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the rule of metaphor

paul ricoeur

ed.



study 3

This theory is a rhetoric, in that it teaches the mastery of contextual interplay by means of a knowledge of criteria of understanding other than those of simple univocity upon which logic is built. Such attention to criteria is a descendant of the ancient reflection on ‘virtues of lexis’; but those older criteria – precision, liveliness, expressiveness, clarity, beauty – remain locked in to the superstition concerning proper meaning.

shouldn’t these criteria still apply today?

we can say that the metaphor holds together within one simple meaning two different missing parts of different contexts of this meaning

the importance of the context, not just the one provided by the reader, but the one in which the words themselves are embedded (lexical field)

polarities (tensions): - event / meaning - sense / reference - individual / universal