Philosophical Methodology

On Using Metaphors in Philosophy

Constanze Peres

ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the question of whether metaphors are
sufficient for the fulfillment of philosophical tasks, and, if they are, which cognitive
or methodological place metaphors can have within philosophical discourse. We
can distinguish three attitudes toward metaphors. First is the general rejection of
metaphors in philosophy. Second is the unrestricted affirmation of metaphors as
absolute and as compensating for metaphysics. This conception will be analyzed
critically and shown to be self-contradictory. The third position can be described as
the restricted affirmation of using metaphors. According to this view, metaphors
can be characterized as-strictly speaking-non-philosophical but extrinsic to
constitutive forms in constructing theories. In this view, their function is not to
explain, and they cannot be used as arguments. But, often they contain numerous
implications with value for innovation, as they can anticipate holistic projections
which are not yet fulfilled by theoretical analysis.

This paper deals with the question, of whether the cognitive content of metaphors
can be put to use in philosophy, and, if so, what cognitive or methodological place
metaphors have within philosophical discourse. Three philosophical attitudes
toward metaphors can be distinguished: First, the various arguments for rejection
of metaphors in philosophy. Second, the unrestricted affirmation of metaphors,
taking "absolute metaphor" as the replacement of metaphysics. The third position
can be described as the restricted affirmation of metaphors.
1. The rejection of metaphors in philosophy
The rejection of metaphorical language in philosophy can take any one of five
forms: first of all against confounding metaphors and concepts or arguments,
secondly, against a purposeful blurring of metaphors and concepts, thirdly, against
metaphors in general, fourthly, against using metaphors too often, and fifthly
against using metaphors in special functions.
In my opinion, the first reproach, the reproach of exchanging or confounding
metaphorical and conceptual discourse, is the most common. But I am also of the
opinion, that in a great number of cases the interpreter can be blamed: it can be
the readers fault, if he is not able to identify a metaphor as metaphor, for example,
out of its context. The author on his side can signal the right interpretation. The
decision, if an expression is to act as metaphor or as concept depends on the
1

mode of usage. If the philosopher, for example, emphasizes a metaphor by

situating it in an explicit theoretical context or characterizes it with relevant epithets
or quotation marks, the danger of hidden metaphors is small.
The second case, the willful blurring of concepts and metaphors, in order to
persuade, for example, is less a philosophical than a rhetorical and stylistical
problem. The fourth type of criticism, the injunction, not to use metaphors too often,
or the fifth type, when making use of metaphors, to do so in special functions and
to avoid others, are restricted affirmations of using metaphors. And they may be
classified as weaker forms of the third type of critique, the rejection of the
philosophical use of metaphors on principle: The main argument against
metaphors as adequate articulation is based in an inaccuracy and ambiguity in
regard to that, which substitutes for a metaphor. Briefly summarized the reproach
is: Instead of explicating something, metaphor only indicates it and this in an
equivocal way. Instead of differentiating, metaphor aims at global coherence.
Instead of grasping intrinsic structures, metaphor stays extrinsic or even veils
such structure. According to this conception - beginning with Aristotle (1) metaphors are understood first as a rhetoric figure or as a poetical instrument of
expression, but not as a philosophical kind of articulation. Compared with concept,
sentence, argument or syllogism as the basic philosophical operations, metaphor
is thus marked by a lack of strength and conclusiveness. (2)
2. The Value of "ABSOLUTE" metaphors in philosophy
In contrast to this conception and to the attempt to maximize the explicit character
of theoretical discourse, advocates of metaphors underline their ability to open and
to enlighten precisely because of their ambiguity. According to this point of view
metaphors are able to indicate contexts, which are so global and deep, that they
defy theoretical comprehension. This conception has a long philosophical tradition
as well, particularly since the eighteenth century and Giambattista Vico. (3) In
addition to some postmodern trends (and much ealier), Hans Blumenberg can be
named as one of the main representatives of this approach with his outline of a so
called "metaphorology". I will thus take his approach exemplary.
Blumenberg holds an extreme position in his advocacy of metaphors. In his
opinion, metaphors are fundamental elements of philosophy. It is not possible to go
behind them, to translate them into a conceptual language or to analyze them. He
calls these irreducible philosophical basics "absolute metaphors". (4) In
Blumenbergs conception they take the place of the "theoretically non-fulfillable".
That philosophical discipline, in which this deficiency is most pronounced, is the
realm of metaphysics. We must thus construct another philosophical discipline to
complement metaphysics: the realm of "metaphorics". Its function is even
compensatory. Blumenberg writes: "The loss of metaphysics calls for metaphorics
again on its own place". (5) Here is not the place to criticize Blumenbergs

judgement about contemporary metaphysics. I mentioned it merely in order to

show the central status of metaphors in his conception: for him a metaphor is a
constitutive medium to articulate a cognitive attitude, an attitude, which has not
only the same status as metaphysics - as the traditional center of philosophy - but
is even superior to it.
The conceptual inaccessibility of metaphors and their central position in philosophy
must be studied and differentiated. This study leads to a less affirmative evaluation
of metaphors in philosophy. According to Blumenberg metaphors play a
compensatory role in philosophy, when its special modes of articulation fail, that is,
when concepts, sentences, arguments, and explanations are not able to fulfill their
theoretical tasks. This raises the question, in respect to what they cannot fulfill their
theoretical tasks and what one demands of them. The idea, that theoretical
cognition cannot fulfill its tasks implies in principal an intended object of cognition,
which is outside the theoretical realm, outside the realm, of what can theoretically
be comprehended. Behind such a conception lies the basic conviction that there
exist - perhaps independent - objects of knowledge or a dimension of objects of
knowledge thoroughly independent of theoretical knowledge, which are accessible
to one kind of knowledge and articulation but shut off from the other. But then it
would follow that we are committed to assume something ontologically
inaccessible on the opposite side of the epistemologically unachievable,
something accessible via metaphor. This however means the abrupt end of any
further discourse about this theoretically inaccessible, since it eo ipso can not be
determined by theory, or. with Nicholas Rescher : "Inexpressible questions,
however, cannot only be not answered, they rather cannot be asked at all []". (6)
It is therefore consistent when Blumenberg doesnt tell us anything about what it is
that - compared to theoretical knowledge - absolute metaphors are able to grasp.
Instead he gives a description that is purely extrinsic: "Absolute metaphors
answer those supposedly naive and unanswerable questions which are only
relevant because they cannot be dismissed, because we do not ask them, but find
them already asked in the ground of being." This circumscription of absolute
metaphors as answers remains vague; it leaves open, what absolute metaphors
are answers to, that is (1) which questions we "find [] already asked", i. e. what is
asked, (2) who has asked them, (3) how they are asked, that is, whether and how
these fundamental questions are being formulated, and, as a consequence,
(4) how they can be answered at all or by means of metaphors. In other
words: neither the syntactic relationship between question and answer by
metaphor nor the semantic bearing on something being asked or something that
has to be answered metaphorically are further explained. (7)
But, as I said, the intrinsic indeterminacy of the semantic scope of reference of the
concept of the theoretical inaccessible is implied in that very concept. Hence, thus
Blumenberg: "[In the process of] doing metaphorology we have already deprived
3

ourselves of the possibility of finding answers to those unanswerable questions in

metaphors". (8) But how is it then possible to state that metaphors replace
metaphysics? And furthermore, how is this to take place: Is metaphorics (as, for
instance, art in Schellings Philosophy) developing into an organ of philosophy?
And finally: Who claims and is able to prove that there really is something
theoretically absolute inaccessible? (9) The implications of the concept of absolute
metaphor make clear the contradictions a theoretical text becomes entangled in,
when it grants non-theoretical means of expression, a compensatory cognitive
function of knowledge and, as a consequence, grants them access to an absolute
truth that surpasses theoretical dimensions on principle.
It is up to further research to demonstrate how the absolute metaphor works as an
answer. This research must adress the syntactic elucidation of its answering
function as well as the pragmatic question, how absolute metaphors are used
since a description of one sort of use may lead to a more exact definition of its
compensatory character, such as: always then, when the linguistic or cognitive
situation x obtains, the absolute metaphor must (or can) be employed. However,
to such an inquiry it might be replied with Blumenberg "that a metaphorology can
of course not lead to a method for using metaphors or for handling questions being
expressed in them". (10) If, however, metaphorology is not able to set norms on
the use of absolute metaphors, than all that remains is the particular use
ofungeneralizable metaphors. In which sense, however, is it then possible to speak
of a metaphorology? What is achieved by such a discipline, and to what purpose, if
it neitherlays down and gives reasons for philosophical rules of using
metaphors nor determines the dimension of their objects of reference? (11) How is
for instance the recipient of metaphors able to know, whether he touches the
"inaccessible", or whether he understands (if only approximately) what is meant by
them? (12)
Yet, in spite of those difficulties, we can claim: What is meant by "absolute
metaphors" in Blumenberg could be something like an indirect grammatical echo of
relations, which are too comprehensive and/or too deep to be made explicit
directly by means of literal language. We find these relations, namely as questions,
asked in the ground of being, and in a way obviously existential. This expression
points to the fact, that the conceptually incomprehensible relations (or just the
theoretically inaccessible) are nonetheless intelligible intentional objects of man in
a broader sense and even such as to carry in them the continuous demand to be
known. But how they are to put forward this demand or howwe find them as
demanding at all is uncertain.
One final explanatory approach is the analysis of the kind of metaphorical
reference to theoretically inaccessible contexts. That is, the substitution-relation
could promise an explanation of absolute metaphor. Characteristically, the
relevant thoughts in this connection can be found mainly in a context that deals
4

with the "truth of the metaphors themselves". (13) According to Blumenberg the
concept of truth or true - "as result of a methodically established procedure of
making something true", in the sense of assigning truth values for instance - can,
of course, not be applied to metaphors. Nevertheless, absolute metaphors, or
what is expressed by them, correspond (in a way) to the theoretical inaccessible,
meet it, grasp it adequately. Therefore Blumenbergs considerations are based
allbeit, implicitly and vaguely, on a relation of adequation or correspondence theory
of truth. When he speaks of the "value of evidence" of metaphors and then later
speaks of "their historical truth" it becomes even explicit that the absolute
metaphor is to work as a historically relative bearer of truth. And this is even
necessary with regard to the status of a metaphoric: As a compensation of
metaphysics within philosophy the metaphoric in Blumenbergs theory must be
susceptible to claims of truth. But how can the truth of metaphors, the
correspondence to the theoretically inaccessible in the case of the absolute
metaphor, be understood more accurately and, at the same time, as different from
theoretically comprehensible constellations of truth? Obviously as a historic truth
of correspondence, insofar as metaphors aim at the fundamental questions of their
respective period and mediate them for the "seeker of a historic understanding";
and furthermore as verit faire or pragmatic truth in a broad sense as well,
insofar as metaphors or their content" give an orientation of behaviour in their
historic period. "Metaphor as topic of metaphorology [] is mainly a historical
object, so that their value as evidence presupposes that the person who makes an
assertion didnt herself have a metaphorology". (14) If the correspondence of an
absolute metaphor expresses itself only in action and behaviour of the respective
user of metaphors of a certain historical period, and if the correspondence, as a
matter of principle, approaches its singular object in a historical review, then it is
deprived of the ability to show a truth thus understood. The assignment of a claim
of truth to an absolute metaphor remains a hypothesis. (15) Failing to give an
exact elucidation, Blumenbergs approach is in one sense consistent with his
metaphysic-and-theory-compensatory reading of metaphors. But at the same time
it is inconsistent, insofar as it tries to explain this by means of discourse.
In spite of the critique, the strong version of affirmation of metaphors brings to light,
as Blumenbergs example demonstrates, some characteristics of metaphors, which
suggest an restricted affirmation of metaphors in philosophy.
3. Functions of metaphor in philosophical contexts
First of all we have to revise the absolute knowledge claim of metaphors in
philosophy, which has more or less as its basis the hypothesis of something
theoretically absolutely unfulfillable and unobtainable. One cannot exclude the
possibility that something can be made theoretically accessible in principle or in
some far future.

But aside from such basic considerations, assuming such a theoretically

unfulfillable and correspondingly metaphorically fulfillable can lead to an attitude of
theoretical resignation, which finally leads to self-contradiction. If certain aims of
knowledge are not accessible in any case, then a premature retreat from a
theoretical and philosophical disputation can appear warranted. Theoretical striving
and the Hegelian "effort of the concept" is replaced by appeal to metaphors, which
do not give or allow an analysis of intrinsic structures, and even veil them, but are
supposed to open up holistic contexts. If these were never and in principle are not
accessible, if the substitutes of metaphors can therefore never be translated into
concepts, then they too can be explained only by metaphors, and these again can
be explained only by metaphors, and these again can be explained only by
metaphors, and so on.
Then, however, they could not be recognized as metaphors, but only as figures of
speech referring to figures of speech, referring to figures of speech, and so forth.
Consistently philosophizing in metaphors would always remain on the same level
of talking in figures or pictures of speech. Hence an accurate substitutional theory
contains the correct description of the structure of metaphors and is therefore,
contrary to other assumptions, indispensable - but only on condition that it contains
complex connections of the substituent with neighbouring picture or association
fields and - corresponding - a conceptually not strictly determinated field of the
substitute. Poetry, therefore, has the most complete understanding of metaphors in
its use them as independent and constitutive means of expression. (16) Thus I
affirm a form of the so called structure of substitution of metaphor, which is quite
compatible with Max Blacks "theory of interaction" of metaphor. Black contrasts
the interaction-theory with the theory of substitution and its special case, the
"comparison view" of metaphor. I think, Blacks rejection is based in the false
presupposition, that "substitution" implies total replacement. Black too has namely
to assume indirect elements of comparison - between the so called "implication
complexes". He must assume a kind of isomorphy as the relation of similarity
between the metaphorical expression and the implication complex of another
realm, so that the "interaction" comes about, that is, so that the metaphor actually
functions as metaphor. (17)
Thus even in philosophical contexts we have to agree to the affirmation of
metaphors in two points: In the first place, metaphors, in their historical and
individual usage, cannot be completely explained theoretically. Because they do
not literally refer, but also have, per definitionem, the characteristic property of
referring to something else, in such a way that they can refer to many things,
metaphors are not only in need for interpretation, but are also ambiguous. This
implies semantical plenitude as well as semantic imponderability, as opposed to
strictly defined concepts, exact rules of predicates, etc. in fact a particular
metaphor always evades in part. Secondly, metaphors can only have an
independent function in philosophy, when they cannot be grasped intrinsically in
6

their individual use, that is, when it is not possible to translate them completely.
Otherwise either they would be obsolete or dispensable, because they are
conceptual at least in principle, that is to say, they can be replaced by the common
and most precise medium of philosophy. Or, from a semantical point of view, they
would function as mere redundant decoration: In this function they would, taken
strictly, not be allowed to occur in non-aesthetic texts. (18)However, decorative
metaphors that are relatively clear and consequently to a great extend explicable,
as far as their communality and their familiarity is concerned, can have a high
value of mediation in a pedagogic-didactic respect.
The vagueness of metaphors is also a reason for their extrinsic character. Because
they represent, so to speak, comprehensive but inexplicit connections from
outside, they are well suited for a regulative reference to an orienting frame of
special theoretical analyses. Metaphor then might be taken as legitimizing proof of
reference to something that is not yet explicit. For this reason metaphors are at the
same time precluded from articulating the intrinsic and precise structure of what
they ambiguously substitute. They have, therefore,no value for explanation and
reasoning. But because of the plenitude also implicit in the ambiguity they have a
high value for implication and innovation: Metaphors can therefore be used as
means of anticipatory indication of something not yet accomplished by means of
theory, and this in different respects. It is thus possible and sensible to take
metaphorical formulations as scientific beginning and as intuition for constituting
a hypotheticalframework for a theoretical process. In another case, complex
perspectives resulting from theoretical investigations can be shown by metaphors
to be not yet fulfilled. They serve, therefore, not only as justifications of an author,
who has not been able to comprehend the aforementioned perspective, but are at
the same time a sign of the desideratum of research which has already been
recognized. The thus implied impulse of the author to attain the not yet fulfilled or
the not yet fulfillable has as its counterpart a need for interpretati on, which is
entailed in the structure of metaphors.In addition to their function of semantical
indication metaphors indicate within philosophical texts a demand for conceptual
explication and theoretical study.
Hence, in their philosophical use metaphors can be characterized in a more narrow
sense as non-philosophical, but nevertheless theory-constitutive forms of
articulation, and in three respects: they are paraphilosophical, in so far as they
express what they aim at in the shape of figures of speech or even pictures. They
are periphilosophical in their extrinsic circumscription of what they aim at
philosophically. They are, and this is their crucial aspect, protoor prephilosophical, in so far as they anticipate in a characteristic articulation what
is philosophically not yet fulfilled or fulfillable. (19)

Notes
(1) Cf. Aristoteles, Topik (Organon V), bers. u. mit Anm. hg. v. E. Rolfes, Hamburg 1922
, ND 1968, 158b, 139b, - 140 a, 133b: "Jede Metapher ist undeutlich"/ "Every metaphor is
indistinct".
(2) Cf. for instance Nieraads description and critique of this position; B. J. Nieraad,
Bildgesegnet und Bildverflucht. Forschungen zur sprachlichen Metaphorik, Darmstadt
1977, bes. 90 f.
(3) See. Giambattista Vico, Die neue Wissenschaft ber die gemeinschaftliche Natur der
Vlker (1744), dt. v. E. Auerbach, mit e. Essay v. E. Hora, hg. v. E. Grassi, Hamburg 1966
bes. Kap. II, Abschn. 2, 2 u. 4.
(4) Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, in: Archiv fr Begriffsgeschichte 6, 1960, 7-142,
9; cf. ibid., Ausblick auf eine Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit (1979), in: A. Haverkamp 1996,
a.a.O., 438-454. The expression "absolute Metapher" was already used by Hugo
Friedrich, Die Struktur der modernen Lyrik (1956), Hamburg, 8. erw. Aufl. 1977. He
understands the "absolute" literally. "Absolute metaphors" are, how one could say,
language-pictures, constituting their own "world", totally resolved of the realm, they (may)
refer to. I think, the problem is the same as in the conception of Blumenberg: in which way
are metaphors then still metaphors ?
(5) Blumenberg 1960, 142
(6) Nicholas Rescher, Die Grenzen der Wissenschaft (1984), trans. by K. Puntel, with an
introduction by L. B. Puntel, Stuttgart 1985, 81; for the entire subject of a theoretically
inaccessible see especially chap. VIII and IX.
(7) Blumenberg, 1960, 19; the claim of metaphors to be a compensate for metaphysics as
well as the reference to a negative theology give the hint, that whats at issue are for
instance problems of the philosophical doctrine of god. Cf. Blumenberg, 1979, 445.
(8) Blumenberg, 1960, 19
(9) See Rescher, 1985, especially chap. IV, VII and VIII.
(10) Blumenberg, 1960, 19.
(11) In what Blumenberg says about the "paradigms of a metaphorology" he leaves open
the exact meaning of "metaphorology", as for example the question of its status (as a
science?) and whether its place is within or outside philosophy.
(12) The strategy of a closer determination of the absolute metaphor by way of a
syntactic elucidation of metaphors as answers is of little help if one takes into account, that
in one and the same context Blumenberg holds that absolute metaphors "are answers to
unanswerable questions, that someone who has knowledge by metaphors, however,
cannot find these answers to unanswerable questions in them, and, finally, that
metaphors express questions. See Blumenberg, 1960, 19.
(13) ibid. 19/20 ff. One problem of Blumenbergs writings, that cannot be dealt with in this
8

argumentation, is that he confounds two levels: Chapter II, the origin of the above
passages, has as its heading "metaphoric of truth and pragmatics of knowledge", that
means it will talk about metaphors or their truth, i.e. about "metaphors of power or
powerlessness of truth" (p. 19). In what follows he then says that those kind of metaphors
cannot be verified theoretically, and he asks therefore "for the truth of the metaphor
itself". (My italics, C. P.)
(14) ibid., (my italics, C. P.)
(15) It becomes obvious, that it is in principle questionable to claim the correspondence
relation of truth or truth values at all for metaphors, for how can a truth value be found out?
For that reason Nelson Goodman suggests making their "correctness" dependent on the
fact how "useful, instructive and informative" they are; see Nelson Goodman/ Catherine Z.
Elgin, Revisionen. Philosophie und andere Knste und Wissenschaften, dt. Frankfurt a.M.
1993, 32; see Weisen der Welterzeugung, dt. Frankfurt a.M. 1990, 32 128 ff.
(16) Cf. the capable substitution-theory of metaphor of Karl-Heinz Stierle, which is based
on the reciprocal influence of metaphor and its context; Karl-Heinz Stierle, Aspekte der
Metapher,
in:
Text
als
Handlung.
Perspektiven
einer
systematischen
Literaturwissenschaft, Mnchen 1975, 181 f., 183 f., 185 f.; see e.g. Nieraad, 1977, 13 f.
and Max Black, Die Metapher (1954), in: Theorie der Metapher, hg. v. Anselm Haverkamp,
Darmstadt, 2. um ein Nachw. u. einen bibliograph. Nachtrag erg. Ausg. ergnzte Neuaufl.
1996, 55-79 [Black 1996 a]; ibid., Mehr ber die Metapher (1977), ibid., 379-413 [Black
1996 b], bes. 392/393.
(17) Cf. to the "theory of interaction" Black, 1996 a und b; against Blacks interaction
theory, Robert Fogelin endorses the comparative approach, when he defines metaphors
as "figurative comparisons". But he do so in the context of supporting an approach, which,
like Davidsons theory, takes metaphors literally (which I do not agree with); c.f. Fogelin,
Figuratively speaking, New Haven 1988, 28, and c.f. Fogelin, Metaphors, Similes and
Similarity, in: J. Hintikka (ed.), Aspects of Metaphor, Dordrecht 1994, 23-39; c.f. to the
literal view Donald Davidson, What metaphors mean, in: Inquiries into truth and
interpretation, Oxford 1984, 245-264; see also Stierle, 1975, 152; to avoid the obviously
misleading terminus "substitution" I therefore propose a substitution-theory, which might
be called "Theory of interactive indication" of metaphor.
(18) "aesthetic" in the sense of "sensuous-(artistic)"; when we mean the adjective to
aesthetics-as-theory, we use the construction "aesthetic-theoretical".
19) See Constanze Peres, Antizipation. Spektrum und Struktur, in: F.Gaede/ C.
Peres (Ed.), Antizipation in Kunst und Wissenschaft. Ein interdisziplinres
Erkenntnisproblem und seine Begrndung bei Leibniz, Tbingen 1997, 19-33;
Pegasus und Einhorn. Antizipation in Kunst und Wissenschaft und ihre Begrndung
bei Leibniz und Goodman, ibid. 47-72.