metaphor and the varieties of lexical meaning : dedicated to the memory of max black

Metaphor and the Varieties of Lexical Meaning

Dedicated to the memory of Max Black

by Jaakko HINTIKKA and Gabriel SANDU

1. The paradox of possible- worldssemantics

There is a curious fact about the different versions of possible-worlds semantics (PWS), such- as Montague semantics or David Lewis’ “general semantics”.’ (It is the kind of intriguing phenomenon that Max Black was attuned to and loved to point out.) Possible-worlds semantics is claimed, with considerable justification, to offer excellent explications of the general concepts of meaning theory, including lexical meaning. In particular, PWS tells us what kinds of entities the meanings of different types of lexical items and other expressions are. In general, they are functions from possible worlds to extensions. For instance, the meaning of a singular noun phrase is a function from possible worlds to individuals (of the appropriate type) in their domains. The meaning of a one-place predicate is a function from possible worlds to classes of individuals (in the domains of these possible worlds) and so on. On the basis of this success in handling the general concepts of meaning,

one is justified to expect that PWS should offer an excellent framework for the actual analyses of lexical meanings, either analyses of the meanings of particular lexical items or analyses of interesting concrete problems in the theory of lexical meaning. Yet this justified expectation remains thoroughly unful- filled by what we can find in the literature. We find in the PWSsriented literature relatively few semantical analyzes of particular lexical items and few

Boston University, Department of Philosophy, Boston, MA OUlS, U.S.A. 1 For basic expositions of these approaches to semantics. IKC Montague (1974) and D. Lewis

(1986).

Dialcctica VOI. 44, N O 1-2 (1990)

56 Jaakko Hmtikka and Gabriel Sandu

informative discussions of general problems concerning interesting types of lexical meaning.

This strange state of affairs is what we propose to call the paradox of PWS. We can put it in the form of a question. As far as lexical meaning is con- cerned, is PWS an instance of false promises or unused opportunities?

Admittedly, there are some exceptions to our generalization about the absence of interest in lexicd semantics among PW theorists. Some particular issues, especially the meaning of adverbs, have been debated intensively. And this is not the only exception.2 Still the ratio of promises to achievements is paradoxically high in PWS-based lexical semantics.

2. Metaphor as a counterexample to the paradox

In this paper, we shall try to dispel the paradox of PWS by means of a concrete example. This example is constituted by the analysis of one especially intriguing concept in the theory of lexical meaning. This concept is metaphor. Apart from its intrinsic interest, this concept has been extensively discussed in the last several years, as a glimpse at the bibliography below will show.

The bulk of this paper will present our constructive discussion of metaphor. Before launching this discussion, we shall nevertheless first suggest that the conventional one-world treatment of metaphor which does not rely on the possible worlds framework is not likely to be fruitful and that a possible-worlds treatment of metaphor therefore does have an edge over its ontologically stingy cousins.

It is not difficult to see what the basic difficulty is with one-world analyses of metaphoric meaning. In one-world theories of meaning, the main task of the theory is to assign to each linguistic expression some entity out in the world as its meaning. This assignment is supposed to characterize completely linguistic meaning,

But if so, the study of any kind of nonstandard meaning, prominently including metaphoric meaning, will be very awkward. A different assignment of meaning entities would represent a different concept of meaning. For a die- hard one-world analyst of metaphor, there cannot strictly speaking exist any metaphoric meaning. A metaphoric expression has in the last semantical analysis only one meaning for a one-world analyst, to wit, its literal meaning.

2 The exceptions are illustrated, for instance, by the collection of articles edited by Eikmeyer and Rieser (1981). in which the authors apply PWS to the analysis of lexical meaning including adverbs (Cresswell). scalar particles in German (Ekkehard Konig), and quotations (Michael Grabski).

Metaphor and the Varieties of Lexical Meaning 57

The effects which it has and which others try to explain in terms of a special metaphoric meaning have to be explained pragmatically as creative uses of certain patently false sentences.

The next best thing a one-world theorist can do is to treat metaphoric expressions as ambiguous expression. Metaphoric meaning is just a different meaning.

There need not be anything wrong in saying so, but such an approach to metaphor leaves completely unexplained the relation of the two meanings. And for this purpose it does not suffice merely to specify what the entities are that our expressions stand for, We have to examine the way in which the meanings are determined, for only by reference to it can we hope to explain the transition from literal to metaphoric meaning. The point is that in order to study how metaphoric meaning (or for that matter, any other type of nonstandard meaning) comes about as a variation of the standard meaning, we have to look into the way in which the standard meaning is determined, in order to see how it can be systematically varied, e.g., as in the metaphoric use of language. And when you try to understand this “mechanism of determination”, you will see that its natural operationalization in terms of what the references of our linguistic expressions would be if circumstances were different. In other words, a natural theory of meaning determination, in contrast to a spe- cification of a static set of meanings, is likely to end up being some variant of PWS.

Thus one-world theorists of metaphor face a double jeopardy. In the first place, they are tempted to deny that there is strictly speaking such a thing as metaphoric meaning. In the second place, even if they admit the existence of such a systematic nonstandard meaning, they will have to treat metaphoric expressions simply as ambiguous ones, for they have no good means of relat- ing different kinds of meaning to each other.

3. Examples

These abstract considerations can be illustrated in terms of particular examples. As an example of a “one-world” treatment we shall in this section comment on Donald Davidson’s well-known paper on m e t a p h ~ r . ~ Davidson’s paper is instructive because he has the courage of his one-world convictions. A theory of meaning is for him literally a systematic first-order theory of meaning assignments, more specifically, of the way in which the meanings of

3 set Davidson. UWhat Metaphors Mean”, in Sheldon Sacks (ed.), 1981, pp. 2945.

58 -Jaakko Hintikka and Gabriel Sandu

simpler expressions determine step by step the meanings of complex expressions.

A different system of such recursive determinations characterizes in Davidson’s scheme simply a different set of meanings. What is crucial here, his overall approach does not provide him with any systematic way of discussion the interrelations of the two sets of meanings, which could be the set of literal meanings and a set of metaphoric medngs. Hence, we may predict, for Davidson a theory of metaphor will inevitably be a non-theory of metaphor.

This prediction is strikingly fulfilled by the paper Davidson has actually devoted to the concept of metaphor. As we saw, a one-world approach almost inevitably becomes a one-fmed-set-of-meanings theory. If so. there will not be any room for metaphoric meaning. A one-world theorist opting for this obvious line of thought will have to deny “that a metaphor has, in addition to its literal sense or meaning, another sense or meaning”. Predictably, this is the central thrust of Davidson’s well-known discussion of metaphor. Strictly speaking, according to Davidson a metaphoric expression has only one meaning, viz. its literal meaning.‘ The phenomenon that other theorists often try to account for in terms of a special metaphoric meaning Davidson wants to explain pragmatically as resulting from the creative use of false statements.

A one-world theorist can of course countenance nonstandard meanings, such as metaphoric meaning. But if to specify the meanings of our words is to fix their targets in this world, one can say very little of how the two meanings, the literal and the metaphoric, are related to each other. A metaphoric expression becomes simply an ambiguous expression. This is in fact the main view Davidson is led to consider as an alternative to his own. Again, he is not so much putting forward a new interpretational idea as spelling out the consequences of his own tacit assumptions.

4. Meaning determination in PWS

But how does PWS help us here? On the basis of what has been said, it helps us here by first uncovering the specific mechanisms which take us from linguistic expressions to their meanings. How are we to think about these mechanisms according to PWS? Consider, for instance, the meaning of a singular noun phrase. According to PWS, its meaning is a function from possible worlds into individuals. We can visualize this by imagining these indi-

4 Op cit.. p.


viduals in their respective possible worlds as being connected by a notional line, a “meaning line”. The question we are facing here will then be: How are these “meaning lines” drawn?

The same idea - and the same visualization - can obviously be adapted to other types of expressions. For instance, the world line of a common noun links with each other the classes of individuals to which this common noun is correctly applicable in different possible worlds. Similar characterizations can be given of the “meaning lines” of other types of nonlogical expressions.

What we propose to call “meaning lines” have of course to be distinguished from those that have been called, in the literature, “world lines”. The latter are in a sense more basic than meaning lines, They determine which individuals in two different worlds count as being identical (“counterparts”, as they sometimes are misleadingly called).’ World lines are independent of the meaning of any particular nonlogical word. Meaning lines are relative to some particular singular noun phrase. They define which individual this NP is correctly applied to in the different relevant scenarios (“worlds”).

This terminology of “meaning lines” is of course merely a dramatization of the way in which meanings are analyzed in PWS. The basic idea is not pecu- liar to PWS, however. For instance, the approach to meanings which it codi- fies is little more than a notational variant of Husserl’s famous method of imaginary variation. 6

5 . How to draw meaning tines: somesimple ways

The crucial question that arises here is of course: How are the meaning lines drawn in the actual practice of our language? At first sight, this question does not seem to admit any answer simple enough to be helpful. The republic of language is a free country; there are no restrictions as to how meaning lines

-might be drawn. In fact, the phenomena of semantics, present us with a bewildering variety of different and apparently unrelated ways in which meaning functions operate (i.e., in which “meaning lines are drawn”).

There is more method in this madness than first meets the eye, however. A clue is offered by the discussions that philosopher-logicians have carried out concerning the methods of drawing world lines of cross-scenario identifica-

5 For an extensive analysis of the notion of “world h e ” see Hintikka, 1969, espcdauv pp. 101-2, Hintikka, 1974. pp. 203-7. and Hintikka. 1975. especially ch. 2.

6 For Husserl’s idea of imaginary variation (and its connection with uWesmscrxhauung”). see Edmund Husserl, Erjohnrng und Urteil, 1984 edition, pp. 41041,418,423,429; Phdnomeno- logirche Psychofogie (Husscrliana 1x1; pp. 72-3; also Wolfang KUnne, Ahtract Gegemt&nde: Semontik und Onrologie Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. 1980, ch. 4, sec. 4.

60 Jaakko Hintikka and Qabriel Sandu

tions. Two main proposals‘have been made in the literature as to what constitutes such identificatory “counterpart relations”. In a nutshell, the two proposals say that cross-identification takes place (1) by continuity or (2) by similarity. The first proposal has been spelled out in the case of physical objects by the Hintikkas.’ The second proposal goes back to David Lewis.* ‘ I

According to the ideas of cross-identification by similarity, two individuals it and i2 in two respective worlds, say W1 and W2, will count as identical (“counterparts”, as David Lewis would call them) if and only if i2 is the individual in W2 which is most closely similar to il. Similarity has to be taken here in the sense of a similarity of the two individuals, not in terms of the contributions of the two individuals to the overall similarity of the two worlds. The similarity in question is, according to theorists of this persuasion, not a simple matter, but normally a weighted average of different kinds of similarity considerations.

There is no reason here to review the entire cross-identification problem. The matter is complicated by the possibility of reducing cross-identification to reidentification and the presence of more than one type of cross-identification method in our actual semantics. The main point is that, sight unseen, either method is in principle possible also in drawing meaning lines.

There is no apriori reason why the methods (or types of methods) of drawing meaning lines should be restricted to these two.

6 . Characterizing metaphor

Now we have reached a point at which we can formulate the main theses of this paper. It is nothing less than a characterization of metaphor (metaphoric meaning). Metaphoric meaning is nonliteral meaning which utilizes meaning lines drawn by similarity in contradistinction to meaning lines based on other considerations, such as continuity.

For instance, should I hear somebody referring to Lake Tahoe as a sapphire, I would certainly understand what is intended. The speaker is clearly looking away from such substantial criteria of being a sapphire as its chemical constitution, hardness, etc., and drawing his or her meaning lines on the basis of such qualitative considerations as color, sparkling, etc. In this metaphoric sense, to be a sapphire is to be similar in appearance (looks) to a sapphire (in the literal sense). In this sense, the connection of the attribution is obvious to

7 For the idea of continuity, see Hintikka and Hintikka, 1982; and cf. Jaakko Hintikka,

* For the notion of similarity, see David Lewis, 1986. pp. 5-10. 1%9. p- 170 and 1975. pp. 29-30.


anyone who have seen the famous lake. If you looked at Lake Tahoe from a satellite, it might in fact look like a sapphire.

This reliance of metaphoric meaning on similarity considerations need not be absolute, but only relative, assigning a greater weight on similarity than in the literal use of the operative word or phrase. What also happens typically is that out of the multitude of interrelated criteria for the applicability of a word, a small number is chosen, which are then used as the basis of similarity considerations. This is illustrated by the metaphoric use of “sapphire” in the Lake Tahoe example.

Even the meaning lines of proper names can be taken to operate by similarity, in so far as they are used metaphorically, as witnessed by the metaphoric uses of such proper names as “Dorian Gray”, “Einstein”, “Hamlet”, “Napoleon”, “Hitler”, etc. Way back when, Jaakko Hintikka used to refer to Edwin Linkomies, then the Chancellor of the University of Helsinki, as “the Charles De Gaulle of our university”, with certain unmistakable similarities in style and demeanor in mind.

. In spite of the apparent simplicity of this basic characterization of metaphor, it has several clear-cut consequences. Among them there are the following: (i) Metaphor is a matter of meaning (the way in which the reference of an expression is determined in different circumstances). (ii) Hence there is strictly no metaphoric truth as distinguished from normal truth. The truthtonditions of statements containing a metaphoric expression are the same as normal truth-conditions, except for the variation of the meaning of that expression itself. (ii) Metaphor can be thought of as a special way of using a word or a phrase, but it does not involve any special use of sentences (utterances).

We shall elaborate these points later in the paper, For instance, (ii) implies that there is no hard-and-fast relation between the truth or falsity of a sentence in its literal reading and its truth or falsity metaphorically understood. Examples will be offered of this point in the following. , . The import of our theory can be elucidated also through comparisons with other approaches to metaphor. At this point, we shall consider only one such alternative. The same many-worlds idea as we are using is incorporated in Tormey’s theory of m e t a p h ~ r . ~ Tormey wants to treat metaphors as elliptical counterfactuals. For instance, “Juliet is the sun” is construed as “if Juliet were a celestial object, she would be the sun’’. There is a great deal of truthin this idea, but it misses several pertinent facts, among them the following: (i)

SeeTormey, 1983.

62 Jaakko Hintikka and Gabriel Sandu

metaphor is predominantly a vehicle of reference not truth; (ii) the counter- factual reference is not an unanalyzable notion, but is mediated by a nonstandard “meaning line”; (iii) metaphoric statements are normally used to convey information about the actual world. All these facts will be elaborated later in this paper.

Many metaphoric statements which are false in the literal sense but “metaphorically true” constitute a counter-example to Tormey’s theory, e.g., (3)-(4) below. Thus Tormey’s theory would aggravate, not reduce, the tension between literal falsity and metaphoric truth, contrary to his claims.

7 . Metaphor vs. metonymy

One of the merits of our diagnosis of metaphor is that it enables us to distinguish metaphor from other, related kinds of nonliteral meaning. For one thing, we can see clearly the difference between metaphor and metonymy. In a metaphor, the methods of drawing meaning lines shift towards a greater reliance on similarity. When they shift towards a greater reliance on continuity, we are dealing with metonymy rather than metaphor.

A neat little example of the metaphor-metonymy distinction is offered by locution “The Golden State” commonly used of California. This is in any case an instance of nonliteral meaning; California is not made of gold. But what kind of nonliteral meaning do we have here? Is this locution a metaphor or not? It depends on how it is intended. Many people seem to believe that the great state of California is called “golden” because of this precious metal was plentiful there, leading to the Gold Rush and eventually to statehood. If so, the locution is not a metaphor. There is an actual continuous chain of events leading from the presence of gold in California to its statehood. Used in this way, any state with a similar history might as well be called “golden”. We are arguably dealing with metonymy here, not with metaphor.

As a matter of fact, however, the epithet “golden” is not intended to refer to the history of California, but to its looks. In summertime, it does not rain there, and consequently the vegetation dries up and assumes the color of golden brown. On this usage, the state of California is called golden because it looks golden. The “meaning line” of the word golden which is being assumed in this metaphor is supposed to have been drawn on the basis of a certain qualitative similarity, i.e., similarity of color. Hence, calling California “the Golden State” on the basis of this intended nonstandard usage is indeed an example of metaphor.

In fact, one of the acid tests of any putative theory of metaphor is whether it can account for the differences between metaphor and other types of nonlit-


eral lexical meaning, such as metonymy. Many well-known accounts of metaphor fail this test.

This is, for instance, the case with the theory of Nelson Goodman with which our theory, although formulated differently, has many points of con- tact. To mention the most important one, Goodman acknowledges the fact that a metaphor involves a change in the denotation of a predicate (“label”). This change is a radical one in the sense that the respective predicate not only receives a new denotation but also the universe (“realm”) of which the denotation is a subset also changes. Goodman calls this “a change of realm”.1°

It seems to us that from such talk about changing the realm there is only a short step to the notion of possible world. However, Goodman’s account does not distinguish between metaphor and metonymy. What he usually says about the former applies also to the latter. Witness, e.g., the following passage: Whether a euphemism is a metaphor or not depends upon whether it applies labels for proper things to improper things or only substitutes proper for improper labels. (See Goodman, 1969, p. 81.)

Here the distinction between “labels for proper things” and “labels for improper things’’ is to be understood in the following way: the former are the labels established by antecedent practice; the latter depart from this well established practice.

Coming back to the example we discussed above, it seems to us that the epithet “golden” suffers a change of realm, to speak in Goodmanesque terms, in both its metaphoric and its metonymic use. In both cases, its application is an “improper” one. Hence Goodman’s theory does not distinguish between metaphor and metonymy.

8. Meaning lines vs. world lines

Are there metaphoric variants of method of drawing world lines and not only meaning lines? This question has been raised in the literature using a different terminology. Many of the predominant theories of metaphor rely upon a predicative (attributive) structure of metaphor. For instance, Max Black speaks of the relation between frame and focus, Beardsley about the principal subject being modified, Richards about the tension between vehicle and tenor, and Ricoeur about the predicative assimilation involved in metaph0r.l’ What

10 Goodman, 1969, p. 72. l1 For Black. see his 1962; for Beardley, his writings listed in the references; and likewise for

Ricoeur.


that amounts to in our terminology is just what was suggested: metaphoric principles are uses to draw nonstandard meaning lines rather than world lines of crossidentification.

Our possible-worlds framework helps us to sharpen the issues in discussing such theses. In order to do so, it helps to recall how successful identification is expressed in English. A person a is able to identify b if and only if the statement

u knows who (what, where, when. . .) b is

is true. Hence criteria of identification are essentially similar to the truth- conditions of knowing who (what, where, when,. . .) propositions.

Once this is seen, it is seen immediately that nonstandard criteria of identification are frequently presupposed in actual English usage. In fact, there is a fair amount of leeway as to how world lines are assumed to have been drawn. The choice between different ways of doing so may even be indicative of the speaker’s linguistic and nonlinguistic preferences and prejudices. A rather sexist example is the old British saw (used earlier as an example by Jaakko Hintikka) “Be nice to young girls; you never known who they will be” (meaning, of course, “who they will end up being married to”).

This is not an example of metaphoric identification. However, there are plenty of such examples. Indeed, many metaphoric meaning lines can in suitable circumstances be pressed into service as world lines (lines of identification). For instance, Jaakko Hintikka once referred to Theaetetus as “the Frank Ramsey of Plato’s Academy”. On that occasion, the metaphor served a descriptive purpose. But, given a suitable situation, the same metaphor could be used for purposes of identification. “Who said first that knowledge is true belief?” “The Frank Ramsey of Plato’s Academy”.

One reason for the interest of the question of metaphoric world lines is therefore that a positive answer provides telling evidence for our analysis of the semantical mechanism of metaphor by showing that certain competing accounts are mistaken. For this purpose, observe that, in general, it is per- fectly possible to use a referring expression metaphorically and then so to speak go on to say something about the individual referred to. For instance, one might refer to a conspicuously youthful-looking friend as “our Dorian Gray” and say, for instance,

(1) Today our Dorian Gray is in a brooding mood.

Such uses of language are extremely interesting in a general theoretical per- spective. They show, as against analysts like Ricoeur, that there can be


metaphoric world lines and not only metaphoric meaning lines.12 In other words, in a sentence like (1) the metaphoric force of an expression serves merely to pick out a reference. In contrast, the predication in (1) is to be taken literally; metaphoric meaning lines in only as a means of capturing the intended reference,

The same examples show that metaphor cannot in any natural sense of the word (not in any literal sense, at least) be characterized as a special use of language, much less as a special kind of language act. In metaphor, we are dealing with a special kind of nonliteral meaning of certain expressions, not with a special way of using language. For instance, in (l), language is used by the speaker to attribute a certain kind of mood to a certain person. This is what the sentence is used for. The fact that in so doing the speaker relied on a metaphoric meaning of one of the expressions contained in (1) is not a fact about the language act of uttering (1).

Thus there is no hope to develop a speech-act theory of metaphor. Metaphors instantiate a special kind of meaning, not a special way of putting language to use or of “doing things with words” .13

9. Mooring meaning lines

We have to carry further our line of thought, however, in order to reach a full account of the mechanism of metaphor. We have seen that metaphoric meaning amounts to drawing the imaginary “meaning lines” in a certain way from one world to another. But such a method of drawing meaning lines does not by itself determine meanings. By means of such “lines”, we can, e.g., decide which individuals have a certain predicate in one world if we already know which ones have it in another. But we still need a starting-point for being able to begin to draw the lines in the first place. We must, so to speak, moor our meaning lines to some one world.

It is not hard to see what happens in the case of metaphor. The world to which metaphoric meaning lines are anchored is often (but not always) the actual world. And the starting-points of meaning lines there are the references of the operative expressions that are determined by their literal meanings.

12 For instance, Ricceur claims that a metaphor implies “a suspension and seemingly an abolition of the ordinary reference attached to descriptive language” (cf. Ricoeur, 1981. p. 1Sl).

13 One such hopeless approach to metaphor is the speech act theory of metaphor proposed by John Searle. According to him, the metaphorical meaning of a sentence is not to be located in the sentence (sentence meaning) but in the speaker’s utterance meaning, i.e., in what the speaker means when he or she utters the sentence. That is. even if the speaker utters a sentence of the form “S is P”, he might mean metaphorically “S is R”. (Cf. Searle. 1984, p. 98.)


For this reason, there is. an inevitable element. of comparison in a metaphoric use of an expression. The entity, say El, to which an attribute is applied metaphorically is in effect compared to the E2 to which it applies in the literal sense. One in effect imagines El placed in a different scenario to which world lines are drawn metaphorically from the the actual one.

Our view is in this respect rather similar to the one proposed by Samuel R. Levin (1984). For instance, in dealing with metaphorical statement such as the following fragment of a poem by Emily Dickinson (2) The mountain sat upon the plain

Levin interprets it by countenancing a possible world in which the mountain has the properties attributed to him: he actually sits on a chair.

These observations also show the sense in which metaphoric meaning is parasitic on literal meaning. The application of a metaphoric use of an expression to El is not determined if its applicability in a literal sense to E2 is not determined. In this sense there cannot be metaphoric meaning alone, independently of the literal use of language. This shows how unhelpful it is to approach metaphoric expressions as if

they were ambiguous expressions. Metaphor is not an instance of our expression’s having separate but equal meanings. The gist of metaphor lies in the way one of these meanings is based on another one.

One way in which we can see the importance of the “mooring-post” of a metaphor is to note how a metaphoric expression changes its meaning when this anchor is moved. For instance, many unreflective readers probably con- strue Karl Marx’s famous metaphor religion is the opiate of the people

as making a fairly general point about the reality-distorting and, otherwise, unhealthy effects of religion. In fact, the address of Marx’s metaphor is much sharper. Its mooring-post was the custom of working-class Victorian mothers of pacifying their babies by giving them a lump of sugar on which the mother had put a drop of opiate.

Once we realize what the object of Marx’s metaphoric comparison was, its force changes. For one thing, the metaphor becomes less vicious, as witnessed among other things by the fact that Marx’s metaphor had a precedent in no other writer than Charles Kingsley, who certainly did not think of religion as such as an evil.

in his eternal chair.


10. Nonactual mooring-posts

Notice, however, that the world to which a metaphoric meaning is moored (via an application of literal meaning to it) need not always be the actual one. The evil is preferred mainly because the recipient of the metaphor is likely to know its relevant features, Whenever some other world, for instance, the imaginary world of a famous work of fiction, is known well to the reader or hearer, it can serve as the mooring-post of metaphoric meaning quite as well as the real one. If I call John McEnroe “the Hamlet of Wimbledon”, I am relying on a similarity in behavior - the brooding, the self-doubts, the agony - between the two characters. But the mooring-post is not in the real world. It is not the onetime actual person Shakespeare used as his model, but the tragic character in one of his imaginary worlds that I am comparing McEnroe to.

In this respect our theory departs from the one of Levin mentioned above. AS the name suggests, his “terrestrialisation” is limited to the actual world (cf. Levin, 1984, p. 133).

Even when the metaphorically used expression is a proper name referring to an actual individual, the world to which the metaphoric meaning is moored need not be the actual world. The locution, “He is a real Einstein” is, or used to be, colloquially applied to mathematically gifted persons. A historian of science might nevertheless sum up his or her analysis of Einstein’s gifts (which were physical to a higher degree than mathematical) by saying, “In the vulgar sense, Albert Einstein was not an Einstein”.

Such examples suggest in fact a stronger thesis than the mere possibility of mooring a world line to a non-actual world or scenario (“small world”). One might go so far as to claim that a typical metaphor is moored to a “world” different from the actual one. In order to be understood, the relevant aspects of the mooring-post of a metaphor must be familiar to the hearer or reader. Now what is familiar to the recipient of a metaphor is more IikeIy the popular idea of the mooring-post than its*actual properties. To call someone, metaphorically, “a veritable Einstein”, is not necessarily to compare him or her faith- fully with the actual Albert Einstein, but more likely to assimilate him or her to people’s image of the absent-minded mathematician. And to do so is to use as the mooring-post of one’s metaphor, not the real world, but the world of popular opinion which may, alas, differ from the real one. In other instances, the world or “scenario” to which a metaphor is moored is the “normal” or “typical” case, which need not be the actual one.

Where the “mooring-post” of a metaphor is in relation to the world about which the metaphoric statement is made can be used to map various subclassi- fications of metaphors. We shall not consider them here, however.

68 ’ Jaakko Hintikka and Gabriel Sandu

These observations show the reason why one can use metaphors in a way which would be self-contradictory if were taken literally, as, e.g., in the following:

(3) This old shoe is not as comfortable as an old shoe. (4) In the vulgar sense, Albert Einstein was no Einstein.

Such sentences would indeed be self-contradictory even in the metaphoric sense if the metaphors involved in them were moored to the actual world.

Metaphors which in the literal sense are self-contradictory present a difficulty to the “creative falsehood” idea propounded among others by Davidson. It may not look hopeless to try to argue that to utter a falsehood might be informative or even creative. For instance, one can by uttering a false sentence suggest that our world became such a world. But in the literal sense a contradiction is a contradiction: they all have the same meaning. Hence they are virtuaIIy hopeless for the advocates of a “creative falsehood” treatment of metaphor to account for.

The “suggestive falsehood” theorists have an opposite problem, too, in their hands. For a sentence can sometimes be true both in the literal and in the metaphoric sense. But even then the metaphoric sense is different from the literal one. The following is a (rather trite) case in point. This old shoe is indeed as comfortable as an old shoe.

An additional observation is in order here. In some cases, the similarity- oriented “meaning lines” which characterize metaphoric, meaning are more naturally construed as lines of reidentification rather than as lines of cross- identification. That is to say they extend the applicability of a word or phrase to new entities in a new part of one of the same world (possibly to a new “situation” in that world rather than to an entity in an altogether different world. This does not change our basic idea an iota, however. The crucial question is not where the entity is to which a meaning line is extended but how it is extended there.

This point illustrates a more general one which many philosophers still completely miss, viz. that the so-called possible-world semantics was orig- inally calculated to apply as much to “small worlds”, that is, scenarios or situations, as to entire universes. A forfiori, meaning lines were thought of as constituting links between different scenarios or “situations” and not only between different world histories. For this reason, the point just made is not a qualification to our original characterization of metaphor, but a corollary to it.


11. Metaphor as a comparison

Thus our analysis of the mechanism of metaphoric meaning leads to certain important conclusions. There is an element of comparison in every metaphoric use of language. To this extent the theories of metaphor which focus on the idea of comparison are on the right track. All these theories defend in effect a characterization of metaphor which is already codified (among other places) in the Webster’ New International Dictionary (2nd edition): “A metaphor may be regarded as a compressed simile, the comparison implicit in the former being explicit in the latter”.

An instance of this type of view is provided by the theory of G. A. Miller. For him the metaphor “Man is a wolf“ is to be associated with “Man is like a wolf” or “Man seems like a wolf” (cf. Miller, 1984, p. 214). Similar views are found in Whatley (1961) and Billow (1975).

However, accounts of metaphors that are based on the comparison idea alone are seriously incomplete. They do not tell the whole story of metaphor. This can be seen in connection with some examples discussed by Ortony (1984) (5) Encyclopedias are like dictionaries. (6) Encyclopedias are like gold mines. Ortony rightly argues that (5) is a literal comparison but (6), is not. Only the simile (a), but not the literal statement (5). poses the same problems of interpretation as we have been discussing in connection with metaphor.

Here our theory provides an immediate answer to the problem. For us, metaphoric meaning is nonstandard meaning, i.e., meaning based or meaning lines different from the normal ones in that they rely exceptionally heavily on similarity. Thus (5) is not a metaphor, because it does not rely on nonstandard meaning, while (6) is. That is, it is based on non-literal meaning and hence, in our terminology, on anon-standard way of drawing meaning-lines which put it in the same boat with metaphor. Roughly the same point is made by Max Black for whom it is better to say that “the metaphor creates the similarity than to say that it formulates some similarity antecedently existing” (Black, 1962, p. 37).

However, accounts of metaphor that are based on the comparison idea alone are incomplete in another respect, too. They do not tell the whole story of metaphor. Endeed, any kind of nonliteral meaning that is based on a nonstandard way of drawing meaning lines is in the same boat with metaphor in that the account of how the nonstandard meaning lines are drawn does not suffice to determine the meaning in question. Such a nonliteral meaning must likewise by anchored in literal meaning in some one world, normally the actual world. And this kind of mooring is not provided by the comparison idea alone.


Another trouble with comparison accounts of metaphor is that the idea of comparison is so vague or, rather, so many-faceted, as to be uninformative. The same sorts of criticisms apply with vengeance to it as have been levelled at similarity accounts of cross-identification. Speaking of similarity, or even of a weighted average of different kinds of similarity considerations, is simply too vague to be informative. Dana Scott once challenged the similarity theorists of cross-identification to give an analysis of the ad which he had seen in the Oxford Daily and which ran somewhat as follows:

(7) Wanted to buy: bicycle or similar.

12. Different similarities

The similarity which metaphoric meaning lines rely on can be of many different kinds. It may, for instance, be a qualitative similarity, but it may in other instances be a functional similarity. There are thus different varieties of metaphor. Some of them are closer to metonymy than others, and can perhaps be considered as intermediate cases between the two. For instance, a similarity in function constitutes a kind of real connection between the two, and has thus a touch of metonymy to it, at least more so than a purely qualitative metaphor.

For instance, one can refer to a bearded old man metaphorically as Santa Claus and be understood as describing his appearance. But when the well- known head of a large private foundation was once referred to as Santa Claus, the audience did not take the speaker to say that the gentleman in question had a white beard and red cheeks. He was taken to refer to the gift-dispensing activities of the businesslike gentleman in question. (Since we have an actual incident in mind, let us call him, with a side glance at Bertold Brecht, Dr. Puntila.)

Are we dealing with a metaphor in the second case? A clear-cut answer is not easy to give. Clearly the speaker is suggesting that Dr. Puntila’s activities are similar to those of Father Christmas. If this were all that there is to be said here, we would have a bonafide instance of metaphor. But were the respective activities of Dr. Puntila and Santa Claus merely similar? Are they not arguably identical? One can in fact argue her pro and con. On the one hand, one can, e.g., point out that, like Santa Claus, Mr. Puntila was not exercising his own generosity, but merely distributing gifts contributed by others, the real donors. On the other hand, he did not delight the recipients of his pre- sents only at Christmastime.


Be the answer what it may, it is clear that if we are in fact dealing with identical functions, the notion of metaphor would not sit entirely comfortably here. It might be happier to speak of analogy or metonymy.

This observation is obviously generalizable, When nonstandard meaning lines operate by means of functional similarity, it is not clear whether the resulting nonliteral meaning should be pidgeonholed as metaphor or analogy.

13. .Metaphor and truth

Can metaphoric statements (i.e., statements containing metaphorically used words or expressions) be said to be true or false? On basis of the account we have given the answer is unmistakably: yes. This account shows that the only unusual thing about a metaphoric sentence is that the meaning line of one of its constituent expressions are drawn in a way different from its literal cousin. But in all other respects, the same semantical rules must apply to it. Otherwise we could not account for its meaning. And these semantical rules imply the applicability of the notions of truth and falsehood to the sentence.

A simple example is provided by Nelson Goodman. He considers a picture full of gray colors. He then considers the assertions

(8) The picture is yellow. (9) The picture is gay. (10) The picture is sad.

Clearly, as Goodman points out, (8) is literally false, (9) is metaphorically false, and (10) is metaphorically true,

Another instance of the same phenomenon is that we can use negative statements metaphorically. One can say of a student who does not understand mathematics, “He is no Einstein”. Since negation clearly operates in this sentence in the normal way, on the intended meaning the unnegated sentence “He is an Einstein’’ would have to be said to be false,

Notice that one can disagree with a metaphoric statement provided that the intended metaphoric sense is understood. If one says of an extremely well- performing mathematics student, “He is a veritable Einstein”, it makes per- fectly good sense for someone else to respond, “No, he is not. He works very hard but he is not very creative.”

What has led some theorists to the weird view that metaphorical statements are not true or false is that in their actual use the question of truth or falsity typically does not arise. But this is but a consequence of their nature, as we have spelled it out. Since metaphoric meaning is nonliteral meaning, the


hearer or reader is not likely to know ahead of time what it is. In fact, if the intended nonliteral meaning is a commonplace, one is not dealing with a metaphor but with a cliche. Hence the metaphoric meaning has to be gathered by means of various interpretational principles. Of such principle of charity is probably the most important one. In order to apply it, the sentence in question must be assumed (if possible) to be true. Hence, in many typical cases of metaphor, a sentence with a metaphoric force is not used to assert its (metaphoric) truth. Rather, it is assumed to be true, and this assumption is used as a stepping-stone for the purpose of figuring out its metaphoric meaning. There can scarcely be a neater example than this of the distinction between semantical rules and rules for use - or of the interaction of the two kinds of rules.

Admittedly, we have seen that in other cases the metaphoric meaning is taken for granted and is relied on to make a statement whose truth can very well be mooted. Even though such cases (illustrated by the example (1) above) are highly instructive as to how metaphoric meaning works, they are not typical instances of metaphoric uses of language. One might perhaps even suggest that in such cases the metaphor has something of a cliche about it. (Cf. sec. 15 below.)

Another corollary of our theory is that it is strictly taken a misnomer to speak of metaphoric truth different from literal truth. A sentence can have a metaphoric meaning, and this meaning decides whether it is true or not in the normal garden variety sense of truth. What is meant by “metaphoric truth” is simply the truth of a sentence (utterance) metaphorically interpreted. This involves a special sense of meaning (special kind of interpretation), not a special kind of truth. Used in this sense. “metaphoric truth” is merely an innocuous ellipsis which we shall occasionally indulge in ourselves.

What has been said can be illustrated further by comparing metaphor with other kinds of nonstandard meaning. Consider, for instance, irony. The mechanism of irony is governed by principles entirely different from those operative in metaphoric usage. A sentence has a metaphoric meaning when the meaning line of one of its constituent expressions is drawn in a nonstandard way. A sentence is used ironically when (roughly speaking) its intended sense is the opposite to its literal sense. Hence the two kinds of nonliteral meaning are entirely different.

In fact, the two operate independently of each other. This is illustrated by the fact that the ironic force of a sentence can be the opposite, not to its literal sense, but its metaphoric sense. A case in point would arise if one said, ironically, of a mathematical illiterate (11) He is a real Einstein.


Incidentally, this example once again. shows that metaphorically used sentences have the same logic as literal sentences. For if the metaphoric sentence (11) did not have a sense that could not be negated, conditionalized, etc., irony could not operate on it in the same way as on literally construed sentences.

14. Metaphor as a creative use of language

Our account shows a couple of ways in which metaphor represents creative use of language. One is a corollary to the fact that a metaphoric use of a word or an expression relies on nonstandard ways of drawing meaning lines. These meaning lines are not determined by the literal meaning of the word or expression. They can be chosen differently. The reader or hearer must gather the way in which they are drawn from various clues. Wen more importantly, the hearer or reader must be able to imagine a variety of possible nonstandard ways of drawing meaning lines from which the metaphoric one is chosen. This presupposes greater sensitivity to different possible uses of language than is required for the purpose of understanding literal meaning.

This kind of sensitivity is presupposed to some degree by all nonliteral uses of language, not just by metaphor. However, there is another aspect of the way in which metaphor presupposes, or sometimes rather prompts, keener awareness of certain facets of the world by the hearer or reader. Metaphor operates through meaning lines based by similarity. But, as was briefly indicated earlier, this similarity is typically not some sort of overall similarity between different objects of comparison. It is not “a weighted average of different kinds of similarity considerations”. It usually is similarity in some one specific respect. In order to understand the hearer not only has to understand what this similarity is but to realize that there obtains such a similarity. Some- times the hearer had not been aware of the relevant similarity until the metaphor shocked or otherwise forced him or her to cognizance of it. Conse- quently, the use of a metaphor which relies on such a similarity can be an effective means of making the hearer or reader aware of those attributes of the entities in question with respect to which the metaphoric meaning operates. This is the basis of the poetic and other literary uses of metaphor. It is the reason why metaphor is a way of making the hearer or the reader more keenly aware of certain aspects of the world and perhaps also of making him or her to appreciate more fully these aspects of the world.

Max Black emphasizes the role of the “commonplace” attributes of the entities to which metaphoric meaning lines are moored. We have seen in what

14 ’Jaakko Hintikka and Gabriel Sandu

sense this emphasis is well taken. In order to be understood without any special effort or investigation, a metaphor has to rely on what is generally known about the object of metaphoric comparison. But even then a selection of the relevant attributes (i.e., the relevant similarity consideration) are not automat- ically determined. It amounts to a choice of the right (intended) properties. In creative literary use of metaphor, the choice of the relevant similarity considerations becomes a challenge, and can operate through highly non-commonplace and even surprising and shocking similarities.

This is one of the many respects in which one just cannot assume that what is usually true about metaphor is true about it intrinsically.

It seems to us that Davidson fails to do full justice to the creative use of metaphor. He sketches a sci-fi story of a visitor from Saturn for whom corn- ing to understand Dante’s line about earth as the small round floor that makes us passionate

is but a step in understanding the one and only meaning of “floor”. “What difference would it make to your friend [from Saturn] which way he took it [metaphorically or literally]?”, Davidson asks, rhetorically. The difference is that between appreciating Dante’s line as poetry and taking it as a mere quaint use of the word “floor”. It may be that for Davidson’s theory of meaning the difference does not matter, but that comes dangerously close to saying that his theory cannot help us to understand metaphor as a literary device.

How does metonymy compare with metaphor in the two respects we have discussed? In employing metonymy, the speaker or writer must also rely on some nonstandard way of constructing his or her meaning lines. But now they operate by continuity or contiguity rather than by similarity. In order to figure out what such nonstandard continuity lines are, the interpreter of a metonymy has to be more attuned to factual connections than to unusual ways of comparing things with one another. This may be as difficult a task as understanding a metaphor, but it is directed more towards actual connections between objects and events, towards sequences of events, than toward imaginative similarities. Thus, metonymy will normally be a more matter-of-fact linguistic device than metaphor.

The primacy of the metaphoric process in the literary schools of romanticism and symbolism has been repeatedly acknowledged, but it is still insufficiently realized that it is the predominance of metonymy which underlies and actually predetermines the so- called ‘realistic’ trend, which is opposed to both. (Jakobson, pp. 92.)

Thus our theory of metaphor passes another important test. Any acceptable account of metaphor must be capable of explaining its literary

As Roman Jakobson puts it,


function. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the theorizing about metaphor has been prompted by its uses as a literary device, not all the pre- vious accounts are successful in doing so.

15. Metaphor and novelty

A few further words on the creative uses of metaphor are in order. Some- times the applicability of the term “metaphor” is restricted to those nonliteral uses of language which are new in the sense of not having been used earlier, or of not having been used commonly. Let us call such novel metaphors “fresh” ones. The restriction of the term “metaphor” simpliciter to fresh metaphors may indeed be appropriate, and it may conform to the educated usage of the term “metaphor”.14 But this fact, if it is in fact, does not tell against our theory. Our primary aim has been to locate the semantical mechanism relied on in metaphoric uses of language. It is not a part of what we are claiming that all ways of using language which turn on the same semantic4 device are custo- marily labelled “metaphor”.

Indeed, the narrower scope of the term “metaphor” poses a problem which our theory can solve. This problem is what distinguishes the genuine fresh metaphors from “tired” ones? Our theory suggests a partial answer. The novelty of a fresh metaphor may be of one of two kinds: (a) novelty of the similarity considerations by means of which the metaphoric meaning lines are drawn; (b) novelty of the mooring-post of the metaphor.

Both kinds of novelty and its opposite are in fact found illustrated by actual examples. For instance, a metaphor can be fresh because the similarity relations it relies on hold between the internal world and the external world, and therefore are likely not to be obvious. Suddenly, as if the movement of his hand had released it, the load of her accumulated impressions of him tilted up, and down poured in a ponderous avalanche all she felt about him. (Virginia Woolf, To thelighthouse, p. 41.)

Both the phenomenon of a load’s tilting over and the sudden coming together of accumulated impressions are familiar to the reader. What is novel is the similarity between them.

In other instances, the similarity is what is taken for granted, while the object of comparison (the “mooring-post”) is a novel one. Calling Theaetetus “the Frank Ramsey of Plato’s Academy” is perhaps a case in point. Here we

14 And yet it makes perfect sense for a critic to speak of ”the great traditional metaphors of Western thought“. (I.A. Richards, Speculutive Instruments, University of Chicago Press, 1955, p. 33.)


know too little of the brilliant Athenian mathematician-philosopher to be sure what the relevant similarities are between him and the brilliant Bloomsbury philosopher. Rather, the metaphor suggests what Theaetetus might have been like via an assumed similarity with what we know were Frank Ramsey’s most striking characteristics.

Of course, in some of the most powerful metaphors both the similarity and the object of comparison are surprising, and effective because surprising. Socrates’ comparison of his philosophical activity to midwifery is a striking instance, as is T. S. Eliot’s notorious metaphor of the Church as being like a hippopotamus.

Thus the requirement of novelty does not tell against our analysis. On the contrary, our analysis enables us to see more clearly what is involved in the novelty that characterizes live metaphors. What is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the semantical mechanism is the same both in fresh and tired metaphors: nonstandard meaning lines “drawn” on the basis of similarity considerations. The narrower usage on which the term “metaphor” is restricted to fresh ones is understandably encouraged by the function of the term as a terminus technicus of literary theory, marking of one particular literary device.

Our Jakobsonian distinction between metaphor and metonymy, in con- junction with the fact that language actually operates by means of meaning lines based on continuity and not only by means of those based on similarity, shows that metaphor is not only the harbinger of new meanings in language, as sometimes has been claimed. As Jakobson emphasizes, metonymy is also a powerful literal device, and can also serve to introduce new meanings and new kinds of meaning into language.

16. P WS, metaphor and lexical meaning

It is more than a little ironic that the PWS framework has proved useful in the study of metaphor. For PWS has almost exclusively been used to study struc?ural meaning, the ways in which the meanings of simpler expressions determine the meanings of more complex expressions. Metaphor, in contrast, is typically a matter of lexical meaning. For this reason, it would be absurd to try to set up a formal-semanticaI theory of metaphor along the usual lines. Yet PWS offers a most useful framework for the study of metaphor, thus proving its mettle as a tool in lexical semantics.

In a certain sense, our theory of metaphor can be characterized as a way of spelling out the insights of Roman Jakobson. Jakobson claimed that there are


two main dimensions of language, the selection (similarity) dimension and the contiguity dimension. We are not here taking a stand on this claim. In particular, we do not want to discuss how generally applicable Jakobson's contrast is nor what its possible neurological basis might (or might not) be. What we are doing is to use the resources of possible-worlds semantics (or of any equiva- lent approach) to spell out the contrast Jakobson sketches in the special case of nonliteral meaning. Indeed, this is a context in which possible-worlds semantics of the variety which Jaakko Hintikka has represented and which emphasizes the possibiIity of drawing meaning lines in different ways, comes to its own and performs a most useful service of explication. In particular, in this way we can spell out Jakobson's idea that the difference between metaphor and metonymy is that the former relies on similarity while the latter relies one contiguity and other actual causal or spatio-temporal relationships.

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Dialectica Vol. 44, NO 1-2 (1990)

metaphor and the varieties of lexical meaning : dedicated to the memory of max black

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