On Ricoeur’s Thought Of Metaphor

Since ancient time,metaphor has attracted the attention of scholars.Aristotle,a famous Greek philosopher,has once looked deep into this issue.Based on the need of textual hermeneutics,Ricoeur a French contemporary hermeneutist,criticized the relevant thoughts of rhetoric and linguistics in the past and put forward his own thoughts of metaphor,which then became a significant component of his textual hermeneutics.This paper studies Ricoeur’s thoughts on metaphor,focusing on the metaphorical basis and impetus,interpretation method and relationship between metaphor and truth.This essay studies Ricoeur’s thought of metaphor mainly from four perspectives:First,Ricoeur summarizes the predecessors’ research on metaphor and critically absorbs the metaphor thoughts from the perspective of rhetoric and semantics.Metaphor is not a simple substitution of words,but should also play a role in a sentence,and in the text interpretation in a particular context.There is a common foundation for metaphor and text,that is,discourse,as both are means of expression of discourse.Thus,the necessity of metaphor can be reflected in the fact that the exploration of metaphorical interpretation methods can be extended to the interpretation methods of text.Second,Ricoeur analyze the similarities between things that are generated from words,which is the basis of metaphor.On the one hand,authors create metaphors through the similarities.On the other hand,readers also discover and understand metaphors via similarities.Metaphor comes from imagination.However,there is some distance between tenor and vehicle,due to the reason that they are just similar,instead of the same.Imagination shortens the distance between the two and thus produces the metaphorical meaning.Third,Ricoeur believes that the interpretation methods should be the union of both explanation and interpretation,rather than just one of them.It is also applicable to the interpretation of metaphor.On the one hand,explanations of metaphor can be done,after which an analysis of the metaphorical language can be made from the perspective of semantics.On the other hand,interpretations of metaphor can be done,after which an interpretation of the metaphorical meaning can be made from the perspective of readers’ preconception.The two,explanation and interpretation,form a unified cycle.With detailed explanations,we can understand the meaning more deeply,based on which we will be able to explain the text in a more comprehensive way.Fourth,Ricoeur believes the relationship between readers and text is just like the relationship between the human and the world.Our exploration of text meaning is just like our pursuit of truth.First of all,metaphor is connected with substantiality,because the world of metaphor and even text is real.Secondly,metaphor is utilized for the purpose of explaining the truth.Finally,the interpretation methods of metaphor,that is,the combination of explanation and interpretation,also reflects the way we understand action,the world and truth.