December 2, 2004

Donald Davidson: "What Metaphors Mean"

Davidson, Donald. 1978. "What Metaphors Mean." In On Metaphor (Ed. Sheldon Sacks). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Summary:

Davidson's essay appears to be situated in a philosophical debate concerning what metaphors mean. His essay is very much directed at Max Black, who he signals has opposing views.

He begins with his thesis, stating that "metaphors mean what the words, in their most literal interpretation mean, and nothing more" (30). He opposes those who believe that, in addition to the literal sense, it has an additional sense or meaning and lists many, including: Aristotle, Freud, Plato, Lakoff. He suggests that his approach means that metaphors accomplish more than what they're given credit for and what they accomplish is different than what others suggest. His argument is that "metaphors belong exclusively to the domain of use" (31) and that to suggest that they have an additional meaning is to weaken their power.

He continues on to address different rules for understanding the meaning of a metaphor, focusing on literal interpretations that include both the original meaning of the word and the extended meaning. Metaphors promote similarities and extensions of word meanings, but they are not arbitrary - they are always based on one of the original meanings. One should compare similes and metaphors in this analysis (36).

He moves on to give examples, explicitly addressing Black's texts in the process and offer further justification for his thesis.

[It should be noted that at the end of the book, Max Black offers a direct rebuttal to Davidson, effectively telling him he's on crack and point-by-point deconstructing his essay in bulleted form.]

Reaction:

My goal in reading this was to get another perspective on metaphor and i feel like i walked into a mine field. In reading this essay and surfing on the web, i discovered that there are two key philosophical camps on making sense of metaphors. Davidson and Searle minimize the significance of metaphor and believe that metaphor can only be analyzed literally. Black, on the other hand, is part of a camp that believes that "metaphor arises out of interactions between the conceptual structures that lie beneath the level of words" (poetry portal). Of course, Lakoff and other linguists are in an entirely different camp. He believes that metaphor is an innate cognitive trait that stems from building connections between synapses in the brain. He argues that everything can be reduced to metaphor and that it is the fabric of thought.

While i found Davidson's perspective interesting, his arguments ran so counter to my Lakoff-framed view and the tone was so aggressive that i found myself dismissing him. Perhaps i am missing something, but i'm not sure how to resolve this.

Posted by zephoria at 12:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)