Hello All,
THIS MONTH"S TOPIC:
Let's explore the relationship between metaphors and the
MoQ ? Are they primary to its development? If so, which
ones, how many, etc? The goal being if an understandable
metaphor or a series of metaphors could be found it might
possibly be the elusive "catechism of the MoQ"
There are as we well know particular metaphors which
(metaphorically!) we might say 'frame the MOQ'...
- the 'cutting edge' of reality
- 'levels' of awareness
- 'patterns' of value
These are metaphors in the traditional literary
meaning/dictionary definition of the word. But Lakoff's
definition (from 1980) of metaphorical language is all
encompassing:
"The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly
unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical."
This is, as Dan says, "nothing new." In fact Julian Jaynes
was making the same case a year earlier, only imo with more
eloquence and depth:
"For metaphor is not a mere extra trick of language, as is
so often slighted in the old schoolbooks on composition; it
is the very constitutive ground of language. I am using
metaphor here in its most general sense: the use of a term
for one thing to describe another because of some kind of
similarity between them or between their relationships to
other things. There are thus always two terms in a
metaphor, the thing to be described, which I shall call the
METAPHRAND, and the thing or relation used to elucidate it,
which I shall call the METAPHIER. A metaphor is always a
known metaphier operating on a less known metaphrand."
(From 'The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
Bicameral Mind' (OCBCM), Ch.2, 1979)
For Jaynes, abstract concepts are not largely, but rather
entirely metaphorical. JON agrees...
"Hi Focs,
Maybe I'm being dense here, but I don't see how something
abstract can be anything other than metaphorical.
Abstract patterns don't have any "material" existence of
their own, and thus have to be represented by substitute
material
patterns e.g. written symbols, sound bytes, magnetic bits
etc.
By this way of thinking, the whole of the MoQ or any
other idea is nothing but metaphor."
So for me ONE answer to the first question of this month's
topic ("Are metaphors primary to the MOQ's development?")
is 'yes'. The MOQ, along with all other theories of
whatever, is constructed out of intellectual patterns of
value, i.e. language. But a second answer is YES! Metaphor
may well be primary to the FURTHER development of the MOQ.
Not so, claims DAN:
"The embodied metaphor of language cannot be analyzed
further, for who is it that can step outside of language to
do the analyzing?
Therefore, it would seem any hope of uncovering a catechism
of the MOQ in this intellectual fashion is doomed to
failure."
I think we can indeed analyze metaphor further, and can do
so 'inside of language', which was the crux of my topic
suggestion for this month. The moral framework of the MOQ
better allows for the analysis of intellectual patterns in
terms of their origin and evolution...
"In early times, language and its referents climbed up from
the concrete to the abstract on the steps of metaphors,
even, we may say, created the abstract on the bases of
metaphors. [...] It is not always obvious that metaphor has
played this all-important function. But this is because the
concrete metaphiers become hidden in phonemic change,
leaving the words to exist on their own. Even such an
unmetaphorical-sounding word as the verb 'to be' was
generated from a metaphor. It comes from the Sanskrit
'bhu', "to grow, or make grow," while the English forms
'am' and 'is' have evolved from the same root as the
Sanskrit 'asmi', "to breathe" [...] Of course we are not
conscious that the concept of being is thus generated from
a metaphor about growing and breathing. Abstract words are
ancient coins whose concrete images in the busy
give-and-take of talk have worn away with use." (Jaynes,
OCBCM, Ch.2)
(Is this not Pirsig??)
So, in deconstructing the associative complexity of
language by tracing lexical terms back to their
metaphorical origins, we can perhaps increase our awareness
that language further abstracts reality the more it tries
to explain it. And then having returned to these origins we
may once again traverse the steady course of language's
evolution: abstract lexical terms being seen to parallel
their concrete counterparts expanding out of one q-level
into another.
Of course, as analysts we can never fully step outside of
language, but imo by weakening language's grip on reality
we can move closer to it.
Mark B
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