Topics and the Discovery of the New

Abstract

The problem of the discovery of the new, in whatever context, philosophical, literary or scientific, is approached candidly in the well-known passage from Plato’s Meno (80d–e) which has remained the baseline for any discussion of the problems which emerge when we ask — or even before we ask — the question: what is this or that? Do we or do we not know it? This issue is the philosophical ground for any consideration of the question as an element in rhetoric.¹

Es ist nun einmal so, daß der Mensch ganz vorwiegend in Schablonen und Formeln fertigen Gepräges denkt, also nicht wie er sich’s aussucht, sondern wie es gebräuchlich ist nach der Erinnerung […].

(Thomas Mann, Joseph und seine Brüder, III,i.)

But metaphors are not merely things to be seen beyond. In fact one can see beyond them only by using other metaphors. It is as though the ability to comprehend experience through metaphor were a sense, like seeing or touching or hearing. With metaphors providing the only ways to perceive and experience much of the world. Metaphor is as much a part of our functioning as our sense of touch, and as precious.

(Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors we live by. p.239.)

Dulci coniugi in bonis annis ac malis dedicatum.