the connection between dramatic and narrative forms with which he had experimented in his unpublished On the Future of Our Educational Institutions ten years before. Whereas the Educational Institutions stage a dramatic frame, within which a speaker narrates a story, Zarathustra puts forward a story displaying an almost uninterrupted sequence of more or less complete speeches. The fable is poor in action. The rare actions and events that do occur, are not represented directly, but transmitted as reported actions. To do so, the narrator of the text is largely undressed and plays a primarily preparatory role, at the benefit of the protagonists who often serve as subsidiary narrators of events or actions they have experienced or witnessed. This form of indirect, postponed, teichoscopic narration is a small, but conspicuous step into the direction of rethinking metaphoric narrative. For not only does the narrator appear to be poorly informed about the anteriority of the speeches and of the reported events, he turns out to have little or no access at all to the inner world of the characters – to their motives, considerations or doubts.

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 215

 215

3/07/13 09:54

To the extent that Nietzsche persistently referred to himself as a pre-eminent psychologist,29 this may sound strange, since the inaccessibility of this inner space for the narrator excludes each form of psychological motivation. The narrator’s interventions in this field are restricted to the occasional announcement that the protagonist ‘speaks to his heart’ (sagte, redete or sprach zu seinem Herzen).30 The fact that the protagonist’s heart is presented as something that he can address as it lies outside his body is surprising. Obviously, it is a variation on the frequent biblical phrasing ‘spoke in his heart’ (spricht or redet in seinem Herzen).31 But the small prepositional change creates a synecdochic effect, signalling the detachment of this vital organ from the body and its becoming an autonomous agent, a procedure which is repeated, albeit in a different sense, with the eyes of a character (e.g. es redet aus seinem Auge).32 In both cases, typical motifs of interiority are transferred into the outside world, so as to make the reader wonder what actually constitutes the inner world of the protagonist who so eloquently presents his insights and reproaches of contemporary society. Here, the suspicion may arise that Nietzsche, as will do many novelists in the early 20th century, maintains the narrative template of the typically 19th century novel – the heterodiegetic, controlling, omniscient narrator – yet crosses out the metaphysical connotations of omniscience and its concurring divine point of view, without exchanging it for the spiritualistic or mantic alternatives that were starting to circulate in this time – a sort of post-Christian point of view. Still, leaving the traditional form of the omniscient narrator behind does not imply that the narrator has simply no access to the inner world of his protagonist. In the narrative conventions of novel literature, this would imply that the narrator suffers from a lack of perspicacity or insight, that he is – to put it in Nietzsche’s vocabulary – weak, short-sighted and reactive. But there are no indications in the text that the narrator is ill-informed or unable to comprehend what is actually going on. On the contrary: some of the scarce narratorial comments actually show that the narrator is quite well abreast.33 In the chapter ‘The Last Supper’ (Das Abendmahl) the narrator for instance refers to the wordings in which future history books will refer to the events – a convincing argument in favour of narrative overview and secure knowledge.34 Much rather, the manner of the narrator suggests that he consciously withdraws from depicting the characters’ inner life. The question here remains why he does so. My suggestion is that the protagonist, performing a series of acts in the represented world, does not dispose of an inner world in the traditional novelistic sense of the word at all, a character or disposition that lies at the basis of such actions. Conversely, that what he is, his novelistic identity, is the effect of the rhetoric acts he performs. The fact that Zarathustra uses multiple metaphoric self-denomination – he is a ‘north wind’, a ‘strong wind’, a ‘breeze’, a ‘cry’, or a ‘cheer’, but not a ‘whirlwind’35 – underpins this idea. Particularly the semantic field of ‘wind’ indicates that the protagonist is reduced to his performative manifestations, mimicking the (false) anthropomorphic attribution which often goes hand in hand with this – for obviously, there can be wind, but it is nonsensical to attribute the wind to the wind.36

216

Metaphors.indb 216

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

Rhetorical negotiation This can explain why the novelistic psychology at work in the appearance of the protagonists in Zarathustra and in their interaction is not describable from an outside perspective nor can it motivate (directly or indirectly) their behaviour or decisions. Instead they are part of a dynamics of multiple and mutual metaphoric characterization, which in the course of the novel becomes object of provocation and negotiation. Whereas the protagonist first identifies with a bee or with the sun, he gradually unfolds a much broader and changing set of identifying metaphors. In the first part, he calls himself a ‘rail’ next to the stream, and not a pair of crutches, once again functionalizing his own performance and underscoring his mediating position.37 The negated metaphors are typical instances of rhetorical negotiation. At the beginning of the second book, the narrator compares the protagonist to a ‘sower’, a ‘seer’ and a ‘singer’ and thus emphasises the sustainable, productive after-effects generated by the title hero’s behaviour.38 Later on, the protagonist specifies this image by referring to himself as an ‘arrow’, a ‘rooster’, a ‘(crack of ) dawn’,39 determined to finding its object and claiming his power: ‘a raiser (Zieher), cultivator (Züchter) and taskmaster (Zuchtmeister)’:40 an alliterative summoning of Zarathustra’s ambition to intervene actively in the lives of others, in terms of physical action, transformative procreation and selective upbringing – the central ambition of the book as a whole. This process of shifting metaphoric denomination does not come to a halt when Zarathustra in the fourth part finally claims to be ‘Zarathustra’,41 as only a few confrontations with the higher men later Zarathustra’s shadow indicates that a name is nothing more than a skin that can be ripped off.42 His claim to be ‘Zarathustra’ hence is in this perspective the metaphorization of his proper name and a momentum of self-reappropriation. Close to the final episode of the book, conspicuously entitled ‘The sign’, Zarathustra presents a whole set of metaphoric denominations, albeit each time with a question mark: ‘Am I a sooth-sayer? A dreamer? A drunk? A dream interpreter? A midnight bell? A drop of dew? A haze and fragrance of eternity?’43 This sequence exemplifies the negotiable dimension of these identifying metaphors: not only they who give voice to the denominations put a claim on that which is denominated, but also those to whom the denomination is addressed. The broad range of denominations is not an indication of inconclusiveness or indecisiveness on behalf of the speaker. On the contrary: it testifies his uninterrupted efforts to serially reinvent himself. In earlier writings Nietzsche had used much more genealogical figures of speech, suggesting some sort of intrinsic relationship between the different metaphors, such as the silkworm and the butterfly.44 The manifold metaphoric denominations claimed and negotiated in the four parts of Zarathustra show that Nietzsche here draws the narrative consequences of the psychological model he will unfold in the second chapter of his On the Genealogy of Morals: it is the deed that determines the doer, and not the other way around.45 The doer is the result of the deed, not its origin, and definitely not its agent. That

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 217

 217

3/07/13 09:54

Zarathustra delivers a plethora of metaphoric self-denominations is consonant with the concept of the multiplicity and interactionality of the will – and makes clear that the working of the will necessarily entails its attempt to gain power over other wills. Hence it is impossible for a post-Christian or post-theologian narrator to depict the inner world of the characters, because they simply have none, rich as they may be in emotions and effects. These are as much part of the protagonists’ economy of deeds as any other act; but they are no symptoms of their inner self. Comparably, it is impossible to denominate the protagonist through conventional means, because this would entail a static and one-sided exertion of power. The skin is not the outward appearance of the snake, it is the snake itself, and only the moulting, the destruction, of the present skin allows for the construction of a new one. This process of ongoing determination through the alternation of claiming a (metaphoric) name as a symbolic skin and then stripping it again and replacing it with a new one exemplifies in a unexpected and hardly visible manner the consequences of the post-Christian, post-grammatical form of psychology Nietzsche wants to establish. He cannot but see that it is impossible to establish such a psychology, without executing it narratively. Creative metaphors, which combine in Nietzsche’s view a claim to power with selection and transformation, undoubtedly play a key role in Nietzsche’s attempt. It may be true that Nietzsche wanted to show with his metaphors his mastery of language and his craftsmanship as a poet – it is no coincidence that he wrote a novella, an autobiography and a fairy tale already as a youngster, and that he would continue to write poetry until the last days of his conscious life. And it is beyond doubt that he felt provoked by the epistemological potential of metaphoric reasoning. But his use of metaphors is more than simply evidence for an aesthetic or epistemological decision. It is the consequence of what might be termed Nietzsche’s rhetorical presupposition that the disclosure of new insights in a manner that is indifferent to the effects of these insights on their very disclosure, is nothing less than a betrayal, a depreciation, an annihilation of those very insights. When we ask ourselves, with Heidegger: ‘Who is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra?’, we come to the conclusion that for Nietzsche Zarathustra is first and foremost a series of self-referential metaphors, not because we are unable to grasp this persona – for we are – but because his being the focus of constant metaphoric reinvention and renegotiation makes the readers aware of the foundational power of the speech act in which they themselves are directly implicated. Obviously, the metaphors with which this occurs, are not arbitrary: they display an ongoing, yet shifting attempt to make space for such further metaphoric denominations. In this sense, it is the narrative and performative equivalent of Nietzsche’s dictum: werde der du bist, become the one you are.46 With a wink to the God of Moses, who could not but state tautologically: ‘I am that I am’ (Exodus 3:14), Zarathustra replies to the character called the conscientious of spirit (der Gewissenhafte des Geistes): ‘You can call me as you like – I am that which I have to be. I call myself Zarathustra’.47 The German verb ‘heißen’ not only refers to the act of naming, but also to the idea of commanding, ordering, dictating. Although Zarathustra is first and foremost a

218

Metaphors.indb 218

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

herald, an announcer, he uses here the language of the Übermensch, the language of the one who can recreate himself radically at any instance.48

Metaphorical novelisation of philosophy Very much in the sense that Zarathustra is the book in which Nietzsche wanted to elaborate a new, non-teleological concept of time within time, we may conclude that it is the book in which he tries to design a new, non-theological concept of the human in a discourse that would not betray the very essence of that design. To do so, he had to undertake a project of the metaphoric novelisation of philosophy, inspired by the model he had found with Emerson. It is unsure whether or not he considered this project completed – his eagerness to come back at it, even in purely eulogistic terms, suggests that he did not. But it is no coincidence that he did not systematically reiterate the anthropology of the Übermensch in any later work, nor in the unpublished notes. Zarathustra is indeed, as many critics say, the story of a prophet proclaiming the advent of the Übermensch and advocating the will to power and eternal recurrence. But the metaphoric denominations put a narrative dynamics into motion, sketching the story of a constantly changing persona, whose change cannot be described by normal novelistic or narrative means, with their characteristic metaphysical or theological notion of the subject. On the basis of his ‘God is dead’-narrative position and the implications it has on an ontological, epistemological and psychological level, Nietzsche stages protagonists whose very appearance is the result of acts of metaphoric self-appropriation and self-invention. Only in this manner, he can portray a human, who does not hold onto what he is, but continually goes down, moults his old skin, and can thus perform the practice of transformation and what Nietzsche called ‘the innocence of becoming’.49 It must be safe, then, to conclude that Zarathustra is not so much responsible for Nietzsche’s Verkitschung, as it is the stage on which he tries to unfold his philosophy to its full extent.

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 219

 219

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Benders, R. J. − Oettermann, S. (2000). Friedrich Nietzsche. Chronik in Bildern und Texten, München − Wien, Hanser Biebuyck, B. (2000). ‘Polypsesten. Cultuur en cultuurkritiek in Nietzsches Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen als taal-in-actie’, in G. Visser ed., Nietzsches Cultuurkritiek in de Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, Leiden, MD Publishers, pp. 29-54 Cancik, H. – Cancik-Lindemaier, H. (1999). Philolog und Kultfigur. Friedrich Nietzsche und seine Antike in Deutschland, Stuttgart – Weimar, Metzler Johnson, D. R. (2010). Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Kofman, S. (1972). Nietzsche et la métaphore. Paris, Payot Konersmann, R., ed. (20113). Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Kremer-Marietti, A. (1992). Nietzsche et la rhétorique. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France de Man, P. (1978). ‘The Epistemology of Metaphor’, in S. Sacks ed., On Metaphor, Chicago – London, University of Chicago Press, pp. 11-28 Meijers, A. (1988). ‘Gustav Gerber und Friedrich Nietzsche. Zum historischen Hintergrund der sprachphilosophischen Auffassungen des frühen Nietzsche’, in Nietzsche-Studien 17, pp. 369-390 Most, G. (1994). ‘Friedrich Nietzsche zwischen Philosophie und Philologie’, in Ruperto Carola. Forschungsmagazin der Universität Heidelberg 2, pp. 12-17 Most, G. − Fries, T. (1994). ‘Die Quellen von Nietzsches Rhetorik-Vorlesung’, in T. Borsche − F. Gerratana − A. Venturelli eds, ‘Centauren-Geburten’. Wissenschaft, Kunst und Philosophie beim jungen Nietzsche, Berlin − New York, De Gruyter, pp. 16-46 Nietzsche, F. (1986a). Sämtliche Briefe: Mai 1872 − Dezember 1874. Kritische Studienausgabe in 8 Bänden, vol. 4, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München − Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [KSB 4]

220

Metaphors.indb 220

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

Nietzsche, F. (1986b). Sämtliche Briefe: Januar 1875 − Dezember 1879. Kritische Studienausgabe in 8 Bänden, vol. 5, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München − Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [KSB 5] Nietzsche, F. (1995). Vorlesungsaufzeichnungen WS 1871/72-WS 1874/75, eds F. Bornmann − M. Carpitella, Berlin − New York, De Gruyter [= KGW II, 4] Nietzsche, F. (1999a). Die Geburt der Tragödie. Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen. Nachgelassene Schriften 1870-1873, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 1, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 1] Nietzsche, F. (1999b). Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I - II, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 2, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 2] Nietzsche, F. (1999c). Morgenröte. Idyllen aus Messina. Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 3, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 3] Nietzsche, F. (1999d). Also sprach Zarathustra I-IV, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 4, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 4] Nietzsche, F. (1999e). Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Zur Genealogie der Moral, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 5, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 5] Nietzsche, F. (1999f). Der Fall Wagner. Götzen-Dämmerung. Der Antichrist. Ecce Homo. Dionysos-Dithyramben. Nietzsche contra Wagner, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 6, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 6] Nietzsche, F. (1999g). Nachlaß 1875-1879, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 8, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 8]

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 221

 221

3/07/13 09:54

Nietzsche, F. (1999h). Nachlaß 1880-1882, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 9, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 9] Nietzsche, F. (1999i). Nachlaß 1885-1887, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, vol. 12, eds G. Colli − M. Montinari, München – Berlin − New York, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag − de Gruyter [= KSA 12] Ottmann, H. (2000). ‘Kompositionsprobleme von Also sprach Zarathustra’, in Friedrich Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra, ed. V. Gerhardt, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, pp. 47-67 Stern, J.P. (1978). ‘Nietzsche and the Idea of Metaphor’, in M. Pasley ed., Nietzsche: Imagery and Thought. A Collection of Essays, London, Methuen, pp. 64-82 Van Tongeren, P. (2000). Reinterpreting Modern Culture. An Introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Philosophy, West Lafayette, Purdue University Press Vivarelli, V. (1987). ‘Nietzsche und Emerson: Über einige Pfade in Zarathustras metaphorischer Landschaft’, Nietzsche-Studien 16, pp. 227-263 Wein, H. (1972). ‘Nietzsche ohne Zarathustra. Die Entkitschung Nietzsches: Der kritische Aufklärer’, in Nietzsche-Studien 1, pp. 359-379

Endnotes 1

Wein (1972).

2

Wein (1972), p. 372.

3

Wein (1972), p. 367, 376.

4

Cancik – Cancik-Lindemaier (1999), p. 201.

5

Wein (1972), p. 359.

6

Cf. e.g. Ottmann (2000), pp. 49-52.

7

E.g. ‘Blitz’, ‘Fließen’, ‘Gebären’, ‘Weg’; cf. Konersmann (20113), pp. 88, 111-113, 131, 540.

222

Metaphors.indb 222

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

8

Cf. with respect to metaphors as ‘smugglers’ de Man (1978), p. 17.

9

See KSA 2, p. 22.

10

Compare his critique of Wagner in Der Fall Wagner (‘Nachschrift’, KSA 6, p. 42).

11 KSA 4, p. 300. 12

E.g. KSA 3, p. 625.

13

This is the case in the Bildungsanstalten from 1872, the dramatic Empedocles fragments, written in the course of the 1870s, in Zarathustra (the fourth part: 1885) and the Dionysos-Dithyrambs, finalised in the early days of 1889, just before Nietzsche’s definitive mental breakdown.

14

Cf. e.g. Kofman (1972), Stern (1978) and Kremer-Marietti (1992).

15

Cf. e.g. KGW II 4, pp. 442-445. See also Vivarelli (1987), pp. 227-263; Meijers (1988), pp. 369-390.

16

Cf. Most (1994), pp. 12-17 and Most − Fries (1994), p. 21.

17

E.g. KGW II 4, p. 443.

18

E.g. KSA 1, p. 875.

19 KSA 1, p. 887. 20

Cf. a letter to Malwida von Meysenbug from April 1873 (KSB 4, p.12).

21

E.g. KSA 2, p. 642 and 5, p. 94f.

22

Cf. KSA 4, p. 98.

23

See Biebuyck (2000), pp. 29-54 and Johnson (2010), pp. 20-25.

24

Cf. KSA 4, pp. 11-12: ‘Endlich aber verwandelte sich sein Herz, – und eines Morgens stand er mit

der Morgenröthe auf, trat vor die Sonne hin und sprach zu ihr also: […] Ich bin meiner Weisheit

überdrüssig, wie die Biene, die des Honigs zu viel gesammelt hat […]. Ich muss, gleich dir, untergehen,

wie die Menschen es nennen, zu denen ich hinab will. So segne mich denn, du ruhiges Auge, das

ohne Neid auch ein allzugrosses Glück sehen kann! Segne den Becher, welcher überfliessen will,

dass das Wasser golden aus ihm fliesse und überallhin den Abglanz deiner Wonne trage!’ 25

E.g. KSA 12, p. 453; KSB 5, p. 461; KSA 6, pp. 89, 306, 412, 535.

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 223

 223

3/07/13 09:54

26

Cf. the activities of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by Helena Blavatzky. Nietzsche took part in a spiritistic séance himself on October 2, 1882, when the project of a novel about the

character of Zarathustra was getting shape. Cf. Benders − Oettermann (2000), pp. 534f and 540. 27 KSA 4, p. 270. 28 KSA 4, p. 273. 29

Cf. the subtitle of Nietzsche contra Wagner (‘Aktenstücke eines Psychologen’).

30 KSA 4, pp. 22, 193, 304. 31

In Luther’s bible translation, the image of the heart is generally used as a reference to the human existential epicentre, and hence as the source of both inner (or secretive) and external, explicit

communication. The imagery occurs with higher density in the poetic setting of the psalms (e.g.

Psalm 10:6 and 11, 14:1, 35:25, 53:2, 74:8), the admonitions of the wisdom and prophetic writings

(Ecclesiastes 1:16, 2:1, 3:18; Jeremia 49:4; Isaiah 47:8, 59:13; Daniel 7:28). In the Gospels, usually considered to be the stylistic exemplum of Zarathustra, the phrasing is much less common.

32 KSA 4, p. 45. There are many other instances of synecdoche in Zarathustra, both in the protagonist’s

speeches (e.g. KSA 4, p. 201: ‘Meine Hand riss die Schlange’) and in the narrator’s comments (e.g.

KSA 4, p. 327: ‘Und wieder liefen Zarathustra’s Füsse durch Berge und Wälder, und seine Augen suchten und suchten’).

33

Overall, the narrator generally records Zarathustra’s actions and speeches, without going into his

thoughts or tacit intentions (e.g. ‘Als Zarathustra diese Worte gesagt hatte, schwieg er, wie Einer,

der nicht sein letztes Wort gesagt hat’, KSA 4, p. 101; the comparison is a perceptual inference by

the narrator, but no indication of the protagonist’s inner life; cf. also KSA 4, pp. 222ff and 270ff ).

Singularly, however, he subtly indicates that he is able to gauge to some extent what the protagonist withholds (e.g. ex negativo in the Prologue Zarathustra forgetting time: ‘Zarathustra aber sass neben

dem Todten auf der Erde und war in Gedanken versunken: so vergass er die Zeit’, KSA 4, p. 22; a remarkable example can be found in the first speech of the second book, where the narrator imitates

Zarathustra’s idiosyncratic rhetoric and thus seems to offer a snatch of free indirect speech: ‘Seine

Seele aber wurde voll von Ungeduld und Begierde nach denen, welche er liebte: denn er hatte ihnen noch Viel zu geben. Diess nämlich ist das Schwerste, aus Liebe die offne Hand schliessen und als

Schenkender die Scham bewahren’; for other examples of introspective narration: cf. also KSA 4, pp. 193, 195, 196).

34

Cf. the following ironic reference: ‘Diess aber war der Anfang von jener langen Mahlzeit, welche

“das Abendmahl” in den Historien-Büchern genannt wird. Bei derselben wurde von nichts Anderem geredet als vom höheren Menschen’ (KSA 4, p. 355).

224

Metaphors.indb 224

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

35

‘Ein Nordwind bin ich reifen Feigen’ (KSA 4, p. 109); ‘Wahrlich, ein starker Wind ist Zarathustra

allen Niederungen’ (KSA 4, p. 126); ‘ein frischer Brause-Wind kommt Zarathustra allen Weg-Müden’

(KSA 4, p. 258); ‘Wie ein Schrei und ein Jauchzen will ich über weite Meere hinfahren’ (KSA 4, p.

107); ‘Wahrlich, kein Dreh- und Wirbelwind ist Zarathustra’ (KSA 4, p. 131). 36

Cf. Nietzsche’s discussion of lightning in Zur Genealogie der Moral (KSA 5, p. 579).

37

‘Ich bin ein Geländer am Strome: fasse mich, wer mich fassen kann! Eure Krücke aber bin ich nicht’.

38

‘Hierauf ging Zarathustra wieder zurück in das Gebirge und in die Einsamkeit seiner Höhle und

(KSA 4, p. 47).

entzog sich den Menschen: wartend gleich einem Säemann, der seinen Samen ausgeworfen hat’

(KSA 4, p. 105); ‘Mit diesen Worten sprang Zarathustra auf, aber nicht wie ein Geängstigter, der

nach Luft sucht, sondern eher wie ein Seher und Sänger, welchen der Geist anfällt’ (KSA 4, p. 106).

39

‘[D]a flog ich wohl schaudernd, ein Pfeil, durch sonnentrunkenes Entzücken’ (KSA 4, p. 247); ‘Noch

gleiche ich dem Hahn hier auf fremdem Gehöfte, nach dem auch die Hennen beissen’ (KSA 4, p.

212); ‘Ich bin dein Hahn und Morgen-Grauen’ (KSA 4, p. 270). 40

KSA 4, p. 297.

41 KSA 4, p. 306. 42

‘Wenn der Teufel sich häutet, fällt da nicht auch sein Name ab? der ist nämlich auch Haut. Der

43

‘Bin ich ein Wahrsager? Ein Träumender? Trunkener? Ein Traumdeuter? Eine Mitternachts-Glocke?

44

Cf. ‘Seidenwurm’ (KSA 2, p. 545); ‘Der Schmetterling will seine Hülle durchbrechen’ (KSA 2, p. 105);

Teufel selber ist vielleicht – Haut’ (KSA 4, p. 340).

Ein Tropfen Thau’s? Ein Dunst und Duft der Ewigkeit?’ (KSA 4, p. 402).

see also the following fragment from the mid 1870s: ‘Die ausgeschlüpfte Seidenraupe schleppt eine

Zeitlang die leere Puppe noch nach sich; Gleichniss’ (KSA 8, p. 467). 45

‘Ebenso nämlich, wie das Volk den Blitz von seinem Leuchten trennt und letzteres als Thun, als

Wirkung eines Subjekts nimmt, das Blitz heisst, so trennt die Volks-Moral auch die Stärke von den

Äusserungen der Stärke ab, wie als ob es hinter dem Starken ein indifferentes Substrat gäbe, dem

es freistünde, Stärke zu äussern oder auch nicht. Aber es giebt kein solches Substrat; es giebt kein

“Sein” hinter dem Thun, Wirken, Werden; “der Thäter” ist zum Thun bloss hinzugedichtet, – das Thun ist Alles’ (KSA 5, p. 279).

46

An interesting note in this respect dates from the early 1880s: ‘Werde fort und fort, der, der du

bist – der Lehrer und Bildner deiner selbst! Du bist kein Schriftsteller, du schreibst nur für dich!

Benjamin Biebuyck

Metaphors.indb 225

 225

3/07/13 09:54

So erhältst du das Gedächtniß an deine guten Augenblicke und findest ihren Zusammenhang, die

goldne Kette deines Selbst! So bereitest du dich auf die Zeit vor, wo du sprechen mußt! Vielleicht

daß du dich dann des Sprechens schämst, wie du dich mitunter des Schreibens geschämt hast, daß

es noch nöthig ist, sich zu interpretiren, daß Handlungen und Nicht-Handlungen nicht genügen,

dich mitzutheilen. Ja, du willst dich mittheilen!’ (KSA 9, p. 555). 47

‘Nenne mich aber immerhin, wie du willst, – ich bin, der ich sein muss. Ich selber heisse mich

48

In this respect, the persona Zarathustra can be seen the narrative equivalent of Dionysos, the

49

In aphorism 455 of Daybreak (‘Die Erste Natur’) Nietzsche associates education with the many

Zarathustra’ (KSA 4, p. 310).

mythological ‘personification of plurality’ (Van Tongeren 2000, p. 301).

skins of a snake. To be able to undo oneself of this skin, he claims, is a matter of power and maturity:

‘Einige Wenige sind Schlangen genug, um diese Haut eines Tages abzustossen: dann, wenn unter ihrer Hülle ihre erste Natur reif geworden ist’ (KSA 3, p. 275).

226

Metaphors.indb 226

Nietzsche’s Metaphors and the Moulting of the Snake. Metaphor and Narrative in Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Becoming

3/07/13 09:54

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

I

n contemporary hermeneutic thought, the notion of metaphor plays a crucial role to understand the human capacity to think and to create concepts. In this realm of thought, metaphor is not so much addressed as one of the tropes but rather understood as an original dimension of language in which the ingenuity of human, linguistic consciousness can be found. Gadamer’s work is exemplary for this line of thought on metaphor. In Wahrheit und Methode, he points to the ‘fundamental metaphoricity’ (grundsätzliche Metaphorik) of language.1 Language, as the human capacity to express experiences, is primordially metaphoric. Being primordial, metaphor can no longer be determined in terms of the distinction between a proper or literal use and an ‘improper use’ (uneigentlicher Gebrauch) of words, as if metaphor were only a derivative form of speech. Moreover, extending the distinction between proper and improper use of words to the distinction between conceptual and metaphorical language, Gadamer insists that the logical order of the concepts is derived from this primordial metaphoricity of language rather than the other way around. He emphasizes this privileged place of metaphor to indicate that the most basic capacity of human language is to express resemblances between different entities. This capacity is, as Gadamer writes, ‘the ingenuity of linguistic consciousness’ (die Genialität des sprachlichen Bewußtseins).2 The formation of concepts (Begriffsbildung) depends on this ingenuity. Hence, philosophical thinking is inconceivable without this primordial metaphoricity of language. Gadamer’s brief comments on the metaphoricity of language exemplify a conception of the relation between concept and metaphor in hermeneutic thought. For instance, Paul Ricoeur’s La métaphore vive can be understood as a thorough elaboration of these comments.3 Ricoeur endorses the idea that the creation of concepts and of logical categories depends on metaphors. Using Ryle’s terminology, he suggests that a metaphor

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 227

 227

3/07/13 09:54

involves a category mistake since it crosses the boundaries of logical categories. Yet, it is a special kind of ‘mistake’: a metaphor transgresses these boundaries in order to create new logical categories.4 This abundance of metaphor over concepts, even over the concepts that interpret a metaphor, is beautifully expressed by the phrase that a metaphor offers us ‘to think more’ (à penser plus).5 Within the context of hermeneutics, in which the fertility of metaphors for thinking is affirmed again and again, the work of Martin Heidegger plays an odd role. Without a doubt, his work on language and poetry is one of the main sources of inspiration for contemporary hermeneutics to rethink the role of poetic language in relation to philosophy and metaphysics. In fact, Heidegger’s reflection on poetry is often one of the main guidelines in hermeneutic thought for developing modes of thinking that present alternatives to a metaphysical one. However, when describing poetry and poetic language, Heidegger is always keen to point out that poetic language has nothing to do with metaphors since, as he famously wrote, ‘[d]as Metaphorische gibt es nur innerhalb der Metaphysik’.6 At the same time, Heidegger’s language seems to overflow with metaphors – each one offering to think more and opening up new conceptual field for philosophy. As Jacques Derrida notes in a comment that also invokes Ricoeur’s and Jean Greisch’s reflection on the role of metaphor in Heidegger’s work: ‘The metaphoricity of Heidegger’s text would exceed the boundaries of what he says thematically, in the mode of simplifying denunciation, about the so-called metaphysical concept of metaphor’.7 Due to these paradoxical circumstance and even though Heidegger’s comments on metaphor are rare, important contributors to the discussion concerning the role and nature of metaphor, such as Ricoeur, Greisch and Derrida, have all felt compelled to discuss and to understand Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor in relation to the metaphoricity of his own texts.8 In what follows, I want to examine this question by first interpreting a number of (non-)metaphors used by Heidegger to characterize language such as ‘the house of being’ (das Haus des Seins) and ‘words, as flowers’ (Worte, wie Blumen). I shall discuss why and in what sense this typical example of the so-called ‘metaphoricity of Heidegger’s text’ can be said not to be metaphorical. The second part of this essay will invoke Derrida’s reading of this (non-) metaphoricity and will develop his conception of the quasi-metaphorical in order to settle the question of the role of metaphor for thinking in Heidegger’s work.

Metaphor and the metaphysical determination of language Before turning to the metaphor of the house of being, let me first recall the famous quote with which almost every account of Heidegger’s conception of metaphor begins:

228

Metaphors.indb 228

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

3/07/13 09:54

‘Die Vorstellung von “übertragen” und von der Metapher beruht auf der Unterscheidung, wenn nicht gar Trennung des Sinnlichen und Nichtsinnlichen als zweier für sich bestehender Bereiche. Die Aufstellung dieser Scheidung des Sinnlichen und Nichtsinnlichen, des Physischen und des Nicht-physischen ist ein Grundzug dessen, was Metaphysik heißt und das abendländische Denken maßgebend bestimmt. Mit der Einsicht, daß die genannte Unterscheidung des Sinnlichen und Nichtsinnlichen unzureichend bleibt, verliert die Metaphysik den Rang der maßgebenden Denkweise. Mit der Einsicht in das Beschränkte der Metaphysik wird auch die maßgebende Vorstellung von der “Metapher” hinfällig. Sie gibt nämlich das Maß für unsere Vorstellung vom Wesen der Sprache. [...] Das Metaphorische gibt es nur innerhalb der Metaphysik’.9 In this quote, Heidegger determines metaphor in a platonic way as a trope that presupposes the metaphysical distinction between the sensible and the intelligible. Moreover and more importantly, metaphor is ‘das Maß für unsere Vorstellung vom Wesen der Sprache’. This means that metaphor as the linguistic transference from the sensible to the intelligible is the measure for our metaphysical determination of language. In the context of this quote, Heidegger aims to explain what he means by the two expressions for thinking he introduces in this text: thinking is listening (Er-hören) and thinking is bringing-into-view (Er-blicken). One might be tempted to understand these expressions as metaphors, i.e., as transposing something that belongs to the realm of the sensible, namely listening and viewing, to something that belongs to the realm of the intelligible, namely thinking. However, Heidegger states that they should not be understood as metaphors: read as metaphors, they do not say thinking as it is; they rather articulate thinking as something it is not (since the intelligible is not the sensible). In more sophisticated terms, a metaphor approaches a being by means of its resemblance (homoiosis as Aristotle calls it) with another being. Consequently, a metaphor only discloses certain properties of a being, namely the ones it has in common with the being that is used metaphorically, but a metaphor does not disclose the essence of a being. In fact, strictly speaking, by disclosing only the properties of a being, a metaphor conceals the essence of this being at the same time. Even though a metaphor can be helpful for educational purposes to get a first glimpse of a subject matter, it can never be the ultimate goal. This is the very reason why philosophy cannot be satisfied with metaphorical language but should strive for conceptual language: in contrast to the former, the latter is capable of addressing a being as it is. Consequently, in a classical determination of language, a metaphor is a way of speaking that can be improved and that, in the end, should be substituted by a conceptual mode of speech. It is this complex of ideas and consequences Heidegger has in mind when he says that ‘thinking as listening’ or ‘thinking as bringing-into-view’ should not be

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 229

 229

3/07/13 09:54

understood as metaphors: when he, Heidegger, uses these expressions, they do not intend to approach thinking in a derived, metaphorical way, but they intend to say thinking as it is. Commentators such as Ricoeur and Greisch correctly point out that in the aforementioned quote, Heidegger employs a Platonic conception of metaphor. In line with Gadamer’s effort to enter the problem of metaphor by means of Aristotle’s theory, they claim that another account of metaphor is possible that does not run the risk of being metaphysical in the way Heidegger discerns in this quote. However, it remains to be seen whether Heidegger’s comments on metaphor are confined to a Platonic version of metaphor alone. In fact, by turning to Heidegger’s (non-)metaphor of the house of being, I would like to argue in the subsequent sections that an Aristotelian conception is also at stake in Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor.

The direction of metaphor In ‘Le retrait de la métaphore’, Derrida briefly discusses Heidegger’s expression ‘Das Haus des Seins’.10 In his Brief über den Humanismus, Heidegger writes that language is the house of being, but he quickly adds that this expression should not be understood as a metaphor (Übertragung) that transfers the image of a house to being. Such a transferal would allow us to interpret being in light of our understanding of what a house is and of what it means to dwell somewhere. However, Heidegger wants to use this expression in such a way that the direction of transferal is reversed: it is not the house that will teach us something about being, but it is rather the essence of being that, one day, will provide us with another, more primordial sense of ‘house’ and of ‘dwelling’.11 To understand these comments, the reference to Plato’s dualism does not help. A reference to Aristotle’s definition of metaphor, on the other hand, allows us to understand what is at stake in these comments. A (living) metaphor has always been understood as a deviation from ordinary language. In the Poetics, Aristotle writes, ‘[m]etaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else’.12 In the Rhetoric, Aristotle specifies the role of this transference. A metaphor is agreeable to us since we learn something from it: ‘ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh’. 13 By transposing a property of a being we are familiar with to a being of which we did not yet know this property, metaphor allows us to learn something new. Hence, according to Aristotle, metaphor has a specific direction: from the familiar to the unfamiliar. In contrast to metaphor’s direction, Heidegger’s use of the expression ‘the house of being’ opens up another orientation: it is not the familiar that should disclose the unfamiliar, but it is rather the familiar that should become unfamiliar and uncanny. By reversing the common direction of metaphor, it changes the Aristotelian agreeability

230

Metaphors.indb 230

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

3/07/13 09:54

into the experience of the uncanny: it shows the experience of dwelling and being at home (Heim) in the light of das Unheimliche, the un-homely. For Heidegger, the expression ‘the house of being’ does not disclose being in the light of the familiarity of a house, but rather robs the house of its familiarity and homeliness. Note that this rejection of the direction of metaphor repeats a common gesture in Heidegger’s work. The mistrust of the familiar, the homely and the ordinary as an access to being, furthers his general mistrust of ordinary language as a means to reveal being and to reveal the essence of language.14 Heidegger’s remarks on ‘the house of being’ move within the realm of this distrust: the metaphorical transfer of the familiar to the unfamiliar will only place the essence of being in light of something that is marked by concealment, namely our everyday understanding of dwelling and our everyday speech on this subject. This aspect of Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor seems to have gone unnoticed in Ricoeur’s account of this dismissal. For both Ricoeur and Gadamer, the movement from the familiar to the unfamiliar, guided by a resemblance, characterizes their description of the metaphoricity of language as well.15 In this sense, it is highly questionable whether the metaphoricity of Heidegger’s text, of which Ricoeur and Greisch speak, is indeed metaphorical in an Aristotelian sense.

The liveliness of metaphor A third example from Heidegger’s work brings another aspect of Aristotle’s conception of metaphor into play, namely its liveliness. Metaphor is a form of living speech. This Aristotelian dimension of metaphor is an important source of inspiration for contemporary hermeneutic efforts to revive this topic. This can be seen immediately from the title of Ricoeur’s study on metaphor – La métaphore vive – but also from Gadamer’s description of the metaphoricity of language, which he calls ‘living’: ‘die lebendige Metaphorik der Sprache’.16 The third example stems from Unterwegs zur Sprache and circles around Heidegger’s comments on Hölderlin’s phrase ‘Worte, wie Blumen’.17 As before, Heidegger notes that we remain within the realm of metaphysics if we take these words to be metaphorical. Instead, the poetic experience of Hölderlin would constitute an alternative to the metaphysical approach to language. Hölderlin’s description of language as the bloom of the mouth (Blüte des Mundes) and of words as flowers, would pull language out of the physiologic-physical realm of phonetics and draw it closer to the letting-appearof-world.18 How to understand these remarks? Are they not perfect examples of the liveliness of a metaphor? My interpretation of this passage will take as its point of departure the question: Why does Heidegger mention metaphor in this context in the first place? He mentions it because he objects to Gottfried Benn who reads Hölderlin’s phrase as a metaphor.

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 231

 231

3/07/13 09:54

Although one might be tempted at first sight to argue that the relation Heidegger discerns between metaphor and metaphysics is merely a copy of the one discussed in Der Satz vom Grund, a more careful inquiry indicates that Heidegger quotes exactly those elements of Benn’s comments that relate to Aristotle’s concept of metaphor rather than Plato’s. The key to Benn’s critique of Hölderlin concerns the ‘wie’ in ‘Worte, wie Blumen’. According to Benn, this ‘wie’ would be a rift in the vision of the poem. Hölderlin’s phrase would merely be a simile. As such, it would reduce the tension of language and imply a weakness of the creative transformation at stake in poetic language.19 How can Benn explicate this ‘wie’ as a metaphorical weakness? In Book III of the Rhetoric, Aristotle mentions a close proximity between metaphor and simile. In fact, in Chapter Four of this book, he argues that they are more or less the same: ‘The simile is also a metaphor; the difference is but slight’.20 Though being slight, the difference between a simile and a metaphor is exactly the ‘as’.21 In Chapter Ten, Aristotle deepens his discussion of the relation between simile and metaphor. Here, the ‘as’ retrieves a particular meaning. Speech is agreeable to us because we learn something from it, Aristotle claims, and a metaphor is especially agreeable because it allows us to get hold of such a new idea.22 Among these agreeable metaphors, the best metaphors are those that depict something as alive. This liveliness is especially present in a metaphor, while it is present in a lesser way in a simile.23 As Aristotle puts it, ‘[the simile] does not say outright that “this” is “that”, [as metaphor does, GJH] and therefore the hearer is less interested in the idea. We see then, that both speech and reasoning are lively in proportion as they make us seize a new idea promptly’.24 Hence, Aristotle relates the agreeability as well as the ability to learn something from a trope to the degree of liveliness involved in the expression. This degree depends on the promptness with which an expression makes us seize a new idea, and thus transforms reality for us. Among the tropes, metaphor excels in the promptness with which it provides a new idea to thought.25 Consequently, Aristotle introduces exactly those aspects of the weakness of the ‘as’ to which Benn refers in his critique of Hölderlin and to which Heidegger objects: Hölderlin’s ‘Worte, wie Blumen’ would break up the vision, i.e., it does not make us seize a new idea promptly, and therefore it does not agree to us as much as a metaphor. Moreover, it would reduce the tension of language, i.e. it reduces the liveliness of metaphorical speech that promptly says ‘this is that’ by introducing a comparative ‘as’. Therefore, it would also be a weakness of the creative transformation. In sum, Benn’s comments affirm the higher degree of liveliness in metaphor as opposed to the less ‘lively’ simile. For Heidegger, however, Hölderlin’s expression is not at all concerned with transposing liveliness to something that is without life. Rather, the phrase shows the following: ‘Wird das Wort die Blume des Mundes und Blüte genannt, dann hören wir das Lauten der Sprache erdhaft aufgehen. Von woher? Aus dem Sagen, worin sich das Erscheinenlassen von Welt begibt’.26 Hence, it is not a matter of borrowing the

232

Metaphors.indb 232

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

3/07/13 09:54

liveliness that can be found in the flowering of flowers and transposing it promptly to words and to language. Rather, Hölderlin’s phrase concerns the essence of language as such, which Heidegger determines as saying (Sage) and, thus, as showing or letting appear.27 Hence, Hölderlin’s phrase does not describe language as if it is alive, according to Heidegger. The ‘as’ of the ‘words, as flowers’ is not a metaphorical ‘as’ that depicts words as if they were alive, but an ‘as’ of a poetic phrase that is capable of saying language as it is and as it occurs. Looking back on the three examples we discussed – thinking as listening and as bringing-into-view, ‘the house of being’, and ‘words, as flowers’ – we may conclude that they indicate that Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor is not limited to a Platonic conception of metaphor but concerns the fundamentals of Aristotle’s conception of metaphor as well. In relation to the latter, Heidegger emphasizes how Aristotle’s attention to the role of resemblance in metaphor, to the direction of metaphor, and to the liveliness of metaphor cannot be understood without taking his metaphysics into account. Also in relation to Aristotle’s notion of metaphor, Heidegger would probably insist on the famous phrase from Der Satz vom Grund: ‘Das Metaphorische gibt es nur innerhalb der Metaphysik’. For Heidegger, the three expressions we discussed are disclosive in the sense that they say thinking, language and words as they are. However, if we would classify them as metaphors in an Aristotelian sense, they would articulate thinking, language and words as something they are not. Aristotle is quite clear about this. In the Topics, he states that a metaphor is an obscure way of speaking. In this text, he argues that one way to discover whether a speaker has used obscurities is to find out whether he or she has used metaphors: ‘Another rule [to discern obscurity] is to see if [the speaker] has used a metaphorical expression [...] For a metaphorical expression is always obscure’.28 Ultimately, for Aristotle, metaphor is a veiled speech in contrast to the proper, conceptual language of philosophy.29 Hence, in order to understand how Heidegger’s thought on language has inspired hermeneutic thought to rethink metaphor, it is not enough to explain it as a turn from a Platonic to an Aristotelian conception of metaphor. If it is indeed the case that the ‘metaphoricity’ of the Heideggerian text has more to tell us about metaphor than his explicit dismissals of metaphor, we need another way of understanding what ‘metaphoricity’ means here. To this end, let us consider Derrida’s alternative.

Derrida on Heidegger’s quasi-metaphoricity In his essay ‘Le retrait de la métaphore’, Derrida develops an alternative account of the relation between Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor and the alleged metaphoricity of his texts. To understand this account, it is important to recall the main characteristics of Derrida’s discussion of metaphor in ‘La mythologie blanche’ since this essay shows us how he interprets the relation between metaphor and metaphysics.

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 233

 233

3/07/13 09:54

The main goal of ‘La mythologie blanche’ is to show the ‘condition of impossibility’ of any project that aims to develop an adequate concept of metaphor.30 Such a project is not just at stake in a poetics that tries to understand metaphor in literary or poetic texts but, more importantly, concerns the project of metaphysics as such. In a phrasing that clearly repeats Heidegger’s famous words on metaphor, Derrida writes, ‘metaphor remains, in all its essential characteristics, a classical philosopheme, a metaphysical concept’.31 The stakes of the metaphysical project to develop a concept of metaphor are high, according to Derrida. Throughout its history, philosophy has always needed metaphors to develop its concepts. In this genealogical sense, metaphor is older than and prior to the concept. Therefore, in order to establish the primacy of the concept and to attain self-mastery in its own discourse, philosophy needs to master the metaphoricity at work in its own texts.32 To this end, philosophy requires a concept of metaphor. In sum, the project of a ‘general metaphorology’, i.e., the development of a concept of metaphor that captures the metaphoricity of the philosophical text, is crucial to the metaphysical effort to master its own discourse. However, every attempt to develop such an adequate concept of metaphor is doomed to failure, as Derrida argues. All philosophical concepts and oppositions, such as the famous Platonic opposition between the sensible and the intelligible, are born from a primordial metaphorical movement of language.33 This particular provenance of any philosophical conceptual framework leads to an impasse when it comes to the question of developing a concept of metaphor. On the one hand, such a concept is necessarily a philosophical product; only philosophy has the authority to describe the metaphoricity of its own text conceptually. Hence, this concept belongs to the inside of philosophical discourse. On the other hand, however, to produce a concept that regulates or describes the metaphorical movements of and in the philosophical textual corpus, one needs a position outside of this corpus in order to obtain an overview of these movements. Consequently, the concept of metaphor should belong to the inside as well as to the outside of philosophical discourse. Emphasizing that the concept of metaphor belongs to the inside of philosophical discourse – it remains a ‘philosopheme’ – Derrida continues that philosophical discourse circles around a metaphoricity at its kernel which it cannot grasp in or perceive by the concept of metaphor. At best, it can perceive it as something to which it remains blind and deaf. In this brief argument, Derrida approaches the question of metaphor from the perspective of a difference that would be intrinsic to metaphor. On the one hand, he argues that it is impossible to develop a concept of metaphor; this implies the impossibility of metaphysics as well. On the other hand, he can only argue for this impossibility by referring to a metaphoricity that operates within the philosophical text but that cannot be recuperated conceptually. This difference between the concept of metaphor and a conceptually irrecuperable metaphoricity is of fundamental importance for Derrida since it implies that metaphoricity is not exhausted by the concept of metaphor and its metaphysical lineage. Thus, beyond the metaphoricity addressed by the concept of metaphor, another dimension

234

Metaphors.indb 234

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

3/07/13 09:54

of metaphoricity imposes itself on us in the wake of the inadequacy of the concept of metaphor. In this sense, it is the untruth of this concept that compels us to think an as yet unthought form of metaphoricity. Also for Derrida’s reading of Heidegger, this difference is of crucial importance since he claims that Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor concerns first and foremost the concept of metaphor; Heidegger would not have acknowledged the possibility of a remaining (quasi-)metaphoricity. Heidegger’s work on the essence of language shows most clearly why this latter claim might be true. This work is a continual effort to enter the primordial dimension of language and to bring ‘language itself to language’.34 However, the language that is capable of articulating language itself is always the language that discloses the essence of language. This means the following: without displacements and transferrals, without the duplications of metaphors, this language would be able to approach language simply as it is. For Derrida, on the other hand, this primordial dimension of language is of the order of a certain metaphoricity, or as he likes to call it in ‘Le retrait de la métaphore’, a quasi-metaphoricity.35 This means that the primordial dimension of language cannot be expressed as such; we have no entrance to the essence of language. Our only access to this primordial dimension of language is by means of the doublings and transferrals that operate as if (quasi) they are metaphorical.36 To see more precisely what Derrida means by this quasi-metaphoricity in ‘Le retrait de la métaphore’, let us briefly consider his play with the words trait, traité and retrait: ‘I’m trying to speak about metaphor, to say something proper or literal on this subject, to treat it as my subject, but I am obliged, by metaphor (if one can say that) to speak of it more metaphorico, in its own manner. I cannot treat it without dealing with it [traiter avec elle], without negotiating the loan I take out from it in order to speak about it. I cannot produce a treatise on metaphor that is not treated with metaphor, which suddenly appears intractable’.37 It is clear that Derrida repeats in this quote the general claim from ‘La mythologie blanche’: We can only treat the subject of metaphor if we are willing to take the risk of speaking about it metaphorically – and thus not knowing exactly or univocally what we mean. Moreover, if a discussion of what metaphor is, properly speaking, requires the involvement of metaphor, the common framework by which we understand metaphor – involving the distinctions between literal and metaphorical and between concept and metaphor – is no longer operative. However, more than simply repeating ‘La mythologie blanche’, the play between (a) the treatment (traité) of metaphor, (b) the withdrawal (retrait) of the concept of metaphor and (c) the other traits or characteristics (re-trait) of metaphor that can show itself thanks to this withdrawal, brings us closer to both Heidegger and the

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 235

 235

3/07/13 09:54

singular theme of ‘Le retrait de la métaphore’. How does this play guide Derrida’s reading of Heidegger? First of all, in order to describe how metaphysics operates and how metaphysics relates to being in its discourse, Heidegger needs to withdraw the metaphysical concept of metaphor and of language in order to make space for another conception of language and for another (quasi-)metaphoricity that characterizes the metaphysical approach to being. Let me explain this complicated claim. As Derrida keenly points out, Heidegger characterizes metaphysics as a discourse that interprets being as a being – as God, subject, power, spirit, etc. Basically, this means that metaphysics approaches being by means of something else; it duplicates and displaces being by means of addressing it in light of certain beings. Hence, before producing the concept of metaphor in its discourse, metaphysics itself is always already in a (quasi-)metaphorical relation to being! As Derrida writes, ‘[m]etaphysical discourse, producing and containing the concept of metaphor, is itself quasi-metaphorical with respect to Being’.38 Hence, to disclose the relation of metaphysics to metaphor, Heidegger needs another metaphoricity, that is to say, another reduplication and displacement of being than the one elaborated in the concept of metaphor. In this sense, another form of metaphoricity is already operative in Heidegger’s text. In fact, this quasi-metaphorical treatment of being is not only indispensable for Heidegger’s treatment of the history of metaphysics but also for his own account of being. Since being is always marked by a certain withdrawal (retrait, Entzug) it can, strictly speaking, never be addressed properly. Here we may return to the example of ‘the house of being’. In my discussion above, I already noted how Heidegger reverses the direction of metaphor: it is being in its withdrawal that promises us to tell us, one day, what it is to dwell in language. Derrida emphasizes that this structure of the promise is intrinsic to Heidegger’s language. Although Heidegger dismisses metaphor and tries to open up the perspective of a non-metaphorical way of addressing being by finding the word that articulates the essence of being and the essence of language, this word is always deferred since it is only given in the form of a promise. In the expression ‘the house of being’, being does not yet say more about dwelling, but only promises to do so.39 In this example we see how Heidegger withdraws the metaphysical concept of metaphor and at the same time draws upon another form of metaphoricity. This form addresses the withdrawal of being not as something that refers back to a primordial presence of being, but as something that can only be spoken of by means of a promising metaphoricity. It is ‘the withdrawal [retrait] of Being as withdrawal/ redrawing [retrait] of metaphor’, as Derrida puts it.40 This promising structure of Heidegger’s language has a specific counterpart in his account of the essence of language. Derrida analyzes how the effort to say the essence of language and to find the unique word that brings this essence to language, always results in a reduplication of this essence in at least two words. When thinking the essence of language, Heidegger brings into play two discourses – thinking and poeticizing.41 To understand the relation between these two discourses, which for Heidegger is nothing less than bringing them both back to their proper essence, he

236

Metaphors.indb 236

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

3/07/13 09:54

needs two verbs: reissen and ziehen.42 Apparently, the event of the (ap)propriation of language (Ereignis) is never present and is never articulated (or inscribed) in its promised unity. It does not appear itself, as Derrida writes: ‘[I]t is structurally in withdrawal, as gap, opening, differentiality, trace, border, traction, effraction, and so on. [...] Its inscription, as I have attempted to articulate with regard to trace or differance, succeeds only in/by being effaced’.43 Heidegger promises to say the essence of language but by that very gesture withdraws this essence by saying it only in its reduplication and its effacement. Obviously, Derrida’s analysis of the quasi-metaphoricity of Heidegger’s language leads to a conclusion that is no longer Heidegger’s. The latter’s attempt to dismiss (the concept of ) metaphor in order to say thinking, language, and words as they are becomes highly problematic when being itself is marked by withdrawal and is only brought to presence by means of reduplications. Derrida’s basic claim with regard to Heidegger is that if being is indeed marked by these two traits, the only language that allows us to approach being is a language that is both original and marked by withdrawal and reduplications. Derrida’s highly complicated analysis of Heidegger’s dismissal of metaphor demonstrates that the efforts in contemporary hermeneutics to find in Aristotle’s account of metaphor an alternative, fertile conception of metaphor are not Heidegger’s. It also shows more precisely what happens in Heideggerian expressions such as ‘the house of being’. Our understanding of house, home and dwelling becomes uncanny and Unheimlich in and through the Heideggerian text because by his language he withdraws our familiarity with it and promises, by that very gesture, to disclose other traits of house, home and dwelling. However, since this promise itself depends on a word that is continuously deferred and never arrives, the Heideggerian text is full of what it only gives in the form of a reduplication, drawing yet another trait.

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 237

 237

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Aristotle (1984). The Complete Works of Aristotle, transl. J. Barnes, Princeton, Princeton University Press Derrida, J. (1972). Marges de la philosophie, Paris, Minuit Derrida, J. (1982). Margins of Philosophy, transl. A. Bass, Chicago, University of Chicago Press Derrida, J. (1987). ‘Le retrait de la métaphore’, in Idem, Psyché. L’invention de l’autre, Paris, Galilée, pp. 63-93 Derrida, J. (2007). ‘The Retrait of Metaphor’, in Idem, Psyche: Inventions of the Other, vol. 1, transl. P. Kamuf, Stanford, Stanford University Press, pp. 48-80 Gadamer, H.-G. (1999). Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck Greisch, J. (1973). ‘Les mots et les roses: la métaphore chez Martin Heidegger’, in Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 57, pp. 433-455 Heidegger, M. (1976). Wegmarken. Gesamtausgabe Bd. 9, Frankfurt, Klostermann Heidegger, M. (1985). Unterwegs zur Sprache. Gesamtausgabe Bd. 12, Frankfurt, Klostermann Heidegger, M. (1997). Der Satz vom Grund. Gesamtausgabe Bd. 10, Frankfurt, Klostermann Ricoeur, P. (1975). La métaphore vive, Paris, Seuil Ricoeur, P. (1986). Du texte à l’action, Paris, Seuil Vedder, B. (2002). ‘On the Meaning of Metaphor in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics’, in Research in Phenomenology 32, pp. 196-209

238

Metaphors.indb 238

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

3/07/13 09:54

Endnotes 1

Gadamer (1999), p. 433.

2 Ibid. 3

Cf. Vedder (2002).

4

Ricoeur (1975), pp. 30-34.

5 Ibid., pp. 383-384. 6

Heidegger (1997), p. 72.

7

Derrida (2007), p. 64.

8

Derrida (1987) (cf. p. 67) refers to Ricoeur (1975) (cf. pp. 356-374 and 384-399) and Greisch (1973).

9

Heidegger (1997), p. 72.

10

Derrida (1987), pp. 83-84.

11

Heidegger (1976), p. 358.

12

Aristotle, Poetics, 1457a30-b10 (Barnes [1984], vol. 2, p. 2332).

13

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1410b12 (Barnes [1984], vol.2, p. 2250).

14

Cf. Greisch (1973), p. 453.

15

Gadamer (1999), p. 433.

16 Ibid., p. 436; my italics. 17

Heidegger (1985), pp. 191-197.

18 Ibid., p. 296. 19

Heidegger quotes the following: ‘Dies Wie ist immer ein Bruch in der Vision, es holt heran, es

vergleicht, es ist keine primäre Setzung (...)’; ‘in Nachlassen der sprachlichen Spannung, eine

Schwäche der schöpferischen Transformation’ (Heidegger [1985], pp. 195-196).

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 239

 239

3/07/13 09:54

20

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1406b20 (Barnes [1984], vol. 2, p. 2243).

21

‘The lion leapt on the foe’ is a metaphor; the corresponding simile is ‘Achilles leapt on the foe as a

22

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1410b12.

23

As Ricoeur notes in his comment on Aristotle, this implies that a metaphor is not an abbreviated

24

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1410b18–20 (Barnes [1984], vol. 2, p. 2251; Ricoeur [1975], pp. 34-40).

25

Ricoeur interprets Hölderlin’s phrase ‘Worte, wie Blumen’ in light with this Aristotelian account

26

Heidegger (1985), p. 196.

27

‘ heißt: zeigen, erscheinen-, sehen- und hören-lassen.’ Ibid., p. 241.

28

Aristotle, Topics 139b32-35 (Barnes [1984], p. 236); my italics. Quoted by Derrida (1972), p. 300.

29

In this sense it is not surprising that also Gadamer feels compelled to distance himself from Aristotle

lion’.

simile, but that a simile is rather an extended metaphor (Ricoeur [1975], p. 37).

of liveliness; (Ricoeur [1975], pp. 392-395).

before he can introduce the fundamental metaphoricity of language which, paradoxically, is inspired

by Aristotle’s adage that to metaphorize well is to intuit or recognize resemblances (Gadamer [1999],

pp. 432-438). 30

Derrida (1972), p. 261.

31

Derrida (1982), p. 219.

32

This is the genuine topic of ‘La mythologie blanche’, as the subtitle indicates, namely to study ‘la métaphore dans le texte philosophique’(Derrida [1972], p. 247).

33 Ibid., p. 272. This clearly resembles Gadamer’s account of the fundamental metaphoricity of language. 34

Heidegger (1985), p. 151.

35

Since the notion of metaphor always refers back to an original literal or proper use of words, as

Derrida argues, the description of this most original dimension of language can never be described as metaphorical, properly speaking, but only as quasi-metaphorical.

36

240

Metaphors.indb 240

Derrida (1987), p. 80.

Heidegger Thinking (without) Metaphors: On ‘The House of Being’ and ‘Words, as Flowers’

3/07/13 09:54

37

Derrida (2007), p. 49.

38 Ibid., p. 66. 39

Derrida (1987), p. 83.

40

Derrida (2007), p. 67.

41

Derrida (1987), pp. 87-88.

42 Ibid., p. 86. 43

Derrida (2007), p. 75.

Gert-Jan van der Heiden

Metaphors.indb 241

 241

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphors.indb 242

3/07/13 09:54

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

Arthur Cools

I

ntersubjectivity is often considered as the most difficult touchstone for the rational clarification of man and world. On the one hand, it is generally accepted that intersubjective relations are of primary importance in guaranteeing access to a common objective world. On the other, it is considered impossible to have access to the other and to account for the relation with the other within the limits of a philosophy that starts from the evidence of the cogito. Therefore, it may not come as a surprise that especially in the field of intersubjectivity, metaphors are used in a fundamental way. They not only express, but also define and install rationality by means of a certain figuration of the social interactions between subjects. Well known examples are the ancient metaphor of the body (corpus) as the expression of a vivid totality in which every part plays a vital role: this metaphor has its origin in Plato’s description of the ideal state;1 Hobbes’ famous expression at the beginning of modern times about man being a wolf for the other (homo homini lupus), which installs a logic of fear and absolute sovereignty; and the metaphor of death by which Hegel and Sartre describe the appearance of self-consciousness in the antagonistic relation with the other. This metaphor is at the core of a dialectics of negativity accounting for ‘the life of Spirit [which] is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it’.2 In this article, I will examine whether it is possible or not to consider the face as a metaphor in Levinas’ account of the relation with the other. The British American philosopher Kevin Hart calls the face a metaphor in his introduction to The Exorbitant Emmanuel Levinas. Between Jews and Christians: ‘In Totality and Infinity, Levinas chose the powerful metaphor of the face, the most naked and exposed part of the body, to capture this sense of human vulnerability’.3 As is well known, the face-to-face relation has primary meaning for Levinas. He questions and criticizes the whole legacy

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 243

 243

3/07/13 09:54

of Western rationality on the basis of this relation. In his analysis of the encounter with the other, the notion of the face qualifies the specific meaning of this encounter: the uniqueness of the other, his or her irreducible strangeness and vulnerability, the injunction ‘You should not kill’. In other words, it is Levinas’ explicit intention to rethink the principles of Western rationality, which he defines as a reduction to the same, from the original meaning that appears with the face of the other. Obviously, for Levinas the face concerns social relations in a fundamental way and it installs a ‘logic’ that gives priority to the ethical commitment to the other and to a just world. It seems therefore that the face can be understood as a metaphor, replacing those of the body, the wolf or death in the field of social interactions between subjects. But is the face a metaphor in Levinas’ philosophy? There are several difficulties. First, whatever meanings it may evoke, the face continues to have a literal, not to say empirical sense in the relation with the other: it is the upper physical part of the human body. It is not clear how this part should be considered as a metaphor for interactions in the whole field of intersubjectivity (as a ‘pars pro toto’?). Second, Levinas does not define the relation established by the face in terms of resemblance but in terms of trace. The face, he states, is not a figure and therefore it cannot be considered as a figuration of the social interaction. And third, it is not clear what kind of transfer of meaning the face expresses. If a transfer is at stake in the notion of the face, it seems to convert the direction characteristic of the metaphor, which consists of making understandable the inaccessible by means of a figure and creating in this way the possibility of an interaction with the other and with the common world. According to its classic definition, the use of a metaphor intends to establish coherence through a common third. The meaning of the face seems to be at odds with this: it criticizes the metaphoric intention to be reductive of its otherness and, therefore, it does not connect me to the other, but on the contrary it separates me from him or her. It would appear that Levinas, in his criticism of Western rationality, uses the notion of the face in order to reject the metaphoric understanding of social interactions between man and the world at the basis of this rationality. In the first part of my article, I will briefly summarize Levinas’ criticism of the metaphoric use of language. However, the unedited philosophical notes that were published in the first volume of Levinas’ works, Carnets de captivité suivi d’autres inédits, shed new light on Levinas’ account of metaphors. These I will discuss in the second part. In that text, Levinas, fully aware of the fundamental and encompassing contribution of metaphors in Western culture, intends to redefine the metaphoric transfer of meaning on the basis of the relation with the other as revealed by the face. Interestingly, he introduces in this text the notion of the skin as a metaphor of the metaphor, combining the features of transcendence and resemblance. As a result, I will examine in the final part of my article how it is possible to relate this notion of the skin to the meaning of the face in his philosophy and I will point at a fundamental ambiguity: the meaning of the face is for Levinas irreducible to any metaphoric understanding, but the face is not without the skin.

244

Metaphors.indb 244

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Levinas’ criticism of the rhetoric and the metaphoric use of language Although language, and especially language understood as discourse, plays an important role in Levinas’ reflections on subjectivity, his remarks on the rhetorical means and different symbolic functions of language are very limited. The use of metaphors is scarcely mentioned in his major philosophical works and he pays no particular attention to a theory of metaphors. Nevertheless, it is possible to state that Levinas’ philosophy is a long meditation on some essential metaphors of Western ontology. He mentions in particular the ‘metaphors referring to light and the sensible’ in Totality and Infinity4 in order to grasp the transcendent condition for the constitution of meaning (cf. for instance the Platonic reference to the sun), and the metaphor of fluency ‘taken from the movement of waters in a river’ in Otherwise than being5 in order to express the temporality of time (cf. for instance the stream of consciousness in phenomenological approaches). In both cases, he recognizes the intention to express new meanings that exceed the pre-given sense of words and he welcomes in the use of these metaphors a sign of the inexhaustible sense of transcendence. But at the same time, he considers that these metaphors are reductive with regard to transcendence because they remain within the realm of consciousness and he proposes another way of approaching the inexhaustible sense of transcendence by means of what he calls the ‘epiphany’6 of the face.7 L evinas’ criticism of these metaphors is related to a certain understanding of ontology. His criticism of the first cannot be articulated without criticism of the second. For Levinas, ontological thinking has defined the linguistic modality of metaphoric meaning and has found its basic expression in the metaphoric use of language. This internal connection between language and ontological thinking might explain why there is no specific distinction between Levinas’ criticism of a rhetoric and metaphoric use of language, both being defined by an ontological understanding of language, which is a language of identification. Let us briefly summarize Levinas’ criticism of an ontological understanding of metaphors in relation to the metaphors already mentioned. Levinas calls ontology a thinking of participation. ‘Participation is a way of referring to the other: it is to have and unfold one’s own being without at any point losing contact with the other.’8 Participation therefore involves the omnipresence of a totality: it implies that the meaning of any single being is dependent on the whole in which it takes part. This is characteristic of the ontological understanding of metaphors. The metaphorical transfer of meaning defines a common trait that is essential for every single part. For example, as a metaphor of social relations, the vivid whole of the body is essential for the functioning and meaning of the different parts of the body: these parts not only refer to the whole of the body as a common entity in which they are integrated, but moreover they refer to each other as parts of the whole because their functioning is dependent on the functioning of all the others. The metaphor of the body accounts for the coherence between the different parts of social interaction, their common

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 245

 245

3/07/13 09:54

mutual dependency, the importance of their own functioning and the purposefulness (or contribution) of each part to the whole. Similarly, but in another semantic context, the metaphor of light defines a common trait that is essential for the intelligibility of the idea as well as the intelligibility of visual perception. In other words, the metaphor of light establishes continuity between the sensible experience of perceiving and the cognition of ideas. Characteristic of this continuity is that both elements refer to a common ground (as expressed for instance by the Platonic metaphor of the sun), that both are interrelated (as expressed for instance by the Platonic notion of paradigm) and that both continue to have their own function with regard to the constitution of true meaning (as for instance in Plato’s doctrine of the anamnesis). Metaphors serve pre-eminently to express what Levinas calls a thinking of participation. But Levinas explicitly intends to break with this logic of participation and to reject the metaphors through which it is expressed. The following criticisms can be distinguished. Firstly, he considers this logic of participation to be reductive in a fundamental way. The logic of participation defines every single being not in function of its own being, but in function of its relation to the whole and to others. For that reason, this logic is neither able to account for the specific relation with otherness, reducing the strangeness of this relation to a common ground, nor can it account for the specific modality of being of each being, reducing its independency to its integration in the whole. For example: the metaphor of light might be able to establish a continuity between the visual experience of perception and the cognition of ideas, but it neither explains the specific modality of the visual experience of perception nor can it take into consideration the specific relation with otherness given in the experience of visual perception. According to Levinas, the first – the specific modality of the visual experience – requires an analysis of sensibility beyond the reference to the metaphor of light; the second – the specific relation with otherness given in visual experience – implies an opacity and difference with otherness given in the intentionality of the cognition of the idea. In other words, Levinas rejects the logic of participation in favour of an analysis of the specific modality of being of each relation – analysis he learned from the phenomenological method. Second, the logic of participation installs rationality on the basis of an impersonal presence. The common ground to which the metaphoric use of language refers in order to create a correlation between the different parts of a whole, is mute and limitless. ‘Light’, ‘stream’, ‘life’, ‘death’, ‘earth’, and even ‘body’, as long as they are used in a general, abstract sense, are entities Levinas calls ‘elemental’: they are not something singular, but surroundings without form, without delineation. All individuals, all single relations are bathing in it, but nobody is able to reclaim it or possess it as their own.9 Against the metaphoric use of the body as a ‘container’ in which all social relations are immersed and matched, Levinas considers the body phenomenologically in terms of ‘mineness’, i.e. as a condition in which the ‘I’ appears and to which it is attached. The third criticism concerns the naturalisation that may result from this participation in the ‘elemental’. While the metaphoric operation does not exclude reciprocity, it

246

Metaphors.indb 246

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

concerns every single part and their common ground. As a result, what is considered as a humanisation of the natural being (for instance ‘the light in her eyes’), can be equally considered as a naturalisation of the human being. Although we might approve of the use of the wolf metaphor with regard to human relations as a humanisation of the unbounded nature of the wolf, the evoked meaning does not prevent us from understanding it in an opposite way, as a naturalisation of human relations. Finally, while naturalising the human condition, metaphors risk doing injustice, i.e. for Levinas, creating a corruptive effect on human freedom. For instance, reflecting on political history in one of his Talmudic readings, Levinas mentions the use of animal metaphors, which are meant to evoke the natural development of biological forces giving way to a rhetoric of war and subjection.10 And he distinguishes the religious meaning of a messianic history from this rhetoric. In the same way, in his well known and widely discussed article ‘Heidegger, Gagarine et nous’ he criticises Heidegger’s understanding of the destiny of man as ‘the keeper of Being’: nature speaking through the voice of man, rootedness as a way of dwelling, or mankind conceived as an ‘implantation in a landscape’, and attached to ‘the spirits of the Place’.11 For Levinas, these formulations entail a new paganism that consists of naturalising the human world by binding it up with the sources of the sacred. However, a human being is not a tree and technology is disconnecting these attachments to place. A sense of freedom comes with liberation from a servitude to blind coercion. Levinas mentions the notion of the face as a condition and a possibility that breaks with this logic of participation and its consequences, which he considers characteristic of metaphors. For instance in the last quoted article, he states: ‘From this point on, an opportunity appears to us: to perceive men outside the situation in which they are placed, and let the human face shine in all its nudity. Socrates preferred the town, in which one meets people, to the countryside and trees’.12 Against the Heideggerian metaphor of the keeper of Being, Levinas recalls the ethical questioning in the Old Testament: ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ in order to describe human destiny. The notion of the face creates this metaphoric displacement in his philosophy and at the same time causes a subversion of the logic of participation. Indeed, the meaning of the face, as analysed by Levinas, is clearly opposed to the different criticisms formulated against the ontological understanding of metaphors. He describes the face-to-face relationship as ‘an ultimate situation’13 that is asymmetrical in an irreducible way: it relates me to the other without the possibility of reducing him to the same and without the possibility of synchronising me and the other into a third (a whole). Face-to-face, the other and I are in a relationship in which each remains independent. As such, the notion of the face expresses first and foremost an idea of separation. Moreover, in the concrete encounter, the other is present in his or her uniqueness. The face opens the possibility of a relationship qualified by personal engagement: the other regards me in his or her singular existence and I’m invited to respond in the first person. In other words, discourse – the act of responding – is at odds with the movement of immersion in the elemental or with the search for a fusion with

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 247

 247

3/07/13 09:54

the other: in Levinas’ understanding of the relation with the other, discourse elevates the human being in a personal, individual way. The face is therefore the condition for a process of humanisation that interrupts and disentangles the double binds of naturalisation of human relations by the logic of participation. As a consequence, in Levinas’ view, justice in society can only be conceived on the basis of a conversation with the other person, a possibility that is unlocked by the face-to-face relationship. W ith the notion of the face, Levinas clearly intends to counter the logic of participation, which he considers characteristic of the ontological understanding of metaphors. In fact, the opposition between his ‘logic’ of the face and the logic of participation can be summarized by the main term used to define the metaphoric operation, namely resemblance. As is well known, Aristotle defines at the end of his Poetics the use of metaphor as ‘an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars’. According to Paul Ricoeur, this definition applies to all sorts of metaphor distinguished by Aristotle in his Rhetoric.14 The linguistic power of the metaphor consists in creating a relation of similitude between remote entities. The meaning of the face seems to be at odds with this. The face-to-face relationship, as Levinas understands it, is not sufficiently elucidated as a relation with an alter ego, in which the experience of the otherness of the other, as Husserl would say, is constituted by the ego on the basis of an analogy with the experience of its own sameness.15 The distance between the other and me is not bridged by seeing or attributing or recognizing sameness. In this relationship, otherness is not reduced to the same, but the I is criticised for reducing the otherness of the other to the same. For Levinas, sameness is not a category that can count for the relation with the other as such: it is only an entry into the relationship that confronts the I with an irreducible otherness. For that reason, Levinas never uses the notion of resemblance in order to describe the relation between me and the other, but instead prefers the notion of trace (cf. for instance the article ‘La trace de l’autre’).16 If at the end of Totality and Infinity, Levinas expresses the otherness of the other as a resemblance in relation to God: ‘the other […] resembles God’,17 he does not understand this notion in terms of a similitude (homoiosis) or of an image (eikon), but in terms of a trace left behind by what he calls the Illeity of God, which constitutes a meaning before any initiative of the ego. Jacques Derrida has argued that Levinas intends to apply to the Greek source of philosophy, which is ontological, a Jewish source that is messianic.18 However, as Levinas knows very well, the old Jewish scriptural sources are full of images and metaphors, especially concerning relationships between human beings, between men and women, and between generations. It starts very significantly with a tree of knowledge of good and evil, the seduction of an apple and a snake, and last but not least, the face of a woman. It is therefore unlikely that the distinction between trace and resemblance is sufficient in order to understand the divide between the Greeks and the Jews. Can the face not be an image?

248

Metaphors.indb 248

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

The skin: a metaphor of metaphor The first part of this article is not the whole story of metaphor in Levinas’ philosophy. Some unedited notes on metaphor were published in the edition of the first volume of his works.19 They initiate a theory of metaphors that Levinas never elaborated. Surprisingly, his reflections on this issue, which were probably written in the period before the publication of Totality and Infinity,20 are very positive. Here, the metaphor has an original and primary meaning. Levinas mentions ‘the miracle’ (la merveille, le miracle)21 of metaphor, consisting of a surplus – a transformation – of meaning. He recognizes in the use of metaphor an infinite power to create new meanings. The metaphor generates a movement that leads beyond the given experience. Meanwhile, he considers in an almost Nietzschean way that the current words of our language are an effect of countless metaphoric displacements. He calls the metaphor ‘the essence of language’ and considers all signification ‘metaphoric’: ‘it is impossible to expel the metaphor and the exceeding and the passage to the infinite’.22 Nevertheless, he also refers to the classic notion of resemblance in order to describe the metaphoric production of meanings and he continues to define this in terms of participation: ‘the metaphor is the participation of the object to something else’.23 How can we understand this positive evaluation in relation to the criticisms given before? And how can we relate the metaphoric essence of language to the meaning of the face? Levinas is well aware of the problem. As stated on the final page of his notes, the question is: ‘How to align my thesis “speech expropriates the one who speaks” with the thesis “metaphor is the exceeding of signification”? How to prove that the power of verbal exceeding is situated in the relation with the Other?’24 It may be that his notes on metaphor try to answer this question. It may be that they do not succeed in resolving the problem in an unambiguous way and for that reason Levinas was unable to immediately answer the other question many years later: whether a snake has a face or not.25 In other words, it may be that these notes concern a central problem in Levinas’ philosophy. They therefore require careful reading. In his intention to align what he calls the metaphoric essence of language with the meaning of the face, Levinas initiates a reinterpretation of the notion of metaphor. He introduces a comparison with the skin (pelure) in order to clarify the metaphoric process of language. ‘The metaphoric power of the word consists in the approaching of a signification to another signification of which it is like a skin.’26 The word pelure in French means in the first place a peel (for example, of an onion), but it is also used for a coat and a kind of thin paper. Levinas did not choose the word peau, which can be used in French for humans, animals and vegetables alike. Pelure keeps a semantic connection to the verb peler, which means to peel. Levinas even mentions the word pellement,27 that does not exist in French, in order to define the metaphoric process of signification. I prefer the translation of skin because I will argue that Levinas’ understanding of the metaphoric operation by means of this notion is intrinsically orientated by the reference to the human face.

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 249

 249

3/07/13 09:54

Indeed, Levinas conspicuously relates the metaphor to the notion of transcendence: ‘The metaphor is a beyond, transcendence’.28 He first describes the transfer of meaning, characteristic of metaphor, as an exceeding (dépassement), as a surplus of meaning: ‘Metaphor – what the word signifies beyond its denotation’.29 Then, he states that it is not possible to account for this surplus of meaning in mere terms of resemblance: ‘as long as we explicitly consider resemblance, we are not in contact with the essence of metaphor: the movement of a transfer and the amplification are lost because of a thought immersed in resemblance like a static essence’.30 The metaphoric displacement of meaning leads beyond the recognition of a sameness with a given sense. Finally, he argues that metaphoric displacement inaugurates a movement towards a beyond: ‘Every signification – as signification – is metaphoric, it leads to the high’.31 As a result, the function of metaphors is not to unveil, but to elevate.32 And the movement of metaphoric displacement does not end in a final term, which embraces the total sense of the movement, but is infinite: ‘the movement leading to the high is without end’.33 Levinas calls this irreducible movement to the high, ‘the bottom of human spirituality’.34 Relating the notion of metaphor to the meaning of transcendence, Levinas introduces an infinite movement within the logic of participation considered characteristic of the relation established by resemblance. The consequence is not that the logic of participation is destroyed or abandoned as such, but that the notion of participation is no longer based upon the assumption of a totality or of an identification of sameness. The metaphor of the skin is likely to combine these two elements: the movement of exceeding and the relation of participation. Like the skin which envelopes (and leaves place for) a new skin beyond the old one, separated and detached from it, the metaphoric displacement entails a process in which a new, irreducible meaning detaches itself at the point of losing (or forgetting) its dependency on the metaphoric operation. And this new meaning creates new possibilities of metaphoric displacement. From skin to skin, there is still correspondence between them. However, this correspondence does not relate the new meaning of metaphoric displacement to a pre-given sense of a whole, but generates a relation from particular to particular (génération d’un particulier à partir d’un particulier) and a variety of meanings without end.35 It is important to recall that this view on metaphors does not reject resemblance as such: it does not deny a relation of sameness established by the metaphoric operation between two meanings, but it inscribes this relation in a movement of exceeding, which also leads beyond the reciprocity of sameness. The movement of exceeding, so to say, ‘breaks out’ the logic of identification of sameness, generally used to define the metaphoric operation. For Levinas, this movement of exceeding is the essence of language. It has its origin in the discourse spoken to the other person: ‘there is in language this movement towards the infinite and there is no language without this movement. This movement stems from the other insofar as language is the response given to the other and the exceeding of what is said’.36 In other words, ‘language takes from the Other its metaphoric power’.37 But then, how do we account for the

250

Metaphors.indb 250

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

connection between the face, implying the idea of a separation, and the metaphoric power of language, implying a correlation? Levinas seems to hesitate here and to consider the whole problem of his statement. ‘I’m not sure whether or not the metaphor – and the movement in signification has its origin in the fact that the essential event of language is face-to-face with the Other.’38 If the other and the relation to the face is a unique incomparable relation beyond the metaphoric power of language, preceding it in an irreducible way, how is it possible to state that the other is the origin of the metaphoric operations of language? And, if this relation is just another particular formulation of the infinite metaphoric possibilities of language, why should it be able to introduce a sense of transcendence beyond the metaphoric operations of language and to explain the movement of exceeding considered characteristic of metaphors as such? Once again, Levinas introduces the notion of trace in order to reconsider the problem: ‘Doesn’t the exceeding of the metaphor originate from the trace?’39 But is the notion of trace a sufficient condition for relating the separation of the face and the correspondence characteristic of the metaphoric operation? Is it not also necessary to account for a relation between trace and resemblance without confounding them?

Beyond the skin? In the last part of my article, I will argue that Levinas accounts for this relation by thematising the face in its relation to the skin (la peau). This theme is notably apparent in his later work, Otherwise than Being (1974). I will argue that the meaning of the face and the response to it are not possible without being concerned by the skin of the other’s face. That seems to be a trivial proposition: the skin is the visual and tactile condition for perceiving and touching the other’s face. But in Levinas’ argumentation, this proposition is not trivial at all: the skin brings to the fore the metaphysic relation between the visible and the invisible and the intersubjective relationship between the other and myself. It translates the first into the second. It brings together two seemingly incommensurable references: the reference to the trace of the infinite in the face of the other and the reference to my being for the other based upon a bodily correlation. In the skin, the withdrawal of the trace from the visible and the condition of my own subjectivity appear at the same time. In other words, the skin relates me to the meaning of the face (its transcendence) and relates the otherness of the other (the trace of the infinite) to the experience of my own self. Although the skin (la peau) in relation to the face is not primarily used here as a metaphor, it combines exactly the two dimensions of exceeding and correlation with regard to the meaning of the face that we have already pointed out in Levinas’ use of the metaphor of the skin (pelure) to clarify the metaphoric possibilities of language. Is it not possible to assert, for that reaseon, that Levinas’ explicit valorisation of the skin in

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 251

 251

3/07/13 09:54

his later descriptions of intersubjectivity intends to account for this transformation of the meaning of the face into a metaphoric understanding of intersubjective relations? I will articulate my argument as follows. F irst, it is important to recall that the face as such is not a metaphor and is irreducible to a metaphor in Levinas’ philosophy. In fact, Levinas is very clear on this issue. He repeats time and again that the face does not appear: the face is invisible, it does not belong to the phenomenal order, and it breaks through the plastic form of the visual experience. What he calls face, is this way of breaking with the logic of identification, this way of exceeding all my possibilities in relation with the other. The face does not challenge my capacities to master or to reduce the other to my own initiative, but is at odds with the reductive orientation given by the power of these capacities, putting them in question. For that reason, Levinas calls the resistance of the face ethical and expresses the meaning of the face in a language that formulates an ethical obligation, just like the injunction ‘you should not kill’. This injunction is not metaphoric and cannot be transformed into a metaphoric understanding. In this respect, the face is not at all a metaphor of vulnerability, but on the contrary, it is in a unique way invulnerable, unattainable, and irreducible. ‘The Other is the sole being that I can wish to kill’:40 the exclusivity of the temptation to murder with regard to the other person, as expressed in this statement, is only understandable in relation to the meaning of the face, which escapes any relationship of power. Indeed, the act of murder intends to destroy what escapes from the relationship of power, but is unable to succeed. The ethical meaning of the face, the injunction ‘you should not kill’, is not touched by the banality of the neighbour’s murder. Vulnerability is given with the other’s bodily presence – therefore it is necessary to thematise the appearance of the face in relation to the skin. It is the skin that introduces the possibility of a metaphoric understanding of the relation with the other on the basis of a resemblance. This second part of my argument brings together two different relations. It is important to consider them separately. The first concerns the visual appearance of the face. The skin introduces the meaning of the face into the order of the visible. It bridges the gap that the notion of the face has created in Levinas’ philosophy between the visible and the invisible, between the plastic form and the infinite. As such, Levinas calls the skin a ‘modification’ of the face: ‘a skin that is always a modification of a face, a face that is weighed down by a skin’.41 But this modification does not mean that the skin synthesizes the opposites, nor that it presents the outer (visible) surface (or envelope) behind which the (invisible) face shelters. The skin does not undo the separation and it does not reduce the face to its plastic form. The skin reveals in the visible what withdraws from the visible; it relates the experience of the other to what exceeds the visible. As such, the skin is the condition for the possibility of the appearance of exorbitance. It brings what Levinas calls the trace of the ‘illeity’, which escapes any presentation and withdraws from any visible appearance in relation to the possibility of an approach that also exposes the face. ‘A face approached, a contact with a skin – a face weighed down by a skin, and

252

Metaphors.indb 252

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

a skin in which, even in obscenity, the altered face breaths – […].’42 The disclosure of the face is the vulnerable exposure of the skin. In this regard, it is interesting to note that Levinas already seems to use the skin as a metaphor of the trace in the expression ‘skin with wrinkles’ (peau à rides): ‘It is poverty, skin with wrinkles, which is a trace of itself ’.43 But this use does not yet imply the idea of a resemblance. It is therefore necessary to refer to the other relation opened by the skin: my being for the other. Levinas never explicitly establishes a parallelism between the skin of the other’s face and the skin of my own subjectivity. But he clearly introduces the skin as a metaphor in order to express the condition of the identity of the self as being-for-the-other. ‘In responsibility as one assigned or elected from the outside, assigned as irreplaceable, the subject is accused in its skin, too tight for its skin (mal dans sa peau). Cutting across every relation, […].’44 The metaphoric use of the skin is not limited to the expression ‘mal dans sa peau’ – which means: ‘being uneasy in relation to oneself ’. The reverse is the case: the metaphoric meaning of this expression stems from the comparison with the skin, which expresses the relation of selfhood as such: ‘The ego […] is in itself like one is in one’s skin, that is, already tight, ill at ease in one’s own skin […] (déjà à l’étroit, mal dans sa peau)’.45 In other words, the comparison with the skin expresses the experience of an irreducible otherness within the condition of subjectivity: ‘To revert to oneself is not to establish oneself at home, even if stripped of all one’s acquisitions. It is to be like a stranger, hunted down even in one’s home, contested in one’s own identity and one’s own poverty, which, like a skin still enclosing the self, would set it up in an inwardness, already settled on itself, already a substance […]’.46 From the skin of the other’s face to the skin of the condition of selfhood, the same features appear: 1. the destitution (la pauvreté) as modality of the appearance of an otherness that is exorbitant and irreducible to the visible, 2. the exposure – ‘the exposure to wounds and outrages’47 that not only concerns the disclosure of the face but also constitutes the identity of selfhood, and 3. the specific ‘materiality’ of the skin, which Levinas calls a ‘passivity, more passive still than the passivity of effects’48 because of its ‘susceptibility’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘exposedness to wounds’. But from the skin of the other’s face to the skin of the condition of selfhood, there is also a displacement of meaning and separation: with regard to selfhood, the skin is also a disclosure of interiority. This displacement is not secondary, but concerns, on the contrary, the central issue of this paper: interiority appears to be the source of all metaphoric understanding. It is important to note here that Levinas, in the context of his account of selfhood, mentions and elucidates two metaphors: the metaphor of ‘maternity’ in order to define the meaning of selfhood and the metaphor of ‘the sound that can only be heard in its echo’ in order to express the meaning of the offering of the self ’s passivity for the other.49

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 253

 253

3/07/13 09:54

Conclusion From this articulation of my argument, we may conclude that the introduction of the theme of the skin in his later philosophy of Otherwise than Being enables Levinas to account for the transformation of the meaning of the face into a metaphoric understanding of intersubjective relations. This does not imply that we may consider the face as a metaphor. On the contrary, the whole argument only makes sense on the basis of the assumption that Levinas’ notion of the face is irreducible to a metaphor. What Levinas calls face is not touchable, is not a representation, leads beyond any visual appearance, and cannot be approached in mere descriptive terms. But the face is not without the skin. The skin brings together, without synthesising them, two dimensions whose meaning we have carefully distinguished because they are separated from each other and nevertheless related to each other: the disclosure of the other’s face (in terms of peau à rides) and the disclosure of the condition of myself for the other (in terms of the expression mal dans sa peau). The skin is therefore essential in Levinas’ philosophy, not only but also as a metaphor. From skin to skin, there is a transfer of meaning (for instance: the destitution, the vulnerable exposure, and the passivity relating me to the other) and a displacement of meaning (the interiority of the self separating me from him). As such, the skin translates the exteriority of the face (the exorbitance of its trace) into the experience of my own self and opens the possibility of a metaphoric understanding of intersubjective relations. In other words: with the notion of the skin, it is possible to point at a fundamental ambiguity concerning the place of metaphor in Levinas’ philosophy. On the one hand, metaphors are still essential in his approach to subjectivity and the relation with the other, as is shown by the use of images like ‘maternity’, ‘the sound that can only be heard in its echo’, ‘a Nessus tunic’,50 and others. But on the other, Levinas also intends to limit (or at least to articulate and to elevate the direction of ) the metaphoric use of language. This means that he intends to be able to criticise its naturalising and totalising effects. The face is this dimension of exteriority, breaking with the logic of a common sense and exceeding the metaphoric understanding of intersubjective relations. The skin reveals this ‘breaking’ and ‘exceeding’ in a way that precisely binds me to the other. As if the face-to-face relationship cannot be but a separation from the other and at the same time, a tying with the other – from skin to skin. This is the equivocal – original and yet metaphoric – meaning of the skin, the source of all metaphors in Levinas’ philosophy.

254

Metaphors.indb 254

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Aristotle (19715). Rhetorica, De Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, De Poetica, transls W. Rhys Roberts, E.S. Forster, I. Bywater, The Works of Aristotle, ed. W.D. Ross, vol. XI, Oxford, Clarendon Press Derrida, J. (1978). ‘Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas’ in Idem, Writing and Difference, transl. A. Bass, London − Henley, Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 79-153 Derrida, J. (2006). L’animal que donc je suis, Paris, Galilée (Collection La philosophie en effet) Hart, K. (2010). The Exorbitant Emmanuel Levinas. Between Jews and Christians, New York, Fordham University Press Hegel, G.F.W. (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit, transl. A.V. Miller, Oxford, Oxford University Press Husserl, E. (1963²). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ed. S. Strasser, La Haye, Martinus Nijhoff (Husserliana Band I) Konersmann, R. (20113). Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Levinas, E. (1967). ‘La trace de l’autre’ in Idem, En découvrant l’existence avec Husserl et Heidegger, Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, pp. 187-202 Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority, transl. A. Lingis, Pittsburg – The Hague, Duquesne University Press – Martinus Nijhoff (Coll. Duquesne Studies Philosophical Series) Levinas, E. (1981). Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, transl. A. Lingis, The Hague – Boston – London, Martinus Nijhoff Levinas, E. (1990). ‘Heidegger, Gagarin and Us’, in Idem, Difficult Freedom. Essays on Judaism, transl. S. Hand, London, The Athlone Press, pp. 231-234 Levinas, E. (1994). ‘Who Plays Last?’ in Idem, Beyond the Verse. Talmudic Readings and Lectures, transl. G. D. Mole, London, The Athlone Press, pp. 53-67

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 255

 255

3/07/13 09:54

Levinas, E. (2009). Carnets de captivité suivi de Écrits sur la captivité et Notes philosophiques divers, Volume publié sous la responsabilité de R. Calin et de C. Chalier, Paris, Grasset & Fasquelle – IMEC Editeur, pp. 227-242 Ricœur, P. (1978). The Rule of Metaphor. Multidisciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, transl. R. Czerny with K. McLaughlin and J. Castello, London − Henley, Routledge & Kegan Paul

Endnotes 1

Konersmann (20113), p. 169.

2

Hegel (1977), p. 19.

3

Hart (2010), p. 9.

4

Levinas (1969), p. 207.

5

Levinas (1981), p. 34.

6

Levinas (1969), p. 207.

7

Levinas (1981), p. 33-34.

8

Levinas (1969), p. 61.

9 Ibid., p. 130-132. 10

Cf. the talmudic reading, ‘Who plays last?’ in Levinas (1994), p. 53-67.

11

Levinas (1990), p. 232.

12 Ibid., p. 233. 13

Levinas (1969), p. 81.

14

Ricoeur (1978), p. 192.

15

Husserl (1963), p. 126.

256

Metaphors.indb 256

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

16

Levinas (1967), pp. 187-202.

17

Levinas (1969), p. 293.

18

Cf. Derrida (1978).

19

Levinas (2009), pp. 227-242. All quotations from this text are translated by me.

20

One of the pages is an envelope with a stamp of 21 IX 1960 (cf. Levinas [2009], p. 227 footnote b)

21 Ibid., p. 231. 22 Ibid., p. 229 and 242: ‘il est impossible de chasser la métaphore et le dépassement et la marche à l’infini’.

23 Ibid., p. 231: ‘la métaphore est la participation même de l’objet à autre chose que lui’. 24 Ibid., p. 242: ‘Comment concilier ma thèse: la parole dépossède celui qui parle et la thèse: la métaphore est le dépassement de la signification? Comment montrer que le pouvoir du dépassement verbal se place dans la relation avec l’Autre?’

25

Cf. Derrida (2006), p. 149.

26

Levinas (2009), p. 230: ‘Le pouvoir métaphorique du mot est dans ce rapprochement de la signification et d’une autre signification dont elle est comme une pelure’.

27 Ibid., p. 231. 28 Ibid., p. 234: ‘La métaphore est un au-delà, la transcendance’. 29 Ibid., p. 232: ‘Métaphore – ce que le mot signifie au-delà de ce qu’il désigne’. 30 Ibid., p. 237: ‘(…) lorsque la ressemblance est explicitement pensée, nous ne sommes pas au contact de l’essentiel de la métaphore: le mouvement du transfert et de l’amplification sont perdus par la pensée qui s’absorbe dans la ressemblance comme en une essence statique’.

31 Ibid., p. 232: ‘Toute signification – en tant que signification – est métaphorique, elle mène vers là-haut’.

32 Ibid., p. 234. 33 Ibid., p. 232: ‘mener vers le haut n’a d’ailleurs pas de terme’.

Arthur Cools

Metaphors.indb 257

 257

3/07/13 09:54

34 Ibid., p. 232: ‘le fond de la spiritualité humaine’. 35 Ibid., p. 230. See as well p. 241. 36 Ibid., p. 241: ‘dans le langage il y a ce mouvement vers l’infini et il n’existe pas de langage sans ce

mouvement. Et ce mouvement vient de l’autre, en tant que le langage est réponse à un autre et

dépassement de ce qui est dit’.

37 Ibid.: ‘c’est d’Autrui qu’il [le langage] tient son pouvoir métaphorique’. 38 Ibid., p. 241-242: ‘Je ne suis pas sûr que la métaphore – et le mouvement dans la signification vienne du fait que l’événement essentiel du langage est en-face-de-l’Autre’.

39 Ibid., p. 241: ‘Le dépassement de la métaphore ne vient-il pas de la trace?’ 40

Levinas (1969), p. 198.

41

Levinas (1981), p. 85.

42 Ibid., p. 89. 43 Ibid., p. 88. 44 Ibid., p. 106. 45 Ibid., p. 108. 46 Ibid., p. 92. 47 Ibid., p. 105. 48 Ibid., p. 108. 49 Ibid., resp. p.104 and 106. 50 Ibid., p. 109.

258

Metaphors.indb 258

Trace and Resemblance in the Face of the Other. On the Problem of Metaphor in Levinas’ Philosophy

3/07/13 09:54

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

Frans van Peperstraten

Introduction

I

s there still a place for metaphor in postmodern philosophy? One of postmodernism’s most renowned philosophers, Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998), proposes a metaphor precisely when wanting to characterize his own postmodern thinking. This is the metaphor of the archipelago, the ‘primeval sea’, or, quite shortly, the ‘sea’. Surprisingly, Lyotard introduces this metaphor as a way of explaining Kant. In other words, this metaphor plays an important role in that part of Lyotard’s work where Kant figures as a nearly postmodern philosopher. Here we encounter the first problem I will deal with in this chapter: whereas Lyotard’s postmodern metaphor takes into account that not everything can be expressed in language as it is, Kant rather follows the traditional metaphysical idea that metaphor actually makes us capable to express the supersensible. After clarifying Kant’s thinking on metaphor, I will take up a second line of thought. Lyotard himself connects his metaphor of the ‘sea’ with a metaphor which was used by two other more or less postmodern thinkers, namely Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940-2007) and Jean-Luc Nancy (1940). This is the metaphor of the mother. However, when we especially read Lacoue-Labarthe’s own work, it appears that for him another metaphor – if it is a metaphor at all – is crucial: Hölderlin’s term ‘earth’. Lacoue-Labarthe was strongly inspired by Heidegger, who had said that metaphor belongs to metaphysics. On this basis, it seems to be logical that Lacoue-Labarthe endorses an ‘earthly’ language, because this opposes the use of metaphors. Remarkably enough, however, Lacoue-Labarthe criticizes Heidegger for having overlooked completely the beginning of an ‘earthly’, prosaic language in Hölderlin. Lastly, I will return to Lyotard, because his ‘sea’ appears to contain a layer which does not belong to language at all, not even an ‘earthly’ one, and which is also

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 259

 259

3/07/13 09:54

irretrievable by metaphor. Here, Lyotard seems to distance himself more strongly from Kant. But let us first see how it all starts with Lyotard’s archipelago.

Mother sea In order to understand this metaphor of the archipelago, one should know that Lyotard, inspired by Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, equates Kant’s faculties of the human mind with linguistic ‘phrase families’ or ‘genres of discourse’. For instance, wherever in Kant ‘understanding’ (Verstand) plays a leading role, Lyotard speaks of ‘cognitive phrases’; Kant’s ‘practical reason’ on the other hand, is placed under the rubric of ‘prescriptive phrases’. In Lyotard’s view, these different types of phrases are heterogeneous, and yet at the same time interrelated. Thus Lyotard’s rendering of the problem Kant envisages in his Critique of the Power of Judgment: ‘In the introduction to the third Critique, the dispersion of phrase families is not merely recognized, it is dramatized to the point that the problem raised is that of finding “passages” (Übergänge) between these kinds of heterogeneous phrases. And the “faculty” of judgment, by reason of its very ubiquity, […], appears in this text as a power of “passages” between the faculties […]’.1 One should note moreover that the ‘passage’ Kant is looking for in his third Critique is one between two faculties, namely understanding and reason. But Lyotard wants to take a larger number of ‘phrase families’ into account, for instance also the ‘dialectical argumentative’ phrases of theoretical reason, or poetic phrases, which express an idea of imagination. Against this background, Lyotard introduces his metaphor: ‘If in turn an object must be presented for the Idea of a gearing of the faculties (…), and since the object suitable to be presented for validating the dispersion of the faculties must necessarily be a symbol, I would propose an archipelago. Each phrase family would be like an island; the faculty of judgment would be, at least in part, like a ship owner or an admiral who launches expeditions from one island to another sent out to present to the one what they have found (…) in the other, and which might serve to the first one as an “as-if ” intuition to validate it. This force of intervention, be it war or commerce, has no object; it has no island, but it requires a milieu, namely the sea, the Archipelagos, the primeval sea as the Aegean was once called’.2

260

Metaphors.indb 260

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

Some of the things Lyotard wants to indicate with this metaphor are quite clear. Postmodernism bids farewell to what we can call the philosophy of unification: like a ship owner or an admiral, the faculty of judgment possesses no island of its own from which to dominate other islands. Neither are the islands linked by causeways. Lyotard himself explains that the archipelago replaces what Kant in his third Critique calls the ‘field’, a ‘field’ in which more specific ‘territories’ and ‘domains’ (Lyotard’s islands) may be delineated.3 Where Kant is looking for a ‘bridge’ between the ‘domain of the concept of nature’ and the ‘domain of the concept of freedom’,4 Lyotard conceives of singular expeditions. For time and again, the sea restores itself behind the ship. This however does not mean that universalism is completely excluded. Thus, for instance, on the island of ethics (prescriptive phrases), or of science (cognitive phrases), one might very well demand universalism; on the island of art however, such a demand would at the very least be unrealistic. But postmodernism does not imply relativism. The islands are mutually obliged to take each other into consideration when the ship owner and the admiral provide them with the products of the other islands. Thus the archipelago stands for pluralism – at any rate, if by that we mean something like ‘heterogeneity with relationships’. Note however that Lyotard never applied ‘the archipelago’ – or his notion of pluralism – to the co-existence of different communities within, for instance, a nation – in other words, as if to imply the insularity of these communities. Rather, his point is that within any language – and therefore in many cases also within any community – this ‘heterogeneity with relationships’ of different islands (such as science, ethics and art) should be respected. One aspect of Lyotard’s metaphor is perhaps not immediately clear. For we tend to understand the word archipelago as a clustering of islands. Lyotard, however, points out that in old Greek archipelagos meant ‘primeval sea’. It then appears that the sea is more than the ‘space’ between the islands, more than the waters traversed by the faculty of judgment between these islands. The sea is also the fount from which the islands have arisen, or may in the future arise. For Lyotard, philosophy’s task is ‘to bear witness to the differend’.5 A differend, he explains, can be a conflict between individual, existing islands; or one between the communality of existing language (all islands together) on the one hand, and on the other, what as yet cannot be said, the as-yet-unsayable. At certain moments in history, new points of view become relevant. At such moments, the task of philosophy is to find appropriate new idioms to articulate these new perspectives. This can bring about the birth of a new ‘island’. In this regard, Lyotard refers to the differend between the eloquence of capital (a genre of discourse characterized by its continuous equating of phrases) and labour (the phrases the workers would like to utter). But the workers lack a language in which to express their dissatisfactions. As yet, the differend is only signaled by mute sentiment. To Lyotard, our responsibility to thought requires that we become aware of this mute sentiment. He then praises Marx’s endeavour to find an idiom equal to the task of voicing the injustices capitalism inflicts upon workers. In this regard we may think of terms such as ‘utility value of the labour force’ and ‘surplus value’.

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 261

 261

3/07/13 09:54

However, Lyotard is also highly critical of Marx, first of all, because Marx conceived of the working class as a universal subject, that is to say by thinking in a way which belongs to the ‘speculative genre’ of Hegel, and secondly, because Marx identified this subject with an actual organisation, that of the International Association of Working Men – which meant that he failed to keep a healthy distance between idea and reality. However, concludes Lyotard, in as far as Marxism continues to embody attentiveness to the differend, it persists as an unspent force.6 Thus, further investigation of Lyotard’s metaphor reveals that the archipelago not only refers to the plurality of ‘phrase families’ or ‘genres of discourse’ (islands), but also to the ‘fishing up’, the invention of new phrases – up to the formation of a new genre. This explains why, at the end of The Differend, Lyotard changes his earlier definition of the task of philosophy from ‘bearing witness to the differend “into” bear(ing) witness to (…) the Is it happening?’7 At the end of Enthusiasm, Lyotard suggests a certain resemblance between his ‘archipelago’ and a metaphor from the work of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and JeanLuc Nancy, namely that of ‘the mother’: ‘Doesn’t that something (…), which they have ventured (…) to designate by the name of Mother, bear some affinity with what, in following the Kantian labyrinth of “passages”, I have symbolized as a sea (…)?’8 Lacoue-Labarthe’s theory of identity is especially helpful in contextualizing this ‘mother’ metaphor. Identity, in his view, comes about through a mimetic process, one in which a person creates his/her own identity on the basis of other identities (here employed as ‘role models’). Attaining an identity means that a person adopts a certain ‘figure’ (Gestalt). But because there typically is always more than one role model, the person’s figure never becomes one; identity is always subjected to an endless double bind. And because nobody is able to satisfy these heterogeneous demands, the figure is doomed to collapse. Lacoue-Labarthe calls this collapse the ‘desistance’ of the figure. According to Lacoue-Labarthe, Western Philosophy, from Plato onwards, has lost sight of this desistance. Since Plato, the world has essentially been interpreted as a set of fixed, ‘monolithic’ figures, or ‘types’ – corresponding to a world view LacoueLabarthe terms ‘onto-typology’ (in analogy with Heidegger’s ‘onto-theology’). This provides a point of departure for an analysis of Nazism.9 In this regard, racism can now be seen as the denial of desistance, as the fixation on (and of ) one figure – for instance that of the Aryan. Here mimesis becomes reduced to imitation: the objective becomes to imitate the one supreme, ultimate figure. Further, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy confront psychoanalysis with a dilemma. Psychoanalysis could persist in its normative identification with the father, which implies supporting identification with one, singular figure – collectively with a Leader – and run the concomitant risk of a totalitarian (and/or racist) political system. Or psychoanalysis could choose to heed ‘another problematic of identification’ and

262

Metaphors.indb 262

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

venture ‘beyond the principle of identity’.10 Here, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy refer to identification with the ‘motherly instance’,11 an identification based on an ‘immediate, sensible presence’,12 so that this cannot be regarded as identification with a figure: ‘This relation of a subject to subjectivity itself in the figure of a father, implies, in the origin or in the guise of an origin, the birth (or the gift, precisely) of this relation. And a similar birth implies the retreat of what is neither subject, nor object, nor figure, and which one can, provisionally and simplistically, call “the mother”’.13 To Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy ‘the mother’ entails the ‘threat’ of radical ‘dis-figuration’.14 In their view, identification with the father – with the figure – is endlessly shadowed by identification with the mother, that is, with a withdrawal of the figure, a withdrawal of identity.15 The figure can never break away completely from the infigurable,16 because there is this ‘unnamable, unpresentable truth of the Mother’.17 Lyotard is clearly justified in pointing out the similarity of this ‘mother’ with his ‘sea’, for both metaphors express the not-yet, or no-longer, of attaining a fixed identity, a fully-articulated ‘being such and such’. Therefore, I suggest, we might as well combine the two metaphors and render them as ‘mother sea’. There is however something odd about these metaphors: for both ‘mother’ and ‘sea’ are metaphorical expressions for what as-yet cannot be expressed, figures for the figureless, so to speak. Here we may note that this preoccupation with silence, the unsaid, the unidentifiable, the not completely figured, is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of Western Philosophy. So perhaps this is an opportune moment to take a look at the more traditional treatment of metaphor. Here I choose Kant, because, as we have seen, Kant was the direct inspiration for Lyotard’s metaphor. But Kant’s influence extends to Lacoue-Labarthe, albeit along the detour of Heidegger’s Kant interpretation.

Metaphor in Kant The Index to Kant’s works does not include an entry on ‘metaphor’. However, as we shall see, Kant uses a term related to ‘metaphor’, namely ‘symbol’. Furthermore, Kant employs a term which gives a literal translation of the word ‘metaphor’, namely ‘transportation’. Moreover, in his Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft), Kant describes the work of the poet as precisely providing those expressions we normally call ‘metaphors’. ‘The poet’, Kant says, ‘ventures to make sensible rational ideas of invisible beings, the kingdom of the blessed, the kingdom of hell, eternity, creation etc’.18 Here, Kant refers to Dante’s La divina commedia, in which heaven and hell are depicted by means of sensible representations. In similar terms Kant refers to a poem by the ‘great king’ of Prussia (Frederick the Second, ‘the Great’). The

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 263

 263

3/07/13 09:54

relevant lines from Frederick’s poem are: ‘Thus does the sun, after it has completed its daily course, still spread a gentle light across the heavens’. Frederick, Kant explains, ‘animates his idea of reason of a cosmopolitan disposition even at the end of life by means of an attribute that the imagination associates with that representation’, namely the image of the sunset.19 We see that metaphor, in Kant, means that a supersensible idea of reason finds representation in a sensible attribute provided by the imagination. However, Kant does not assume that the sensible is capable of rendering a direct, complete and adequate representation of the supersensible ideas of reason. For Kant’s critical philosophy precludes such an assumption. This is why Kant, in section 59 of his third Critique, introduces the notion of ‘symbol’. The problem Kant wants to solve is the following. ‘To demonstrate the reality of our concepts’, Kant says, ‘intuitions are required’. To Kant these entail a (re)presentation, a Darstellung, a subiectio sub adspectum, or hypotyposis. As long as these concepts remain empirical concepts or pure concepts of (the faculty of ) understanding, this Darstellung remains fundamentally unproblematic. But once these concepts are ideas of reason, ‘then one desires something impossible, since no intuition adequate to them can be given at all’, Kant says. For, as we know, Kant’s critical philosophy enforces a separation between the ideas of reason – such as the theoretical idea of the infinite or the practical idea of freedom – and the realm of phenomena. Ideas of reason transcend the phenomenal world in such a way that no intuition could ever be adequate to them. However, says Kant, ideas of reason do lend themselves to symbolic presentation. Again a sensible intuition is submitted, but the relation between this intuition and the idea represented by this intuition is now regarded as an indirect relation. Reflective judgment has the last word on establishing or denying relationships, and therefore also on whether a given intuition will serve as a symbolic presentation for the idea, or not. What the power of judgment does in the case of a symbolic – in other words, indirect – presentation, Kant says, is ‘analogous’ to the procedure this faculty performs when it approves of a relationship between an intuition and a concept of the understanding (in which case we have a direct presentation). The analogy therefore applies to the form or rule of the reflection, not the content of the intuition.20 From the first two examples which Kant gives of these symbolic presentations founded on analogy, it becomes evident that we are essentially talking about metaphors here: 1. A monarchical state ruled in accordance with laws representative of the people (is an idea of reason which) can be symbolized by (the intuition of ) a living body. 2. A monarchical state ruled by a single absolute will (is an idea of reason which) can be symbolized by (the intuition of ) ‘a mere machine (like a handmill)’. Of course, there is no similarity between a despotic state and a handmill as such, Kant observes, but there is a similarity ‘between the rule for reflecting on both and their causality’: both assume a causality with only one fixed starting point. After providing some more examples of symbolic presentation, Kant proceeds to call this ‘the transportation of the reflection on an object of intuition to a quite different concept, to which perhaps no intuition can ever directly correspond’. In consequence, one of Kant’s conclusions

264

Metaphors.indb 264

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

is that ‘all of our cognition of God is merely symbolic’. And it is here that we find this literal rendering of ‘metaphor’ already mentioned: ‘transportation’ (Übertragung).21 The title of section 59 of the Kritik der Urteilskraft: ‘the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good’ represents Kant’s most important example in this regard. This is a very intricate example. Of course the morally good is an idea of reason. But now the relevant intuition is not something sensible as such, for instance a living body or a handmill, but an attributed quality, the beautiful. The beautiful is not an intuited thing, but a statement of taste, that is, of reflective judgment. In other words, what we have here, is a reflection of the second order – in which the reflective judgment compares the reflective characteristics of the beautiful with those of the morally good. According to Kant, an analogy on four points now becomes apparent. I will restrict myself to only one: freedom. In making judgments pertaining to beauty, Kant explains, freedom of the imagination is assumed, such in accordance with the lawfulness of the understanding. Moral judgment on the other hand assumes freedom of the will, such in accordance with the universal laws of reason.22 We see that the power of judgment may well be forced to take into consideration a very abstract and complicated symbolism. This is the result of Kant’s metaphysics being a critical metaphysics. Critical, for each time anew, it remains to be judged whether a given thing or judgment pertaining to the phenomenal world allows us at least a glimpse of the other side of the critical cleft, that is, of the noumenal world. Metaphors are capable of affording us this vantage point, but they never fill up or erase this cleft. But they remain in the realm of metaphysics, for Kant never relents in opposing the realm of the phenomenal or the sensible, to that of the noumenal, the supersensible. In terms of Lyotard’s ‘archipelago’ this would essentially mean that we have ‘islands’, but no ‘primeval sea’. However, as we will shortly see, Kant does in fact make provision for a ‘sea’, or at any rate, at least for a ‘well-spring’. When comparing the relative artistic merit of the different fine arts, Kant ranks poetry supreme. In support, Kant argues that poetry ‘owes its origin almost entirely to genius and will be guided least by precept or example’.23 But what does this mean? Kant defines genius as ‘the talent or natural gift that gives the rule to art’.24 Genius gives the rule to art, but there are no rules for becoming a genius, so the primary characteristic of genius is originality. The genius cannot explain ‘how it brings its products into being’, Kant adds, for it does this ‘as nature’. A genius like Homer cannot ‘indicate how his ideas arise and come together in his head, because he himself does not know it and thus cannot teach it to anyone else either’. In other words, one simply cannot learn to write inspired poetry – in German: man kann nicht geistreich (literally: rich-spirited) dichten lernen.25 Geist, spirit, is the special faculty of genius. It is ‘the faculty for the presentation of aesthetic ideas’.26 Aesthetic ideas are not ideas of reason, but ideas of the imagination, of productive imagination. Taking Kant’s critical philosophy into account, we further understand that aesthetic ideas are bound to the phenomenal world, that is, to nature. But the productive imagination, Kant explains, is ‘very powerful in creating, as it were, another nature, out of the material the real one

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 265

 265

3/07/13 09:54

gives it’.27 The reason Kant uses the word ‘idea’ for a product of imagination – whereas he otherwise reserves the use of this term to reason – is because here, imagination, like reason, tries to attain a maximum. Here Kant says that imagination produces this other or second nature ‘with a completeness of which there is no example in nature’. Precisely here Kant observes that ‘it is really the art of poetry in which the faculty of aesthetic ideas can reveal itself in its full measure’. An aesthetic idea gives ‘a multitude’, or rather, ‘an immeasurable field’, of ‘related representations’. It seems reasonable to conclude then that these ‘related representations’ are in fact what we would call metaphorical associations. Kant for instance refers to ‘Jupiter’s eagle, with the lightning in its claws’ as ‘an attribute of the powerful king in heaven’.28 Clearly, by ‘multitude’ is meant that any first representation – which is a metaphor, or in Kant’s terminology, a symbol – would evoke related metaphors. Put differently, an aesthetic idea means that the freedom of imagination in transforming real nature into another nature is the well-spring of a wealth of metaphors. It appears that Kant not only refers to an ‘immeasurable field’, but also uses the word ‘unnamable’. With this we arrive at the paradoxical role of language in Kant’s analysis of the arts, and especially of poetry. In Kant’s discussion of aesthetic ideas, language appears in two different perspectives. First of all, Kant says that the aesthetic idea ‘occasions much thinking’, which, however, ‘no language fully attains or can make intelligible’,29 and that aesthetic ideas ‘give the imagination an impetus to think more (…) than can be comprehended in a concept, and hence in a determinate linguistic expression’.30 This is why the aesthetic idea ‘allows the addition (…) of much that is unnamable’.31 At the same time, however, it is clear that the poet uses language to convey his aesthetic ideas. The key word here is ‘expression’. Kant starts off by saying: ‘beauty can in general be called the expression of aesthetic ideas’. In addition, he thinks that a typology of the fine arts can be based on the way people express themselves communicatively amongst each other. This latter expression, Kant says, is comprised of three elements: word, gesture, and tone.32 Poetry, then, belongs to the arts of the word, the verbal arts. The word provides the best opportunity for ‘a free play of the imagination’ which provides ‘nourishment to the understanding’.33 Here we come across another common idea in the tradition of metaphysics: that the word is less strongly determined by natural laws than gesture or tone. Kant concludes: ‘Poetry strengthens the mind by letting it feel its capacity to consider and judge of nature (as appearance), freely, self-actively, and independently of determination by nature’.34 So here is the paradox: the highest degree of freedom from determination by nature in the artistic creation of a second nature is attained in the language of the poet, but this freedom produces such a wealth that it cannot be comprehended by a determinate linguistic expression. In other words, a free production of metaphors, but without any synthesis. A poetic language that cannot be grasped by language. Perhaps it should

266

Metaphors.indb 266

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

come as no surprise that in this overflowing of imagination, this ‘well-spring’ of metaphors, we have come to the point where the metaphor – in as far as it belongs to metaphysics – started running into trouble.

Down with metaphor! It was Heidegger, who, in his book Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929), tried to prove that in Kant’s philosophy, imagination constitutes the most important faculty. In this book, Heidegger reads Kant’s first Critique – that of Pure Reason – as an attempt to lay the foundations of metaphysics by means of an inquiry into ontological knowledge. According to Heidegger, the crucial matter for Kant is the transcendence of human – and therefore finite – pure reason towards beings, in order for these to become objects of experience.35 Kant assumes ‘that there are two stems of human cognition, which may perhaps arise from a common but to us unknown root, namely sensibility and understanding’.36 According to Heidegger, Kant’s chapter on ‘schematism’ concerns this unknown root of both sensibility and understanding. The schema is necessary in order to connect sensible intuition with the concepts of understanding. The schemata, says Kant, are the very conditions required for relating the pure concepts of understanding to objects, in order for these concepts to have meaning. In this perspective, the schema is a product of the transcendental imagination. Kant therefore calls schematism ‘an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul’.37 Heidegger concludes that the unknown root of human cognition is transcendental imagination.38 It is imagination that holds the power of transcending towards beings. Heidegger therefore defines the imagination as the power of giving beings.39 According to Heidegger, this means that in Kant ontological knowledge is no longer founded in ratio or logos, as was traditionally the case in metaphysics, but in transcendental imagination. This ‘hidden root’ however held disquieting consequences for metaphysics. For where Kant was endeavouring to ground metaphysics (Grundlegung), his radical questioning eventually brought him to an un-ground, an abyss (Abgrund), Heidegger concludes.40 Heidegger’s published interpretation is based on Kant’s first Critique. However, in his own copy of Kant and the Problems of Metaphysics, Heidegger made a note, indicating that his interpretation was confirmed by the third Critique. Here, Heidegger seems to think that also in the third Critique imagination acts as the power of ‘looking out’ (i.e. of transcendence) towards beings.41 This would be dubious, because in the third Critique, imagination is no longer the faculty responsible for connecting sensibility to understanding. Rather, judgment now takes care of the connections between imagination on the one hand, and understanding or reason on the other. At the same time, it is clear that Heidegger’s reading of the first Critique is not lacking in affinity with our earlier conclusion regarding the aesthetic ideas of productive imagination in the third

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 267

 267

3/07/13 09:54

Critique, namely that these ideas cannot be comprehended by determinate concepts. If we take this for granted, it follows that imagination, working on the sensible, can no longer be assumed to be doing so in conformity with the supersensible. And this leads us to the conclusion that the imagination ceases to obey the basic structure of metaphysics: namely the opposition of the sensible to the supersensible. As we have seen in Kant, this opposition also underpinned the traditional notion of metaphor. Against this background, it is understandable that Heidegger would later criticize metaphor as such, namely as an Übertragung (transportation) from the sensible into the supersensible, for this presupposes that the sensible and the supersensible are separable as two different realms in the first place. Therefore Heidegger concludes: ‘The metaphorical exists only within metaphysics’.42

Lacoue-Labarthe Initially, Lacoue-Labarthe (1940-2007) was strongly influenced by Heidegger. However, one does not find any explicit statements on metaphor in Lacoue-Labarthe. All the same, an implicit view on metaphor can be deduced from his many writings on modern poetry, particularly on Hölderlin. His texts on Hölderlin span a considerable period, from 1978 to 2002. In this period, as we will see, Lacoue-Labarthe gradually became progressively critical of Heidegger’s interpretation of Hölderlin. In the first two texts, originally published in 1978 and 1979, Lacoue-Labarthe points out an ambivalence in Hölderlin’s interpretation of tragedy. On the one hand, Hölderlin’s interpretation is very much part of the rise of speculative dialectics, as was to be further developed by Schelling and Hegel; on the other, it ‘deconstructs’ this speculative dialectics ‘in the (very) same movement’.43 In Hölderlin’s definition of tragedy, ‘the boundless union’ of god and man ‘purifies itself through boundless separation’.44 Hölderlin’s famous expression to indicate this divide between the divine and the human, is ‘the categorical reversal’.45 In tragedy, this categorical reversal is presented by the caesura, the ‘counter-rhythmic interruption’.46 Faced with this se­ paration between gods and human beings – in short, with the caesura – one may take recourse to mediation, and consequently plunge into speculative dialectics. However, according to Lacoue-Labarthe, Hölderlin at the very same time acknowledges that even a mediated appropriation of the divine is not possible; that every appropriation is inevitably also a disappropriation; and that human finiteness is characterized by an irreversible Unheimlichkeit.47 And this essentially implies that the traditional metaphysical unification of the proper, the own and the familiar on the one hand, and the inappropriated, the foreign and the unfamiliar on the other, cannot be achieved. At this stage, Lacoue-Labarthe’s argument therefore does not differ much from Heidegger’s reading of Hölderlin: ‘In Hölderlin’s poetry, the domain of art and beauty, and all metaphysics in which both can only have their place, is transgressed for the first time’.48

268

Metaphors.indb 268

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

We however notice Lacoue-Labarthe’s focus on the role of the caesura in Hölderlin – herewith already the germ of his later criticism of Heidegger. The first indications of this criticism can be traced to Poetry as experience. Although the book is devoted to Celan, it is also about Hölderlin, for as Lacoue-Labarthe observes, Celan’s poetry’s is also a dialogue with Heidegger’s dialogue with Hölderlin.49 In Lacoue-Labarthe’s view, modern poetry is determined by Hölderlin’s notion of the categorical reversal, as presented by the caesura, the counter-rhythmic interruption. In this regard, Hölderlin’s most important remark pertaining to the categorical reversal, is that it forces us ‘more decidedly down to earth’.50 Lacoue-Labarthe concludes that poetry, as the caesura of language, as the catastrophe of language, is ‘catastrophized’ towards the earth.51 Modern poetry speaks existence, speaks the finite human, and in this, changes its language.52 This shift is elaborated more fully in Lacoue-Labarthe’s later works on Hölderlin. First of all, Lacoue-Labarthe refers to Walter Benjamin’s work on early Romanticism, in which Benjamin shows that the early Romanticists’ treatment of poetry would ultimately lead towards prose. Benjamin succinctly summarizes their view as: ‘The idea of poetry is prose’, and then equates this with Hölderlin’s principle of sobriety.53 In the same vein, Lacoue-Labarthe speaks of a ‘prosaic literalization’.54 After Hölderlin’s return from Bordeaux in the autumn of 1802, his poetry becomes ‘rigorously literal’, Lacoue-Labarthe observes. He explains: ‘What characterizes his poetry at that time, a poetry that is already becoming more and more fragmentary and disarticulated – and more and more enigmatic – is its extreme precision, its disarmed clarity, through which one begins to see emerge what Benjamin called “the naked rock of language”’.55 Here Lacoue-Labarthe refers to Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, who said of Hölderlin that, after his return from France, he ‘called a cat a cat’, and that he evoked his stay in Bordeaux ‘with an almost photographic precision’. From his knowledge of Bordeaux, LacoueLabarthe is able to add that, in for instance ‘Remembrance’, Hölderlin’s depiction attests to ‘an astonishing topographic precision’. Somewhat wryly, Lacoue-Labarthe would characterize this turn as ‘the (in fact rather desperate) sense of reality in the late Hölderlin’. And in his view, this is something which Heidegger had completely overlooked: ‘Heidegger is avoiding the reality that Hölderlin, for his part, was at great pains to rejoin’.56 The title of one of Lacoue-Labarthe’s essays contains a reference to ‘Heidegger’s onto-mythology’.57 We know that, for Heidegger, poetry is myth (Sage: muthos). Lacoue-Labarthe explains that myth here in Heidegger means ‘the historial inscription of a people, and the means by which a people is able to identify itself or appropriate itself as such’.58 According to Lacoue-Labarthe, however, it is precisely in this regard that Hölderlin breaks with mythology. Hölderlin’s poetry has actually managed to incorporate ‘the difficulty – not to say the impossibility – of a national appropriation or identification’, (a difficulty which) ‘forbids (…) every mythologization that would

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 269

 269

3/07/13 09:54

lead to the project of an immanent fashioning of a community’.59 Lacoue-Labarthe therefore terms Heidegger’s interpretation of Hölderlin’s poetry ‘a remythologization’.60 And this remythologization has specific theological ramifications. For Heidegger assumes that our age is waiting for the return of a god, and that Hölderlin’s poetry has paved this return. Unsurprisingly, it is at this point that Lacoue-Labarthe’s criticism of Heidegger’s interpretation of Hölderlin reaches its climax. Indignantly, he calls it ‘a revolting mythical-theological confiscation’.61 In Lacoue-Labarthe’s view, Heidegger fails to adequately appreciate Hölderlin’s reversal towards the earth. Again inspired by Benjamin – who had referred to a ‘displacement of myth’ (Verlagerung des Mythologischen) in Hölderlin – Lacoue-Labarthe now speaks of la défaillance du mythe, the failure of myth.62 And this displacement or failure of myth implies a dis-figuration – Lacoue-Labarthe translates this word back into German: Entgestaltung.63 Thus he observes that Hölderlin deliberately bode farewell to ‘the stereotypes of sacralisation’ and ‘the cult of heroes’,64 whereas we know, for instance, that Heidegger regarded the poet as some kind of a half-god. Let us briefly summarize the shift Lacoue-Labarthe had made: in his early texts, Lacoue-Labarthe followed Heidegger’s lead in reading Hölderlin’s work on tragedy as something different from the speculative matrix. However, in his later texts he was inspired by Benjamin to read in Hölderlin’s poetry an ‘earthly’ language, something different from Heidegger’s mythology. So, what conclusions can we draw from Lacoue-Labarthe’s work with regard to metaphor? First of all, Lacoue-Labarthe agrees with Heidegger that language presents only one world, so that a transport of the sensible to the supersensible world is out of the question. However, in Lacoue-Labarthe’s view, ours is not a world waiting for a coming god, but one immersed in earthly, finite existence. This is witnessed by the shift in poetry towards precision, reality, the prosaic – let’s say, towards ‘the daily life of the cat’. In such a context, old-fashioned metaphors are bound to seem trite, bombastic, banal. However, from this one should not conclude that LacoueLabarthe completely rejects metaphor, for he does seem prepared to accept a ‘lite’ version – such as: the role of connecting different semantic fields with each other, providing of course that these fields remain firmly related to earthly life. Unlike Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe is therefore not saying ‘down with metaphor’ in the sense of tolling its death bell, but in the sense that metaphor should (be)come ‘down to earth’. And why is poetic language becoming ‘earthly’? Because myth, or language in general, as turns out, is permeated by dis-figuration. The disfiguration counters ‘the cult of heroes’ etc. Earlier in this article, we have metaphorically designated this disfiguration by the term ‘mother sea’. Thus, in conclusion, in Lacoue-Labarthe, it is ‘the sea’ that makes poetic language ‘earthly’.

270

Metaphors.indb 270

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

Lyotard After his early work Discours, figure, Lyotard never wrote extensively about metaphor or poetry again. But he did write about literature – for instance about Joyce and Kafka – and he also wrote about writing. In order to elucidate what Lyotard makes of metaphor, we may start by picking up some of the threads Kant left behind. In his reading of Kant’s third Critique, Lyotard distinguishes three types of aesthetics. Firstly, there is an aesthetics of the quiet contemplation of the beautiful, especially in nature; based on our free synthesis of form (i.e. one form). Secondly, there is an aesthetics of the beautiful gone wild, in genius – genius, haunted by a multitude of forms. Thirdly, there is an aesthetics of the sublime. Like the aesthetics of genius, this is an aesthetics of disorder – but now due to the absence of form. A presence exists, Lyotard explains, but the imagination never succeeds in producing any form for it.65 Lyotard opposes the two latter – disordered – types of aesthetics as ones of an ‘excessive Yes’ and an ‘excessive No’;66 as ‘a figural aesthetics of the “much too much” defying the concept, and an abstract or minimal aesthetics of the “almost nothing” defying the form’.67 Lyotard in several essays pays attention to this absence of form, specifically when it comes to language. Thus, for instance in the Preface to Lectures d’enfance, Lyotard says that writing always aims at snagging something which resists being written.68 In one of the essays of this book, ‘Voices’, Lyotard draws on distinctions already made by Aristotle: human speech (lexis) consists of meaningful elements (such as nouns, adjectives and verbs) as well as meaningless elements (such as the letter as such). The animal, however, is only capable of making meaningless cries, which do not even correspond to letters in human writing. Now, although Aristotle himself distinguishes between phonè semantikos (meaningful vocal sound) and phonè asemos (meaningless vocal sound), Lyotard prefers to condense Aristotle’s distinctions into one between lexis and phonè: lexis is the articulated meaning the human voice typically conveys, phonè is the sound the animal’s voice produces, which can only signify pain or pleasure. Phonè does not create meaning, but at best conveys a sign. For Lyotard, phonè corresponds to in-fantia, the ‘non-speaking’ of childhood. We understand that phonè and infantia belong to the modalities of the sublime, for here, presence is formless. Lyotard stresses that two temptations are to be avoided: we should neither hypostasize phonè into the metaphysical entity of an ‘absolute other’, nor should we reduce phonè to lexis, to the articulated voice. This second temptation could be made concrete by a ‘treatise of tropes’, Lyotard says, one appealing to ‘metaphor and metonymy’.69 One may be tempted to think that tropes would give phonè the opportunity to appear on the stage of lexis, but Lyotard would have none of it. For indeed, Aristotle placed metaphor explicitly within lexis as meaningful speech. From which Lyotard concludes that we are not able to transform phonè into lexis without violating phonè. However, what we can do, says Lyotard, is write. Of course, writing cannot avoid employing lexis, but according to Lyotard, ‘every writing is this épreuve (ordeal, trial, and proof ) of letting articulated lexis testify of phonè’.70 For phonè is able to infiltrate lexis by

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 271

 271

3/07/13 09:54

giving timbre to it. Phonè is, so to speak, the emotional timbre in the articulated voice. This is the way phonè can make itself heard – not as the other side of lexis, but as accompanying it in its own right – here we may think of a ship in which strange sounds betray the presence of a stowaway. When we read literature with an ear for the phonè that accompanies the words, we are no longer reading literature with an eye for the ‘higher meaning’, as traditionally provided by the use of metaphor. Thus, even if Lyotard does in a certain sense maintain the metaphor, it no longer fits into metaphysics. Rather, his view could be called an ‘infraphysics’. Phonè is not ‘meta’, but ‘infra’, diesseits, en deça, of language. It is not the word as such, but precisely belongs to those dimensions which Kant regarded as the lower dimensions of language, namely gesture and tone, which infiltrate language, and produce the requisite tension needed by the work of art. We see that the relationship between lexis and phonè is a differend, analogous to the differend between language as a whole (the islands together) and the as-yet-unsaid (the ‘primeval sea’). But whereas the archipelago as primeval sea was also a metaphor for the invention of a new idiom, phonè remains a mute sea of what fundamentally cannot be said in language.

Conclusion What Lacoue-Labarthe and Lyotard do have in common, is that neither any longer believes in metaphors in the classical, traditional sense, as for instance that defended by Kant: as sensible, concrete expressions referring to the supersensible, ‘higher’ world of thinking and morality. Put differently, both authors refuse to accept the idea that the poet’s language, by being ‘meta-phorical’, provides a passage into a ‘meta-world’. Instead, Lacoue-Labarthe shows that figures will forever be touched by dis-figuration, and that they therefore tend to become embedded in earthly life. We have seen that the disfiguration or the as-yet-not-articulated can be represented by the metaphor of the ‘mother sea’, a metaphor to which both Lacoue-Labarthe and Lyotard contributed. Yet one should not overlook the difference between these two authors. Where Lacoue-Labarthe appears to say that all semantics is grounded on our earthly life, Lyotard would rather appear to be asking us not to forget the ‘sea’ of utterances which will forever remain meaningless, that ‘sea’ which is constitutionally opposed to all semantics. Well, let us finish by acknowledging that earth and sea need each other, for the earth can only rise up and distinguish itself from the sea, and the sea is forever bound to splash onto the earth – and once in a while, flood it – in order to make itself felt.

272

Metaphors.indb 272

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Benjamin, W. (1996). The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism, in Idem, Selected Writings, vol. 1, Cambridge Mass., The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Derrida, J. (1982). ‘White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy’, in Idem, Margins of Philosophy, transl. A. Bass, Brighton, The Harvester Press Derrida, J. (2007). ‘The Retrait of Metaphor’, in Idem, Psyche: Inventions of the Other, transl. P. Kamuf, Stanford, Stanford University Press Heidegger, M. (1982a). On the Way to Language, transl. P. Hertz, New York, Harper and Row Heidegger, M. (1982b). Hölderlins Hymne ‘Andenken’. Gesamtausgabe Band 52, Frankfurt, Klostermann Heidegger, M. (1991). The Principle of Reason, transl. R. Lilly, Bloomington − Indianapolis, Indiana University Press Heidegger, M. (1996). Hölderlin’s Hymn ‘The Ister’, transl. W. McNeill − J. Davis, Bloomington − Indianapolis, Indiana University Press Heidegger, M. (1997). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, transl. R. Taft, Bloomington − Indianapolis, Indiana University Press Heidegger, M. (2002). Off the Beaten Track, transl. J. Young − K. Haynes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Hölderlin, F. (1988). Essays and Letters on Theory, transl. & ed. Th. Pfau, Albany, State University of New York Press Kant, I. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason, transl. P. Guyer − A. Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Kant, I. (2000). Critique of the Power of Judgment, transl. P. Guyer − E. Matthews, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. (1990). Heidegger, Art and Politics. The Fiction of the Political, transl. C. Turner, Oxford, Blackwell

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 273

 273

3/07/13 09:54

Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. (1998a). Typography. Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics, ed. & transl. C. Fynsk, Stanford, Stanford University Press Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. (1998b). Métaphrasis suivi de Le théâtre de Hölderlin, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. (1999). Poetry as Experience, transl. A. Tarnowski, Stanford, Stanford University Press Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. (2007). Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry, transl. J. Fort, Urbana − Chicago, University of Illinois Press Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. – Nancy, J.-L. (1981). ‘Le peuple juif ne rêve pas’, in A.R. Bodenheimer a.o., La psychanalyse est-elle une histoire juive?, Paris, Seuil, pp. 57-92 Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. – Nancy, J.-L. (1990). ‘The Nazi Myth’, transl. B. Holmes, in Critical Enquiry 16, pp. 291-312 Lacoue-Labarthe, Ph. – Nancy, J.-L. (1997). Retreating the Political, ed. S. Sparks, London − New York, Routledge Lyotard, J.-F. (1988). The Differend. Phrases in Dispute, transl. G. Van Den Abbeele, Manchester, Manchester University Press Lyotard, J.-F. (1991). Lectures d’enfance, Paris, Galilée Lyotard, J.-F. (1994). Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime, transl. E. Rottenberg, Stanford, Stanford University Press Lyotard, J.-F. (2009a). Enthusiasm. The Kantian Critique of History, transl. G. Van Den Abbeele, Stanford, Stanford University Press Lyotard, J.-F. (2009b). Karel Appel. Un geste de couleur / Karel Appel. A Gesture of Colour, ed. H. Parret, transl. V. Ionescu − P. Milne, Leuven, Leuven University Press

274

Metaphors.indb 274

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

Endnotes 1

Lyotard (2009a), p. 12.

2 Ibid. Translation slightly modified on the basis of The Differend, where Lyotard also presents the

‘archipelago’ (cf. Lyotard [1988], pp. 130-131). The text here is almost identical to that in Enthusiasm, except that where the latter book has ‘phrase families’, The Differend focuses on ‘genres of discourse’.

Enthusiasm was published in 1986, but it consists of lectures already presented in 1981, whereas

The Differend was published in 1983. 3

Kant (2000), pp. 61-62.

4 Ibid., pp. 80-81. 5

Lyotard (1988), p. xiii.

6 Ibid., pp. 171-172. 7 Ibid., p. 181. 8

Lyotard (2009a), p. 65. The French words for mother and sea are ‘mère’ and ‘mer’, words which

9

Amongst others in Lacoue-Labarthe (1990) and Lacoue-Labarthe − Nancy (1990).

10

Lacoue-Labarthe − Nancy (1981), pp. 58, 60.

would have been hardly distinguishable in Lyotard’s oral presentation.

11 Ibid., p. 62. 12

Lacoue-Labarthe − Nancy (1997), p. 28.

13 Ibid., pp. 118-119. 14

Lacoue-Labarthe − Nancy (1981), p. 69.

15 Ibid., p. 72. 16 Ibid., p. 90. 17

Lacoue-Labarthe − Nancy (1997), p. 29.

18

Kant (2000), p. 192.

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 275

 275

3/07/13 09:54

19 Ibid., pp. 193-194. 20 Ibid., p. 225. 21 Ibid., pp. 226-227. 22 Ibid., p. 228. 23 Ibid., p. 203. 24 Ibid., p. 186. 25 Ibid., p. 187. 26 Ibid., p. 192. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., p. 193. 29 Ibid., p. 192. 30 Ibid., p. 193. 31 Ibid., p. 194. 32 Ibid., pp. 197-198. 33 Ibid., pp. 198-199. 34 Ibid., p. 204. 35

Heidegger (1997), pp. 10-11.

36

Kant (1998), p. 152.

37 Ibid., p. 273. 38

Heidegger (1997), p. 97.

39 Ibid., p. 91.

276

Metaphors.indb 276

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

40 Ibid., pp. 117-118. 41 Ibid., pp. 175-176. 42

Heidegger (1991), p. 48. Two years later, Heidegger were to observe in the same vein: ‘It would

mean that we stay bogged down in metaphysics if we were to take the name Hölderlin gives here

to ‘words, like flowers’ as being a metaphor’ (Heidegger [1982a], p. 100). Actually, Heidegger’s

criticism of metaphor starts much earlier. See for instance his resistance to terms like ‘allegory’ and

‘symbol’ in his ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ (1936) (Heidegger [2002], pp. 3-4). In his course

on Hölderlin’s ‘The Ister’ (summer 1942), Heidegger observes that notions like allegory, symbol, metaphor and example, are all founded on the metaphysical distinction ‘between a sensuous and

a nonsensuous realm’ (Heidegger [1996], pp. 16-17). – Heidegger’s view has played an important role in Derrida’s work on metaphor and his debate with Ricoeur in this regard (see Derrida [1982]

and Derrida [2007]). 43

Lacoue-Labarthe (1998a), pp. 208, 213.

44

Hölderlin (1988), p. 107.

45 Ibid., p. 108. 46 Ibid., p. 102. 47

Lacoue-Labarthe (1998a), pp. 233-234, 243.

48

Heidegger (1982b), p. 63.

49

Lacoue-Labarthe (1999), p. 33.

50

Hölderlin (1988), p. 113.

51

Lacoue-Labarthe (1999), pp. 49, 51, 77.

52 Ibid., p. 51. 53

Benjamin (1996), pp. 173, 175.

54

Lacoue-Labarthe (2007), p. 31.

55 Ibid., p. 42. 56 Ibid., pp. 42-43.

Frans van Peperstraten

Metaphors.indb 277

 277

3/07/13 09:54

57 Ibid., p. 3. 58 Ibid., p. 11. 59 Ibid., p. 30. 60 Ibid., p. 33. 61

Lacoue-Labarthe (1998b), p. 5.

62

Lacoue-Labarthe (2007), pp. 50, 52.

63 Ibid., p. 54. 64 Ibid., pp. 76, 80. 65

Lyotard (1994), p. 53.

66

Lyotard (2009b), p. 215.

67

Lyotard (1994), p. 76.

68

Lyotard (1991), p. 9.

69 Ibid., p. 139. 70 Ibid., p. 146.

278

Metaphors.indb 278

Sea and Earth. Metaphor in Kant, Lyotard and Lacoue-Labarthe

3/07/13 09:54

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

Erik Meganck

T

hroughout its history, philosophy has usually considered a metaphor to be inferior to a concept. A concept is supposed to be straightforward, clear and transparent while a metaphor seems rather indirect, ambiguous and opaque. A metaphor is said to thrive on imagination rather than on reasoning. This opposition is not neutral, like between right and left.1 It also implies a subordination of a metaphor to a concept. A metaphor is not only different, but also something despicable that should be avoided as much as possible if one really wants to ‘mean’ anything at all. According to Jacques Derrida, the arbitrariness of this opposition and subordination or suppression has become gradually visible since philosophy started to suspect metaphysics. Philosophy can no longer hide the fact that thought as such is metaphorically as well as conceptually incapable of deriving the distinction between a concept and a metaphor from a prior unity, since there is no original presence of meaning that splits up in a clear conceptual and an impure metaphorical content or version. A concept, as opposed to a metaphor, and a metaphor, as inferior to a concept, appear as metaphysical installations that should not be considered objectively true, whatever their use may be within metaphysics. ‘Outside’ of metaphysics, they are pointless. Derrida in the meantime recommends us to avoid two options: to consider metaphoricity as the real nature of truth or the ultimate condition of valid knowledge – the metaphor will not replace the concept in epistemology – and to continue to think of metaphysics as the progressive history towards a full conceptualisation, i.e. to consider the full conceptual explanation of reality as metaphysics’ core teleology. Does this mean that philosophy is over? Or that philosophy has gone post-metaphysical? Or that philosophy has turned into literature? Certainly something is happening to thought lately – something that makes philosophers uneasy and yet on the other hand offers them a way out of a so-called totalitarian, even violent way of thinking.

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 279

 279

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphysics: concept vs. metaphor It isn’t very difficult to characterise metaphysics, at least at a pretty general and average level. Plato’s world of Forms and Aristotle’s causal chain leading up to an Unmoved Mover are generally mentioned as typical examples of the history of metaphysics. Plato tried to save the phenomenal world from its plurality, temporality and changeability by referring it to a world of Forms that are all one, eternal and universal, unspoiled by any category that might obscure those features. These Forms were made of what was visible to the mind; they were the truth as it ontologically preceded any sort of veiling. Trying to ‘save the phenomena’, Plato collected them under their respective original and true Form. Aristotle in his turn tried to save thought from an endless regression on the causality chain by inserting an Unmoved Mover at its alleged origin. Since everything is ‘caused’ into being, every cause, which is always a being, is also in its turn itself necessarily caused. This can go on forever and metaphysics has always had a horror of seeing logical constellations disappear into oblivion. The principle of the Unmoved Mover is able to reassure thought and remove the anxiety of a threatening dissipation of causes beyond epistemic control. In fact, there is no empirical or logically necessary evidence for the world of Forms or the Unmoved Mover. Both resulted from an un-reflected and un-criticised preference for comprehensibility in terms of unity, stability and clarity. The best reason to bestow the ultimate truth on the pure and transparent definition of e.g. a circle, is the infinite amount of more or less circular things. The same reason is at the basis of the principle of the unborn origin by Aristotle: an Unmoved Mover is the best rational deus ex machina Greek metaphysics can supply in order to avoid an infinite diffusion of causality. This reference to a world of Forms and an Unmoved Mover wasn’t a trick. On the contrary, philosophy experienced this as fundamentally good. Plato attributed this specific intelligibility of reality to the grace of Agathon or Goodness, dwelling outside of the real world of Forms. In this perspective, Plato can be considered as the one who turned thought into metaphysics. Once intelligibility was called good, metaphysics could arise, starting with Aristotle who ‘forgot’ Plato’s Goodness but kept thought within the limits imposed by its intelligibility.

From evidence to preference The preference for total intelligibility isn’t psychological. It is historical in the sense of eventual. There is no ‘good reason’ – a metaphysical notion – for this preference, it just ‘happened’, as deconstruction happens. Derrida focuses on the historical condition of this preference. Metaphysical thinkers don’t pretend to discover the true nature of thought and reality, nor do they claim to have invented a new metaphysical principle

280

Metaphors.indb 280

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

that explains everything. They only do what Plato, Hegel and all the others did: they read the signs of the times. Those signs entail a preference, with objective reality as its effect. Thought has no control over this preference, which is not even negotiable. Metaphysics considers what it prefers as actually being objectively, totally and eternally true. At present, philosophy reveals its preference as preference. Metaphysics originates in the opposition between what is one, eternal, transparent on the one hand and what is plural, temporary and obscure on the other, thereby preferring the former and rejecting the latter. This archè and telos are the very foundations of metaphysics. They are the tools with which philosophy manages its ontological re-appropriations. In the history of metaphysics, philosophy has searched for an epistemological strategy that can provide the system and the concepts capable of explaining what is considered to be the ultimate ground of reality as revealed to intuition. In this regard, the strategy has to connect archè or ground (Unmoved Mover, Form, Being, God, Reason, Matter, History…) with telos or theory (all metaphysical systems as rational attempts to total explanation with Hegel’s dialectics as its summit). Without teleology, metaphysical archaeology cannot escape from mere intuitionism and remains an article of faith. Without the archaeology, teleology cannot escape what it seeks to avoid: plurality, delay of truth, groundlessness and uncertainty. The reciprocal archaeological and teleological legitimation by what is supposed to be the correct epistemological strategy is the very cornerstone of metaphysics.

‘Differance’ and delay Deconstruction is not opposed to metaphysics from outside but intends to ‘corrupt’ it from within. Therefore, it is not surprising that certain metaphysical features ‘survive’ in deconstruction, but only as parody. Derrida calls ‘differance’ (différance) an archè in order to keep the differential telos away from its metaphysical completion (cf. delay) and vice versa. He installs a specific telos to prevent difference from petrifaction into an archè. Differance is a non-concept that points at the overall free play of the differences, also within metaphysics. It suggests that differences are always-already there, without being aligned into a causal chain that is traced back to an origin and without being organised into a system that promises pure truth. Delay is what has always happened to metaphysics: its attempts to spell the truth will be achieved with delay. But according to the metaphysical point of view, delay is only secondary, temporal. Metaphysics defended a certain progress in its attempts, especially since the 19th century. The notion of progress pushed delay out of focus. To declare delay secondary and temporary is a typically metaphysical operation, which resulted from the (already mentioned) preference. By undoing this operation, delay becomes visible as the effect of differance and holds that an ultimate truth

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 281

 281

3/07/13 09:54

will never be reached. Differance will never become an ultimate truth: it isn’t even a word, let alone a concept. In this cooperation of differance and delay, some might unduly recognise the complete metaphysical collaboration of archè and telos. To an undue degree, this collaboration is only a parody, which cannot work metaphysically because differance and delay aren’t concepts and their differential workings cannot be analysed by metaphysics. To consider delay the new differential name of truth harbours a misconception. Delay is the effect of metaphysics’ teleology and is therefore to be considered Gleichursprunglich with metaphysics. Nevertheless, this originality of delay cannot be situated at the ‘beginning’ of metaphysics since it only appears at its ‘end’. In fact, it appears as an effect of metaphysics that is actually ‘earlier’ than metaphysics.

The meaning of ‘end’ The first chapter of De la grammatologie is called ‘La fin du livre et le commencement de l’écriture’. The title does not intend to state the transition from ‘book’ to scripturality (écriture) or the replacement of ‘book’ by ‘dissipative writing’. There will always be books, but from now on, ‘book’ as a prototype of a clear-cut and well-defined elaboration of a theory will no longer be the privileged figure of thought. The question arises about ‘beginnings’ and ‘ends’, about origins and archè that determine meaning, about aims and telos that try to control and enclose meaning. Metaphysics pretends to discover the true meaning that precedes thought – the original intention – and that is only accessible to correct procedural thought – the one true epistemology. By placing this truth as archè at the origin of thought and its unveiling as telos at the end of it, metaphysics proclaimed itself immune to attacks from ‘outside’. Nietzsche and Heidegger ‘unmasked’ this underlying agenda of metaphysics, but not by intervening from outside as if metaphysics could have proceeded forever without them. Metaphysics has come to its ‘end’. ‘End’ is what happens to metaphysics in a way that metaphysics itself is unable to see (it). Therefore, ‘end’ can never be chronological. Of course, it does have a temporal aspect, since it happens now and has been heralded by other thinkers. By taking up metaphysics in a non-metaphysical way, i.e. in a differential way, philosophy can discern features other than pure temporality and is therefore able to avoid the ‘reduction’ of these features into a chronology. The diversion of temporality through its non-temporal, non-historical extensions belongs to scripturality. Derrida points to a ‘spatial’2 connotation of ‘end’, referring to the limits of metaphysics, in what he calls clôture or (en)closure. Spatialisation of ‘end’ does not imply that it is possible to locate the ‘outside’. It suggests that ‘end’ isn’t a strictly temporal unit, but an event that leads ‘outside’, limiting a territory as a (spatial) feature of the (not merely temporal or chronological) history called metaphysics.

282

Metaphors.indb 282

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

Metaphysics casts out what it considers to be threatening to thought. But what is cast out appears in deconstruction at the same time as the very ‘condition’ that makes metaphysics and indeed any thought possible. To ‘solve’ this ambiguity, we have to ‘leave’ metaphysics, starting by considering the possibility and taking the opportunity to look ‘outside’.

The meaning of ‘outside’ I mentioned at the beginning of this article that oppositions are pointless ‘outside’ metaphysics. This means that ‘outside’ metaphysics, the opposition inside/outside is meaningless. Outside appears as the result of a decision, namely to cast out anything that isn’t explainable. However, ignoring ‘outside’ doesn’t prevent its ‘working’, which consists in disturbing the inside. Derrida’s distinction between the outside (in opposition to the inside) and the ‘outside’ beyond this opposition can be elucidated by further elaboration of the notion of delay. Derrida argues that delay will never be ‘solved’, but reveals itself as intrinsic to thought. In other words, deconstruction leads to the differential rehabilitation of metaphysical delay. This doesn’t imply that delay becomes a core concept in Derrida’s theory. Delay belongs to the ‘end’ that is neither a concept nor a fact. In fact, ‘end’ harbours the dissolution of those terms. This means that metaphysics’ teleology is contaminated by delay. Delay won’t replace the notion of full truth, since it disappears together with this notion.3 It appears in deconstruction only as the effect of the metaphysical decision that frustrates metaphysical teleology. To this effect, the realm of thought became divided in an inside, where the concepts are, and an outside, where the metaphors are banished. This division considered as evident, is based on the alleged objective structure of reality. But for that precise reason, the ‘fact’ that metaphysics is the effect of a decision and is ruled by a preference, is pushed out of the epistemological field, out of the inside/outside, into ‘outside’. ‘Outside’ lies beyond the metaphysical opposition or complementary inside/outside relation and cannot be considered as an outside that finds itself next to an inside, joined together in a totality. Derrida’s meditations on ‘end’ forbid the reduction of ‘outside’, as if this would be some kind of Hinterwelt where real differential truth resides, while the inside is just the realm of metaphysical (dialectical, phenomenological, existential, structuralist…) shadows and appearances. ‘Outside’ should rather be considered as the effect of the definition of an inside as executed by the metaphysical preference. Derrida understands ‘outside’ differentially and this means that metaphysics cannot discern it and cannot take into account the differential relations that are revealed in deconstruction. ‘Outside’ is not the complement or the negation or any other logical function of the inside, since it could then be integrated into metaphysics. It is also not completely

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 283

 283

3/07/13 09:54

‘other’ than the inside, as in a radical dualism where it could never interfere with this inside. Nevertheless, ‘outside’ can in no way be derived from the inside. Actually, deconstruction reveals how ‘outside’ destabilises the distinction between the outside and the inside and undermines the delineation of the inside in this respect. ‘Outside’ is where everything is lost, where the whole fabric of meaning falls apart. Metaphysics cannot deal with this. Therefore, the title of this paragraph entails a contradiction: ‘outside’ has no meaning, it is where metaphysics finds no meaning, ‘outside’ means nothing to metaphysics.4 The question about meaning is only valid within metaphysics, produces metaphysics and is produced by it. Metaphysics is the question about meaning as the effect of the decision that there is always-already meaning. According to Derrida, metaphysics would be impossible and meaningless without ‘outside’. Metaphysical preference had to cast out scripturality and metaphoricity. These are names for what remains un-thought. Therefore, metaphysics is not able to think scripturality as its own condition. Similarly, it is not possible to consider deconstruction as a philosophy of scripturality in a metaphysical sense. Scripturality becoming a concept, uniting the inside/outside and ‘outside’ would be the death of metaphysics and of deconstruction or differential thought in general. In deconstruction, thought isn’t saved by just reconciling ‘outside’ with metaphysics in a dialectical move – which would, by the way, inevitably expel ‘outside’ again. Scripturality is what remained ‘un-thought’ throughout metaphysics, since to think this way would have been ‘unheard-of ’.

The meaning of ‘un-thought’ and ‘unheard-of’ Metaphysics has always been a question of the right way to think, of epistemological hygiene. To think differently, e.g. metaphorically, was considered not done. What Heidegger merely understood as ‘un-thought’ acquires a moral connotation in Derrida’s work. It would have been ‘unheard-of ’ to think ‘un-thought’. ‘Un-thought’ was not just forgotten but was cast out. When Heidegger mentions ‘un-thought’ and Derrida writes about the ‘unheard-of ’, we shouldn’t look for specific contents that originally belonged to the philosophical field and were then deliberately removed so that metaphysics could carry on undisturbed. That would still be metaphysics, but upside down. To consider ‘un-thought’ as a hitherto neglected set of concepts would be highly self-contradictory. ‘Un-thought’ can never be turned (back) into thought, since it is without content and has to be thought as ‘un-thought’. Differential thought holds that there is no epistemological relationship between what is thought – i.e. metaphysics – and what remains ‘un-thought’. There are no contents that are thought and, apart from those, contents that aren’t. Therefore, it would be better not to say that ‘un-thought’ is cast out but rather that the casting-out remained un-thought.

284

Metaphors.indb 284

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

Derrida takes up Heidegger’s ‘un-thought’ and elaborates it as what remained ‘unheard’ throughout metaphysics. Criticism of metaphysics implies a certain dissatisfaction. Not that metaphysics can be called wrong, but something seems to have been ignored. Just taking up what already has been thought, like Hegel did, is to ignore ‘un-thought’. To Derrida, this refusal to think ‘un-thought’ points to an even ‘deeper’ and ‘earlier’ ‘ignorance’. What Derrida considers ‘un-thought’ is what is actually scandalous to metaphysics. What reveals itself in deconstruction is not ‘just’ un-thought, it is even unheard-of. What is in fact unheard-of in metaphysics is that its archaeology and teleology are illusionary and that therefore its whole fabric is bound to be frustrated. The limitations of its aims reveal the delay of full truth as non-accidental.

Plus de métaphore5 ‘Metaphor’ is not the key term in Derrida’s thought. It is not possible to characterise deconstruction as a sort of metaphorology, more precisely as the re-editing of metaphysics in terms of a metaphorology. Metaphorology cannot itself escape from metaphysics, as Heidegger noted.6 This would be a ‘logos’ in its contemporary form, meaning a rational, conceptual system, a science to be precise, about the status of the metaphor. As long as the opposition between a concept and a metaphor is maintained, we cannot go ‘beyond’ metaphysics since metaphysics hinges on the opposition between a concept and a metaphor. Deconstruction shows how these two are intimately entwined. What Derrida calls a ‘general extended economy’7 of supplement (supplément) is at work here. On the one hand, the metaphoricity of concepts allows for a dissemination of meaning – more metaphors – on the other, the metaphor that covers the exclusion of metaphors stays out of philosophical view – at least one metaphor missing. In other words, a concept is only able to acquire (more, supplementary) meaning because it always-already works as a metaphor, because metaphoricity works within a concept. At the same time it loses its alleged clarity and univocity. A general economy of meaning allows for more and less meaning, while a restricted economy of meaning prefers a positive, exclusive, univocal meaning as laid down in the stable relation that is the sign. Metaphoricity comes into view through the logic of supplement that is totally illogical from a metaphysical perspective. Nevertheless, ‘metaphor’ is a suitable term to come to grips with Derrida’s cri­ ticism of metaphysics since it is a familiar concept, like delay. Derrida often uses names, familiar ones or neologisms, for what appears in deconstruction, i.e. at the ‘end’ of metaphysics.8 These names aren’t words that correspond with an object or an objective state of affairs – as in ‘fact’ – but names that point to where the ‘end’ of metaphysics happens, where thought becomes differential, i.e. on the one hand not quite metaphysical anymore, yet on the other without actually having turned into

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 285

 285

3/07/13 09:54

something else. For instance, where metaphysical clarity vanishes, the opposition between metaphors and concepts vanishes too and becomes untenable, senseless. According to Derrida, the so-called evidence of this opposition is therefore the result of a decision. Of course, this decision has nothing psychological, but belongs to historical ontology in the near-Heideggerian sense of ‘destiny’. It is even less than that, since in Derrida-vocabulary, a true decision can only happen where there is total arbitrariness and undecidability, where a decision on solid grounds is impossible. There is no pre-given epistemological structure that precedes and determines thought. Every epistemology, every thought rests on something undecidable. There is no natural opposition between concept (in one camp) and metaphor (in the other). ‘Outside’ metaphysics, concepts and metaphors don’t even exist as such. Both these epistemological entities in their oppositional/subordinate relationships are an effect of the decision and of the strategically persisting preference in which metaphysics originates. So, there is no solid reason to prefer concepts over metaphors, if only because the search for solid reasons is per se a feature of metaphysics and therefore an effect of the preference. This is actually a first impression of how this preference works within metaphysics without being recognised as such, i.e. ‘outside’. At the ‘end’ of metaphysics, the undecidability between these two terms appears. However, once a decision has taken place, thought is determined by a specific preference – in a non-psychological sense. To make it absolutely clear: no subject, whether Man or God or History, has decided on this. The decision is not the cause or original intention whereas metaphysics is the effect. Metaphysics is the decision, the preference, the opposition and subordination (of metaphor and what is considered equally ‘less’). What metaphorology does is precisely what Derrida avoids, namely to look for the metaphor behind each concept, to divulge the full meaning of a concept by adding the meaning that results from the background metaphorical workings to the strictly conceptual meaning – if any. Metaphoricity is something more than metaphorisation or metaphorologising. Even the search for the metaphor behind the metaphor is frustrated in deconstruction, since the ‘meta-metaphor’ still follows a metaphysical logic and is actually always the concept of a metaphor. The concept of metaphor can only trace thought back to an alleged natural origin, when thought wasn’t disciplined enough to generate concepts. But the metaphor ‘metaphor’, or metaphoricity, is banished ‘outside’ once the logos – i.e. the concept that has shaken off its metaphoricity but serves as a metaphor for ‘shaking off metaphoricity’ and ‘grasping pure truth’ – urges thought towards conceptuality. Metaphoricity, just like scripturality, isn’t a concept and doesn’t confine itself to a concept. If it were a concept, it could never be ‘outside’. It ‘spreads out’ over the whole conceptual field and pervades metaphysics unseen as if, from ‘outside’, it ‘disseminates’ and ‘iterates’: it is a name for this deferral. It is a mistake to read metaphoricity in terms of property, category, faculty, predicate or the like. Metaphoricity points out that every concept always-already behaves like a metaphor. Its meaning (signification)

286

Metaphors.indb 286

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

isn’t fixated on an eternal idea (signified), but is a crystallisation of an irretrievable trace of a movement through a tissue of pointers (signifiers) that expand and exceed and at the same time disturb and obscure the original (archè) and final (telos) meaning of the pure concept (i.e. metaphysical truth). Due to this dissemination, this spreading out over the whole ‘text’ of metaphysics, no part of it can be legitimately declared exempt from metaphoricity. This is the redemptive aspect of deconstruction, it delivers thought from the epistemological strangleholds that are supposed to safeguard signification processes from uncontrollable influences and un-’author’-ised effects. Philosophy is not capable of formulating its relationship to metaphors, or the relationship between concepts and metaphors, because the metaphor, though working within metaphysics, will always postpone or delay its own full understanding, its own complete conceptualisation. Also, metaphysics can only describe a metaphor as inferior. Thanks to the metaphorical workings of thought, unseen by metaphysics, the ultimate dream of finally explaining total reality within a finite and logically coherent set of clear concepts, seems permanently frustrated. Despite this metaphysical frustration, thought as such is possible thanks to what hides in delay. Delay is of course not the causal principle of the production of meaning. But the production of meaning irreducible to the systematic conquering of an objective truth is marked by delay. Derrida calls metaphysical teleology an illusion. The delay isn’t temporary; it is an unalienable feature of thought. To see this, thought has to leave the metaphysical view and take what Heidegger calls a Schritt zurück. Then there appears no reason at all why this delay should be temporary, or an uncomfortable slip of the Western mind. No concept is without its materiality, its metaphoricity – even ‘concept’ is partly a metaphor, referring to ‘grabbing’. And no metaphor is without conceptual potential, otherwise thinking itself would not be possible. As Derrida pointed out in his typically ambivalent way: Il faut la vérité – we need truth and at the same time we lack truth. So again, as Nietzsche said, we are well advised to keep on dreaming whilst knowing that we’re dreaming.

The metaphysical trap The metaphysical trap would kill thought, i.e. metaphysics as well as differential thought. This trap has to do with a very cunning confusion between inside, outside and ‘outside’, a confusion that can only arise at the ‘end’ of metaphysics. If we react thoughtlessly to that confusion, the ‘end’ will actually end. And thoughtlessly means: not taking deconstruction seriously. The gravest error would be to try to solve the problem of metaphoricity of thought by declaring the metaphor as the true nature of the concept. This would indeed turn all concepts into metaphors but also turn the metaphor of ‘metaphor’ into one master

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 287

 287

3/07/13 09:54

concept of philosophy. What happens then? The claim that all philosophical concepts are ‘really’ metaphors, excludes the metaphor ‘metaphor’ of its metaphoricity – which is what Derrida means where he writes that at least one metaphor is always expelled, pushed ‘outside’. This claim throws thought right back into metaphysics, turning philosophy into a metaphorology, where presumed concepts explain the nature and workings of metaphors in thought, art, religion, and others. A metaphor is not the origin of a concept, nor its original form, according to deconstruction. Firstly, because that would suggest an original natural language of which metaphysical language would be a derived form. Secondly, since that would privilege the diachronic aspect of language above the synchronic, this would insert the relationship between a metaphor and a concept into a historical scheme and in this way subject it to a metaphysical logic. A metaphor then becomes an archè that secures the metaphysical teleology. Differance however doesn’t force a transparent conceptual origin and deduction on the relationship between a concept and a metaphor, but allows it to sink back and disappear into the play of differences. Again, the shift from a concept to a metaphor has nothing to do with deconstruction, but stays safely within metaphysics. The metaphor cannot replace the concept in a turning upside down of philosophy. It could be said that a metaphor joins the position of a concept each time philosophy formulates a proposition. Such a formula tries to go beyond the opposition metaphor/concept. Since this opposition isn’t ‘objective’, it can be considered the result of a decision. Metaphysics is the name and the history or effect of that decision. This opposition, this ‘concept’ and ‘metaphor’, are effects of something that ‘precedes’ the decision called metaphysics, something that hasn’t any clear-cut (or other) meaning but rather produces meaning. Since it precedes the decision, it might be undecidable. Differance is ‘where’ meaning hasn’t yet been decided (about Being, about structure, logic, substance, subject, ...). It isn’t an entity either, since that supposes a structure, and therefore a decision. Entering the sphere of differance, we meet the play of differences that are always-already there and produce meanings, oppositions. Metaphoricity appears when one studies the concept in a non-metaphysical way, i.e. when one is not obeying the metaphysical preference. In the same way, scripturality manifests itself in the study of de Saussure’s sign, as absence shows up in the proximity of the search for presence and so on. They all appear as what was opposed and suppressed by the metaphysical ideal. Since metaphoricity belongs to differance, it cannot be a concept itself. It isn’t a property of the sign or of another linguistic unit. As a concept, it would simply have been cast out. A ‘metaphor’ is a concept, a predicate, an epistemological as well as a moral judgement. Metaphoricity is the name of the differential effect that a concept is never pure, is always-already referential, contextual, material, metaphorical, in short: scriptural. Therefore, a concept will never be totally transparent, eternally identical to itself, definitely positive, semantically exclusive. A concept will have to be read differentially these days. The fact that philosophy in the times of Plato and Hegel would have

288

Metaphors.indb 288

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

liked the Forms or the full Geist to be the sole protagonists of thought, is typical but obsolete and irrelevant. Nostalgia is not without its risk here. All that is of interest to us now, is that these instances of the preference for concepts unseen as such up until Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida challenged philosophy to the insertion of metaphysical entities, or what Derrida calls signifiés transcendentaux, like archè and telos. Differential thought shows that thinking isn’t either purely conceptual or purely metaphorical but is carried by ‘something’ that is ‘earlier than’ the metaphysical operation of opposition (and suppression), a conceptual and metaphorical blend of what cannot be made out to be one of those. At this point, thought manifests itself as undecidable, prior to the historical symmetry break, the decision and the preference that make up metaphysics. Since it is undecidable (on the ‘outside’), thought jumps from outside to inside and back, in a sort of ‘oscillation’. In so doing, it avoids petrifaction into a concept or a metaphor. It maintains a differential relationship between them instead of a metaphysical one – that, as we have seen, carries its own impossibility. This impossibility has convinced some thinkers of the uselessness of philosophy as such. Paraphrasing Rorty, they seem to say that Hegel and Nietzsche used metaphors as well as Proust but that only Proust was aware of doing this, while philosophers always think themselves to be closer to a conceptually arranged truth. That this is rather one-sided and pessimistic has been suggested before when I quoted Derrida’s Il nous faut la vérité. The actual philosophical impasse cannot be solved by dismissing philosophy and trading it for literature. Rorty’s suggestion would overthrow any conceptual aspiration or operation and promote the metaphor as the only carrier of sense. But here again, Derrida refers back to where thought makes sense in two yet inseparable meanings: sensible in the metaphorical, scriptural, physical way and in the conceptual, understanding, rationally plausible way. The metaphor doesn’t replace the concept, like scripturality doesn’t obliterate the book, or the theory. Turning philosophy into literature is just as hopeless as turning deconstruction into metaphysics. According to Derrida, it is exactly due to the indecision about which sense the sense should take, that thought can happen. Just like a purely conceptual thought would immediately converge and implode, a purely metaphorical thought would spread out infinitely, diverge beyond any meaning, explode in an ever-increasing and inflating indigestion of meaning. In both cases we would end up with the absurd. Derrida maintains that where meaning comes from cannot in itself mean anything. And so, each decision, should it become more than an ephemeral condensation, constitutes the threat of total meaninglessness in the end.

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 289

 289

3/07/13 09:54

Conclusion Metaphysics considers metaphoricity a threat to thought.9 It has cast all metaphors out of the epistemological inside where only pure concepts are welcome. Within the framework of metaphysics, there is an inside and an outside that arranges and organises all morally flavoured oppositions. On the inside, we have all the concepts, the pure ideas, the eternal forms… On the outside, there are metaphors, contradictions, poetry… which are actually still treated as concepts since they function within an oppositional structure. Metaphysics doesn’t see that this arrangement has omitted something, ‘outside’ its scope. Its ‘end’ means the evocation – not the reopening – of ‘outside’ that can only be thought outside of the (inside/)outside. The discarded metaphor still remained within the metaphysical field, even or certainly when it takes the place of the concept in a metaphorology. The discarded metaphoricity, however, not only concerns metaphors, but thought as such. Metaphoricity isn’t the set of properties that constitutes a ‘metaphor’ but is a name for the metaphorical, i.e. scriptural, working of thought as such or, in Derrida’s words, of a concept always-already behaving like a metaphor. Metaphoricity works as the outside of the outside which also affects the inside. These workings are gathered under the name of scripturality. Scripturality has to affect the inside, otherwise ‘outside’ would be only the opposite of the inside/ outside, of the metaphysical structure. But ‘outside’ can never be thought of as the opposite of the metaphysical field. ‘Outside’ isn’t conceptual and therefore also not metaphorical – at least not in the manner of ‘anti-conceptual’. Metaphoricity affects concepts in a way that is invisible to metaphysics. Classical epistemology cannot explain, decode or describe its workings. Yet, as Derrida suggests, these workings keep thought going. Metaphysics’ own teleology is suicidal. Should it ever reach total explanation, then thought would stand still and die. It is therefore extremely fortunate that this aim turns out to be an illusion. Whether such explanation would be ‘objectively’ true or not is beside the point. Deconstruction accepts no ‘truth’ beyond the Derridean play of differences. Delay, only visible to metaphysics as temporary and secondary, warranted the unlimited play of thought that is revealed at its ‘end’. The same goes for metaphoricity. Misunderstanding scripturality or metaphoricity is not without its risks. Every attempt to conceptualise scripturality is bound to fail, but the refusal to acknowledge this failure is a threat to thought. The metaphysical trap could switch off both metaphysics and differential thought at the mains, once thought tumbles into it. Heidegger’s appeal to a Schritt zurück still holds. Every attempt to conceptualise, though unavoidable, is at the same time an attempt to suspend metaphoricity. Metaphysics considered total conceptualisation its legitimate aim. This is, however, a claim that has no grounds but itself. It is the proposition that only concepts have access to truth. But metaphoricity has no limits, no boundaries. Scripturality doesn’t recognise a restricted area. Indeed,

290

Metaphors.indb 290

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

both names will enable thought to undermine the very schemes of inside/outside, access/ denial, and preferred/unheard-of. Deconstruction disarms any claim to archè or telos. Differential thought considers partial and temporary conceptualisation an inalienable ingredient of thought, but prevents the conceptualisation (that produces a theory, model, system…) to petrify into a fixed structure, exempt of context and impure meaning, of metaphoricity. This means that Derrida considers both conceptualisation and metaphoricity equally productive in meaning. Indeed, Derrida doesn’t have a preference here. Deconstruction doesn’t replace the one production of meaning by the other. They are both inextricable tendencies of signification, in the sense that one cannot take place without the other. This inextricability does not restore an original unity, but results from the metaphysical preference at its ‘end’. At its ‘end’, metaphysics stumbles upon what is always discarded by the decision in which metaphysics originates. This decision produces metaphoricity as an effect that had to remain ‘outside’ as long as metaphysics could hide its preferential foundations behind an alleged objectivity. Metaphoricity urges us to accept the fact that signification is a process that we cannot pretend to control by the insertion of ‘artificial’, arbitrary entities into thought. It tells us that metaphysics is the history of the insertion of that which ensures the satisfaction of its preference. It also shows us that it is a mistake to think that in order to have meaning, it should be pure, original, eternal, one, transparent, clear and distinct. On the contrary, deconstruction shows how thought can happen thanks to metaphoricity, thanks to what isn’t pure, what hasn’t any meaning, what even isn’t. In this sense, metaphoricity saves thought from late-modern collapse – or at least of the illusion thereof. This ‘programme’ has enormous impact and implications on politics, ethics, religion and more, but also on philosophy itself. Yet it doesn’t supply a new epistemology, it persists in the same epistemologies, but as parodies. Derrida also assures us that there is no way back, that the parody cannot be ‘undone’. Instead, the parody ‘undoes’ the basic operations that constitute what is parodied. This mustn’t suggest two different, mutually exclusive versions of metaphysics, a real and original one on the one hand and a false parody on the other – or the other way around. Metaphysics at its ‘end’ only persists as parody and this persistence is called deconstruction. The principles and norms that pervade philosophy, politics, ethics, law, education, health care… all appear as strategic, preferential, and arbitrary. We can still hold on to those principles and norms, but no longer as if they were ordained from the beginning of time, as if they make up the original and eternal blueprint of reality. We also mustn’t lose sight of the fact that these norms and principles cannot be simply justified by the ‘humanistic’ label. In short, deconstruction tells us that philosophy – or thought in general – is unable to supply ethics, politics, etc., with founding norms and principles that precede their praxis in a way that only their discovery and application, i.e. only a correct epistemology can warrant true ethics, politics, etc. What is called ‘self-evident’ or ‘natural’ always

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 291

 291

3/07/13 09:54

hides a strategic operation. Once this operation is ‘undone’, what was considered natural and self-evident can produce unexpected meaning in an undetermined and indeterminable context. The deconstructive exploration of ethics, politics, law, art, religion can be read as the way Derrida shows the relevance of deconstruction, thereby frustrating those who called – and kept on calling – deconstruction futile, academic, esoteric, and in other ways ‘untrue to reality’.10 And this while deconstruction actually doubts the validity of any rigid definition of reality. Deconstruction pleads modesty and humility, once philosophy learns how the alleged triumph of metaphysics had to be supported by hidden and forgotten strategies. At the same time, it is clear to me that this modesty only refers to philosophy itself. Deconstruction confronts thought with its own limits but holds no claim to what remains ‘beyond’ philosophy – i.e. probably theology,11 not to be confused with religion.

292

Metaphors.indb 292

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

Bibliography Derrida, J. (1967a). ‘De l’économie restreinte à l’économie générale’ in Idem, L’écriture et la différence, Paris, Seuil, pp. 369-407 Derrida, J. (1967b). ‘L’écriture avant la lettre’ in Idem, De la grammatologie, Paris, Minuit, pp. 15-142 Derrida, J. (1972a). ‘La différance’ in Idem, Marges – de la philosophie, Paris, Minuit, pp. 1-29 Derrida, J. (1972b). ‘La mythologie blanche’ in Idem, Marges – de la philosophie, Paris, Minuit, pp. 247-324 Derrida, J. (1972d). ‘La pharmacie de Platon’ in Idem, La dissémination, Paris, Seuil, pp. 77-213 Derrida, J.– Roudinesco, E. (2001). ‘Politiques de la différence’ in Idem, De quoi demain… Dialogue, Paris, Champs – Flammarion, pp. 41-61 Heidegger, M. (1957). Der Satz vom Grund, Pfullingen, Neske

Endnotes 1

2

We only have to be reminded of the political connotations of those terms to recognise the impossibility of keeping this opposition claire et distincte.

Metaphysics is not only its own 25 centuries of history, but is as such confined to the West, the

Abendland in the words of Heidegger. So, the ‘end’ of metaphysics can also refer to the breaking down

of this rigid partitioning of the world. There is nothing geographical about the ‘end’ of metaphysics,

but perhaps ‘territorial’ might be a better approach, since this term echoes the sense of ‘conquering’,

‘covering’, ‘total capture’ – all hidden metaphorical meanings of the word ‘concept’. While metaphysics

is horrified by a concept that is tangled up in a metaphorical string of connotations, this string becomes visible at the ‘end’ of metaphysics as an unavoidable trace of meaning and no longer as an

accidental epistemological slip that has to be avoided or at least remedied. 3

That is why I refer elsewhere to the palliative function of deconstruction. It accompanies metaphysics through its ‘end’, without fixing a date for its euthanasia. When – if ever – metaphysics should be

over, then delay will be over as well, since no one will ever bother again about the ideal of total

description of the world.

Erik Meganck

Metaphors.indb 293

 293

3/07/13 09:54

4

Here, we meet an interesting echo of Heidegger’s elaboration of Nichts in Was ist Metaphysik? (1929)

5

This is a subtitle from ‘La mythologie blanche’ and can be translated as ‘(No) more metaphor’,

6

Heidegger (1957), p. 89.

7

Cf. Derrida (1967a).

8

To put it rather bluntly, deconstruction is metaphysics, but at its ‘end’.

9

How can metaphysics consider something as a threat when unable to think it? This is the wrong

and in Einführung in die Metaphysik (1935).

revealing the logic of supplement.

question, since it suggests that deconstruction has access to a truth (about metaphysics) that remains hidden to metaphysics, turning deconstruction into the new metaphysical standard. When metaphysics realises that it is the history of the persistence of a preference and as such the result of a

decision instead of the objectively true representation of reality, it also has to admit the mirror side of this preference, namely the confession to an expulsion of whatever threatened the construction

of its archaeology and teleology. The suppression of the metaphor presupposed the expulsion of metaphoricity.

10

To give but one example, in ‘Politiques de la différence’, Derrida mentions the under-representation

of women in French politics, the consequences and implications of which called for the most urgent

and explicit déconstruction of all the effects of a ‘phallocentrism’ that pervades not only the ‘theoretical’

or ‘speculative’, (cf. Derrida − Roudinesco [2001], p. 46), but also the concrete, the effective, the political.

11

In this, deconstruction differs from e.g. Rorty’s irony that just excludes religion and theology by considering them as irrelevant or Vattimo’s weak thought that submits religion and theology to his philosophical secularisation.

294

Metaphors.indb 294

Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?

3/07/13 09:54

Contributors

Vanessa Albus is lecturer in philosophy at the University of Duisburg − Essen since 2005. She was visiting lecturer at the University of Dortmund (2004-2005), research assistant (2002-2004) and research fellow at the University of Bochum (1998-2000). She was also a teacher at grammar and vocational schools. She studied English and Philosophy. Her PhD dissertation was on the relation between worldview and metaphor in the 18th century (Weltbild und Metapher. Untersuchungen zur Philosophie im 18. Jahrhundert, 2001). Her research interests include philosophy of culture, didactics of philosophy and modern philosophy. Benjamin Biebuyck is professor of German literature at Ghent University (Belgium),

where he also teaches German intellectual history. He studied in Ghent and Basel (Switzerland) and was research fellow at the Flemish Research Foundation. He published extensively on literary theory and issues concerning literary metaphor (e.g. Die poietische Metapher. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der Figürlichkeit, 1998), on Nietzsche as well as on 19th and 20th century German literature in books and journals such as Philologus, Germano-Slavica, Style and Nietzsche-Studien, and is supervisor of several research projects on Nietzsche and on figurativeness. He is also co-editor of the scholarly journal Phrasis. Studies in Language and Literature.

Filip Buekens is associate professor at Tilburg University (Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Language) and professor of philosophy at the University of Leuven (Belgium). He is currently working on social ontology, applying John Searle’s theory of institutions to religious and anthropological phenomena. He also published on the clash between the scientific and the manifest image, illusions of understanding, theories of truth and accuracy, and semantics.

Contributors

Metaphors.indb 295

 295

3/07/13 09:54

Arthur Cools is associate professor in Contemporary Philosophy and Aesthetics at the University of Antwerp. He is the author of Langage et subjectivité. Vers une approche du différend entre Maurice Blanchot et Emmanuel Levinas (2007), co-edited The Locus of Tragedy (2008) and edited Maurice Blanchot. De stem en het schrift. Drie opstellen over de esthetische distantie in de vertelling, het humanisme en de toekomst van de boekcultuur (2012). His work concentrates on the field of French contemporary philosophy, with particular interest in the question of singularity in relation to subjectivity and the interplay between philosophy and literature. Frédéric Cossutta (Groupe de Recherche sur l’Analyse du Discours Philosophique, ceditec-Paris Est Val de Marne) studied philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Université Paris I-Sorbonne, and linguistics at the Université Paris VII. His thesis dealt with Methodological problems in reading philosophical texts (Thèse d’Etat, Paris I-Sorbonne). He was programm director at the Collège International de Philosophie (Paris) and researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (France). From 1993 on he leads a research group of philosophers, linguists and textual analysis experts (Groupe de Recherche sur l’Analyse du Discours Philosophique, ceditec, Université Paris Est Val de Marne). They analyse main features of philosophical discourse: argumentation, fiction, textual genres (especially dialogues), aphorisms, ways of transmission and teaching, and the relations between philosophy and other discourses (literature or science). Ralf Konersmann is professor of philosophy at the Christian Albrecht University Kiel. From 2005 to 2007 he was a founding member of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg. He is the author of numerous books, papers, essays, articles and contributions in newspapers. He is a co-editor of the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Selected book publications: Spiegel und Bild. Zur Metaphorik neuzeitlicher Subjektivität (1988); Kulturphilosophie zur Einführung (2003, 20102); Kulturelle Tatsachen (2006); Kulturkritik (2008); ed. Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern (2007, 20113); ed. Lucien Braun, Bilder der Philosophie (2009, 20122); ed. Handbuch Kulturphilosophie (2012). He is chief editor of the Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie (since 2007). Eric v.d. Luft earned his B.A. magna cum laude in philosophy and religion at

Bowdoin College in 1974 and his Ph.D. in philosophy at Bryn Mawr College in 1985. From 1987 to 2006 he was Curator of Historical Collections at suny Upstate Medical University. He has taught at Villanova University, Syracuse University, Upstate Medical University, and the College of Saint Rose, and is listed in Who’s Who in America. Luft has written extensively in philosophy, religion, history, history of medicine, and nineteenth-century studies. He is the author, editor, or translator

296

Metaphors.indb 296

Contributors

3/07/13 09:54

of over 600 publications, including Hegel, Hinrichs, and Schleiermacher on Feeling and Reason in Religion: The Texts of Their 1821-22 Debate (1987); God, Evil, and Ethics: A Primer in the Philosophy of Religion (2004); A Socialist Manifesto (2007); Die at the Right Time: A Subjective Cultural History of the American Sixties (2009); and Ruminations: Selected Philosophical, Historical, and Ideological Papers (2010).

Edit Anna Lukács. 2008: PhD in Philology elte Budapest (Dissertation La

métaphore de la sphère dans les œuvres d’Alain de Lille, Jean de Meun et Vincent de Beauvais). 2008-2010: Postdoctoral research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Institut für Philosophie of the Freie Universität Berlin. 2011: British Academy visiting scholar at the Faculty of Philosophy of Oxford University; Senior postdoctoral research fellow (Lise Meitner Fellowship of the fwf ) at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung Vienna (Project: Study of the manuscript tradition and critical edition of Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei).

Erik Meganck studied philosophy, theology, psychology and paedagogy in Louvain, Antwerp, Ghent and Rome. His research interests include critique of metaphysics, philosophy of religion, contemporary continental thought, secularisation and religious identity. He published Nihilistische caritas? Secularisatie bij Gianni Vattimo (2005). He teaches philosophy of religion at the University of Leuven, and works for the organisation and the congregation of the Brothers of Charity on questions about care, vocation and identity. Falko Schmieder studied communication science, political science and sociology at the Technical University of Dresden, the Free University of Berlin and Humboldt University in Berlin. 2003-04: research fellow at the Feuerbach complete edition of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Doctorate in 2004 at the Free University of Berlin. Since 2004 guest lecturer at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at the Free University Berlin and at the Europa University Viadrina in Frankfurt/ Oder, since 2005 researcher on the project ‘Theory and Concept of an Interdisciplinary Conceptual History’ at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin; from 2008 to 2009 visiting professor in the Division History of Communication/Media Cultures at the Free University of Berlin. Since 2009 head of the research project ‘Transfer of Knowledge − Knowledge Transfers. On the History and Actuality of Transfers between Life Sciences and the Humanities (1930/1970/2010)’ at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin. Book publications (selection): Ludwig Feuerbach und der Eingang der klassischen Fotografie. Zum Verhältnis von anthropologischem und historischem Materialismus (2004); ed., Begriffsgeschichte der Naturwissenschaften. Zur historischen Dimension naturwissenschaftlicher Konzepte (2008); ed., Der sich selbst Contributors

Metaphors.indb 297

 297

3/07/13 09:54

entfremdete und wiedergefundene Marx (2010). Articles on the history of the concepts ‘projection’, ‘fetishism’, ‘utopia’, ‘survival’, ‘petty socialism’, etc.

Guido Vanheeswijck is full professor of philosophy at the University of Antwerp and part-time professor at the Institute of Philosophy (KU Leuven). His research and publications concern the domains of metaphysics, philosophy of religion, theories of secularization and philosophy of culture. He is member of the editorial board of Bijdragen. International Journal in Philosophy and Theology, Streven and Collingwood and British Idealism Studies. Recent publications include ‘De dubbele Franciscaanse erfenis: een ontbrekende schakel in het Löwith-Blumenberg-debat’, in Tijdschrift voor filosofie 74(2012), pp. 11-44; ‘History Man: the First Biography on R.G. Collingwood’, in Journal of the Philosophy of History 6 (2012), pp. 138-146; ‘The Concept of Transcendence in Charles Taylor’s Later Work’, in W. Stoker a.o. eds, Looking Beyond? Shifting Views of Transcendence in Philosophy, Theology, Art, and Politics (2012), pp. 67-84. Gert-Jan van der Heiden studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Groningen. He holds a PhD in Mathematics (Groningen 2003) and in Philosophy (Nijmegen 2008). At the moment he is assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies of the Radboud University Nijmegen. Since June 2010, he works on an nwo-Veni project entitled ‘Conflicting Pluralities’. He mainly publishes on hermeneutics and contemporary French philosophy and has recently published The Truth (and Untruth) of Language: Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Derrida on Disclosure and Displacement (2010). Walter Van Herck received his PhD in Philosophy in 1996 at the Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven with a dissertation on Metaphors, Relativism and Religious Belief. He is associate professor of philosophy of religion at the University of Antwerp. His research interests concern mainly religious epistemology, religious language, and broader, the interaction between culture and religion. He has published on Master Eckhart, David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michael Polanyi. Among his recent publications are edited volumes on Humour and Religion (together with H. Geybels, 2011) and The Sacred in the City (together with L. Gomez, 2012). He is editor-in-chief of International Journal of Philosophy and Theology (Routledge). Frans van Peperstraten is associate professor at the Department of Philosophy

of Tilburg University (Netherlands). He teaches social philosophy and philosophy of art and culture. In his research he specializes on Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe

298

Metaphors.indb 298

Contributors

3/07/13 09:54

and Lyotard. Some recent publications: ‘Modernity in Hölderlin’s Remarks on Oedipus and Antigone’, in A. Cools a.o. eds, The Locus of Tragedy (2008), pp. 105-120; ‘Displacement or Composition? Lyotard and Nancy on the trait d’union between Judaism and Christianity’, in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 65 (2009), pp. 29-46; ‘Der Nazismus-Vorwurf: Wo wird das Denken zur Ideologie?’, in A. Denker – H. Zaborowski eds, Heidegger und der Nationalsozialismus II. Interpretationen (Heidegger-Jahrbuch 4)(2009), pp. 281-297; ‘Bringing our Essence to Stand. Heidegger on Die Gestalt’, in Existentia Meletai Sophias. An International Journal of Philosophy 20 (2010), pp. 93-124.

Koenraad Verrycken is full professor of philosophy at the University of Antwerp.

He teaches ancient philosophy and metaphysics. His publications in the area of ancient philosophy deal with the metaphysics of Alexandrian Neoplatonism, e.g. ‘John Philoponus’, in L.P. Gerson ed., The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity (2010), pp. 733-755. In the area of metaphysics his publications include Giorgio de Chirico. Metaphysics without Philosophy (2006, Dutch) and W. Dilthey. The Impossibility of Metaphysics (2010, co-author, Dutch).

Contributors

Metaphors.indb 299

 299

3/07/13 09:54