Some Metaphor-Related Issues

Abstract

Now that I have articulated my account of metaphor, and have addressed the phenomenon of creation of similarity within it, it would be useful to examine what consequences it has for some other issues related to metaphor. For instance, there is the thesis “All knowledge is metaphorical,” which is as vehemently supported by some scholars as it is opposed by others. Since I have characterized the metaphorical in contrast with the conventional, it might seem that my account of metaphor implicitly rejects this thesis. On the contrary, I show in Section 2 that proponents of this thesis do not use the term ‘metaphor’ in the same sense as I have been using it; and with their sense of metaphor, my account comes out strongly favoring the thesis. I also show in this section how using the term metaphor in different senses has created a needless debate over literal-metaphorical dichotomy.