Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 07:23:25 -0700
Subject: Re: The literal and the Symbolic


Michael, thanks for the explanation. I would like to nail this down a
bit tighter.


Michael Eldred wrote:

> Heidegger says that there is metaphor only in metaphysics, something
> that
> shocked me when I first read it.

Fascinating, if confusing.

> The point is: How is a literal meaning to be tied down and demarcated
> from a
> metaphorical meaning? As long as language is conceived of as just a
> system of
> signs attached to impressions in the soul which are received from
> things (as in
> the Aristotelian conception and all metaphysics, with modifications,
> after
> Aristotle), there is a line of attachability of words to things.

So language thus conceived is a system of attaching signs to things. I
will admit that this is the way I generally think of language.

> But if language
> is thought of as pointing to and calling beings into the open, this
> can happen
> in many ways, and there is no reason to privilege one calling over
> another, for
> all language reveals beings in some way or other.

I'm not entirely clear about the distinction between the "line of
attachability of words to things" and language as a "pointing to and
calling beings into the open". Seems like you could say that the line of
attachability of words to things IS a pointing to the calling beings
into the open. And then the distinction is unclear.

> Why should language have a home
> position in literal meanings, even if these latter could be well
> defined? Why
> not allow language its free play as, say, James Joyce has done in
> “Finnegans
> Wake”?

Is this the issue here? I wasn't suggesting a "home" for either literal
or symbolic meanings.

> Symbolic interpretations, in turn, seem to be another sort of
> restriction of the
> free play of language. A symbol arises when two rings are made from
> one block
> and fit together perfectly; one ring then belongs “symbolically” to
> the other. A
> symbolic coding of pairs of meanings seems rather heavy-handed and
> unwarranted.
> Thus, for example, green is the colour of hope for Medieval
> Christianity,
> anything long is a symbol for the penis in psychoanalysis, a mandala
> is a symbol
> for unity and completeness in Jungian psychology, etc. An untrammelled
> play of
> language could point to more.

Still, I'm not clear about the alternative to thinking in terms of the
color green as signifying either the literal color we all know and love,
as opposed to some (thing) other than that color. It seems as though
when language points to (calls into presence) the thing (be it name or
action) generally and directly known to be associated with the sign,
then this is a literal meaning as opposed to calling into presence
something other than this which would be a metaphorical meaning. But
even as I write this, I am thrown into questioning the very sort of
"standard" I am describing for determining the difference between these
two meanings. It doesn't sit quite right.

I say the word "Green". Is it the case that I knew the color green
first, then thought up a word for it? In many cases this seems so. New
words come into existence all the time just so. Bill Gates decides he is
going to call his new widget an "Operating System". And now, whenever
someone says "Operating System" I know what this refers to...literally.
There is a direct link between the thing (noun or verb) and the word.
But there also appears to be a "singular" and specific link between the
thing and the word that may in fact be, as you say, too "confining",
because the original thought about Operating System's was itself
embedded in a background of meanings.

And yet, what is the problem with calling the reference to Bill Gate's
Operating System a literal signfication, while referring to all other
signrfication (to other background meanings) metaphorical? Just too
confining?

Michael Staples



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