Metaphor Research In Analytic Philosophy

Metaphor is an important theme of Anglo-American analytic philosophy in the latter half of 20th century. The bankruptcy of logical positivism is important precondition of liberating metaphor from the figure of speech’s durance. I have explored Anglo-American analytic philosophy’s metaphor research in the clue of meaning and cognition. There are two purposes of my dissertation:first, I want to illuminate metaphor’s important function in philosophy and science; second, I want to describe Anglo-American analytic philosophy’s various amendment projects to logical positivism in the latter half of 20th century by metaphor research.First, I have divided Anglo-American analytic philosophy’s metaphor research into three stages based on the conjunction of logic and history:The first stage is classical metaphor theory (from Aristotle to logical positivism), like most traditional philosopher, logical positivists think that metaphor is ornamental, it only has function in style; the second stage is interaction view of metaphor (1930’s,1950’s-1970’s), interaction view attempts to argued metaphor’s integrity and irreducibility, along with metaphor’s function in the course of new meaning’s creation, these argument was based on the interaction of semantic level, interaction view has abolished traditional ornamental view of metaphor; the third stage is literal theory (1970’s-1980’s), literal theory argued that metaphor is not meaning renewal of semantic level, it denied the existence of metaphorical meaning and metaphor’s cognitivity, literal theory has turned metaphor research scene from semantics to pragmatics; the fourth stage is the revival of classical metaphor theory, contemporary metaphor theorist’s treatment of metaphor turned from critical to reaffirmation.In the first part of my dissertation, I have retrospect metaphor research in the history of western philosophy, I have analyzed different factors that frustrated ours proper evaluation on metaphor’s value in different stages. Afterwards, I have explored the logical start point of contemporary metaphor research--Ⅰ. A. Richards’interaction view of metaphor, on one hand, I have indicated how it broke with the traditional view, on the other hand, I have indicated why it was rediscovered by Max Black as late as 1950’s.The core of my dissertation is two debates surrounding metaphorical meaning and metaphor’s cognitivity between interaction view and literal theory:The first debate is surrounding whether metaphorical meaning is exist between Max Black and Donald Davidson. This debate was caused by different mean definition in Black’s ordinary language philosophy and Davidson’s truth-conditional semantics. Black thinks that any content was grasped by hearer in successful conversation could be called’meaning’, so, during the comprehension of metaphorical statement, we can grasp some content different from the literal meaning of statement, forasmuch, metaphorical statement has created some new metaphorical meaning. Whereas Davidson thinks that the meaning of a sentence is its truth-condition, and most metaphorical statements have no such truth-condition, so it has no such special metaphorical meaning, metaphor is only the special effect caused by the same literal meaning. This debate has deepened our understanding to the operation mechanism of metaphor.The second debate is surrounding whether metaphor is cognitive between Mary Hesse and Richard Rorty. Hesse and Rorty’s different answers to this question were caused by their different modified programs to logical positivism’s epistemology. Of the two ends, the knowledge and the world, what Hesse wants to modified is the knowledge, and what Rorty wants to modified is the world. As a historicist scientific philosopher, Hesse thinks that the relationship between knowledge and world is not deductive, it is only approximative correspondence. As the relationship between language and world is not one-to-one relationship, metaphor, as one mechanism of adjustment to the relationship between language and object in the world, is one important mechanism of scientific innovation, moreover, the use of metaphor was constrained by the feedback loop between knowledge and object, so metaphors in science (models) is cognitive, it is one important part of scientific investigation. As a pragmatic philosopher, Rorty thinks that the world can not determined the true or false of our judgments, our system of knowledge confronted the causal stimulate from the world as an entirety, how we faced certain stimulate is determined by the whole system of belief rather than the world. As most metaphors is false in literal, so metaphors is out of our knowledge and system of belief as world, so the metaphor is non-cognitive, it is only the cause of knowledge rather than the reason. This debate has demonstrated the limits of logical positivism’s epistemology from different sides.In the last part of my dissertation, I have described the tendency of the revival of classical metaphor theory in analytic philosophy after 1980’s. I tried to ague that the revival of classical metaphor theory is not simply reverted to old ways, but gave creative rein to traditional theory on the basis of some contemporary theory. The revival of classical metaphor theory indicated that philosophers have started to ponder over the value and insight of traditional view after the stage of violent criticism, so it marked the development of contemporary metaphor research.During the process of research, I found that the construction of any new metaphor theory is on the premise of some revises to logical positivism’s theory of meaning or knowledge. Metaphor research mapped some different modified programs to logical positivism, such as romanticism, ordinary language philosophy, pragmatism, historicist scientific philosophy and speech act theory etc., it is a good mirror of logical positivism’s gains and losses.