Metaphor and implicit awareness

Abstract

A copious amount has been written on the subject of metaphor, and, although individual writers have presented extremely varying views of metaphor, much of this writing has been provocative and insightful. However, these diverse views have often foundered on the issue of accounting for the diversity of metaphor. Views which reject the notion of metaphorical meaning have difficulty explaining what it is we communicate to others when we use a metaphor. Views which accept the notion of metaphorical meaning are unable to explain adequately haw we can understand the same metaphor yet paraphrase it in different ways. I have attempted to incorporate these previous insights within one theory of metaphor. In order to achieve this consistency, I have relied heavily an the writings of Michael Polanyi. Michael Palanyi's view of metaphor is informed by his notion of tacit or implicit awareness. He holds that there are two types of awareness, focal and implicit, and that both are needed for knowledge. Focal awareness is knowledge by (attending to' and implicit awareness is knowledge by (relying an.' In metaphor, although we focally attend to the meanings of the words which comprise the metaphor, we cannot make adequate sense of it unless we emphasize the implicit dimension contained in our understanding of the figure. metaphorical meaning depends on this implicit items. He accounts for the diversity of claiming that metaphor, forcing it as Far Palanyi, exploration of metaphor by it does to concentrate an implicit items, is a matter of the way in which we understand. He accounts far multiple paraphrases of a single metaphor by suggesting that although the metaphor remains the same, the implicit items which we bring to any understanding of that metaphor will be different. What is conveyed by a metaphor is its metaphorical meaning. Yet this metaphorical meaning will depend, in part, an the implicit items from which we attend to the metaphor.