Figure 58: Symbols and metaphors

 

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Symbols

Metaphors in Antiquity

Metaphors in the Scriptures

Early research on metaphor

Since 1950: boom of publications on metaphor

Three types of theories of metaphor

 

 

 

Symbols

 

Symbols may be interpreted in different ways but the understanding needs no decoding. Symbols in the genuine meaning are mostly visual objects or phenomena. Its difficult to find a good definition of “symbol”.

Horst E. Miers (1970) states: “Symbol is a visual expression of an idea or thought.”

Reiner Kakuska (1991) sees symbols as “visual illustration of an idea or principle”.

Marc Roberts (1993) finally describes symbol

“as a sign or picture that points beyond itself and illustrates a sense, an idea and a meaning. It is the making pictorial of the non-concrete, which cannot be made concrete by no means.“

 

According to Otto Stöber (1981, 90) and Alfried Lehner (1990, 77) we find symbols already in the cave paintings, e. g. a square pointing upwards against heaven and a reversed square pointing against the earth, such symbolizing the male and the female principle, giving and conceiving.

 

From Old Egypt we have various paintings showing Osiris holding a square in the hand or sitting enthroned on a positioned square. Also the god Re-Harakte resp. Amun-Re, the gods Thot and Chnum or Chepre as well as the goddess Hathor are seen sitting on a throne composed of a square. Since the square is rectangular the meaning is “right”, “upright”, “righteous”, “justice” and “order”.

 

There is an abundance of symbols. From their origins we can distinguish the following sources:

·                    Astral religions

·                    Cults of “primitive” societies

·                    Craft and handicraft

·                    Myths

·                    Scripture

·                    Greek mysteries.

 

 

Metaphors in Antiquity

 

Metaphors we find since early civilizations, e. g. in sayings or proverbs of Old Sumer and Egypt.

Particularly the old Greeks produced metaphors (Hugo Blümner 1891; Robert Thomas 1891; Martin Christinger 1920; William Bedell Stanford 1936; Gerd Breitenbürger 1975). These pictures were used to:

·                    illustrate an ordinary object – “ship of the desert”;

·                    personalize a sensual process – “the see blusters”; or

·                    replace something abstract by something visible – “the pillars of the state”.

 

Aristotle meant the right use of metaphor “is a manifestation of natural giftedness (gr. euphyia, lat.: ingenium) because to weave good metaphors means to have a good view of similarities (homoion theorein)“.

 

 

Metaphors in the Scriptures

 

The interest of scholars was mainly concentrated to interpret metaphors in the Scripture (Charles Goldwell 1621; Joannes Janus 1650; Ralph Venning 1652). In the 17^th and 18^th century this endeaver was called tropology (Thomas Delaune/ Benjamin Keach 1681; Johann Andreas Fabricius 1736; John Brown 1768) or Troposchemalogia (Benjamin Keach 1682).

 

 

Early research on metaphor

 

Research on metaphors started 1844 and spread rapidly. But besides theology, rhetoric and literature (Friedrich Brinkmann, 1878; Alfred Biese, 1889; Gustav Kohlfeldt, 1892) analyses were very scarce. As psychologists wrote Gertrude Buck (1899) and Heinz Werner (1919).

Some attention gained Ivor Armstrong Richards with his ideas on „metaphor“ (1936). 1949 Martin Foss published „Symbol and metaphor in human experience“.

 

 

Since 1950: boom of publications on metaphor

 

After some articles on metaphor (Max Black, 1954; R. R. Boyle, 1954; S. E. Asch, 1958; Paul Henle, 1958; Rom Harré, 1960) the start shot for a boom of publications was given in 1960 by a symposium on „Metaphor and Symbol“ at the University of Bristol (Lionel Charles Knights, Basil Cottle 1960).

 

Very fruitful in the beginning were the debates of Max Black („Models and Metaphors“, 1962; complements 1977), Colin Murray Turbayne (“The myth of metaphor“ 1962), Philip Ellis Wheelwright („Metaphor & reality“ 1962), Douglas Berggren („The Use and Abuse of Metaphor“ 1963), Barbara Mary Hope Strang („Metaphors and models“ 1964) and Weller Embler („Metaphor and meaning“ 1966).

 

In 1974 we have two triple titles: by William Hilton Leatherdale: „Analogy, model, metaphor“; by Danielle and George Arthur Mihram: „The role of models, metaphors and analogy“.

Anthologies of beautiful essays on metaphors in history were arranged in 1978 by Hayden V. White and in 1994 by Frank Rudolf Ankersmit.

With organismic metaphors in the 20^th century’s developmental biology dealt D. J. Haraway (1976).

 

The wave got momentum with the omnibus of Andrew Ortony („Metaphor and thought“, 1979) and the bestseller of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson „Metaphors we live by“ (1980). Since then several hundreds of studies were published, among them remarkably many omnibuses and readers.

 

In 1981 Mark Johnson edited a 360page omnibus on „Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor“, in 1982 David S. Miall a smaller one („Metaphor. Problems and perspectives“) and in 1983 Anselm Haverkamp a 500page omnibus on „Theorie der Metapher“. Daniel Rotbart (1984, 1997) dealt a long time with the function of metaphors in science.

Importatnt analyses we find by Earl Ronald Mac Cormac (1985), Georg Schöffel (1986) and Eileen Cornell Way (1991).

Besides that only omnibuses were published, e, g. by Jaakko K. Hintikka (1994), George A. Cowan et al. (1994), Hans Julius Schneider (1996), Wolfgang Bergem et al. (1996), Bernhard Debatin et al. (1997), Lynne Cameron et al. (1999), Ruben Zimmermann (2000) and Marin J. Gannon (2001).

 

 

Three types of theories of metaphor

 

In a symposium in Bremen Bärbel Frischmann (2002, 49-75) tried to systematize theories of metaphors. She distinguishes three types of them by their epistemological perspective:

1) metaphysical model (Aristotle and all his followers)

2) scientistic model (since Vico and Kant)

3) ironistic model (since Schlegel and Nietzsche).

 

 

Bibliography

Symbolism – various Symbols

Metaphor