1. Special Use of Metaphor in Philosophy. Meta-
phor in philosophy may be distinguished from meta-
phor in poetry by being primarily an explanatory
rather than an aesthetic device. Its explanatory func-
tion is to aid in conceptual clarification, comprehen-
sion, or insight regarding a mode of philosophical
thought, a problem or an area of philosophical subject
matter, or even a total philosophical system. However,
the boundary between the aesthetic and the explana-
tory use of metaphor is admittedly vague. A philoso-
pher may even deliberately select a metaphor for its
aesthetic vividness and impact (as with Bergson's
élan
vital or William James's stream of consciousness; and
notoriously the Mystics), but the question of the meta-
phor's having philosophical relevance depends on its
explanatory function. Does it contribute to an under-
standing of the philosophy?
There are relatively superficial uses of metaphor in
philosophy, and there are permeating uses. The super-
ficial uses occur when figures of speech are scattered
along the written pages to vivify some other unusual
conception, and drop out when the conception is
grasped. But when the metaphor's use is permeating,
it may never completely disappear even after it gets
ritualized and deadened under an accepted technical
vocabulary within a philosophical school.
It has been frequently noticed that a new mode of
thinking or a new school of philosophy as it is emerging
and finding itself tends to be expressed in figurative
language. This is inevitable before a technical vocabu-
lary is developed with clear definitions and specific
designations. Generally, this preliminary tendency is
to be regarded as a superficial use of metaphor in
philosophy. It is the more permeating use that deserves
most attention.
In this connection the term “metaphor” should not
be taken in too literal accordance with a definition
often found in elementary books on prosody. It is not
just a simile with the preposition “like” left out. It
is rather the use of one part of experience to illuminate
another—to help us understand, comprehend, even to
intuit, or enter into the other. The metaphorical ele-
ment may ultimately be absorbed completely into what
it is a metaphor of. The one element, as frequently
explained, is “reduced” to the other. The paradox of
a metaphor is that it seems to affirm an identity while
also half denying it. “All things are water,” Thales
seems to say. In so saying he would be affirming an
identity and yet acknowledging that it is not obvious,
and that what is more obvious is the difference. He
claims an insight beyond the conventional view of
things. It becomes incumbent on him to show how the
identity can be justified. The same is true of Lucretius'
identifying all things with atoms and the void, and of
many other philosophers' modes of identification of the
whole of reality with some general aspect of it.
