Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [133]
There are some problems with these charges against figurative thinking that lie beyond the scope of this discussion—for example, that emotions are the enemy of rationality, an assumption that neuroscience researchers like Antonio Damasio have challenged. What is important for present purposes is to consider challenges that can reasonably be made to the assumption that one of our most common ways of thinking is not, in fact, a way of reasoning about evidence.
THE LOGIC OF METAPHOR
Metaphors pervade our ways of thinking
Metaphor is a way of thinking by analogy
The logic of metaphors is implicit
The implicit logic of metaphors can be made explicit by scrutinizing the language
We can recast figurative language to see and evaluate its arguments just as we recast language to examine its logic in syllogistic form
Everyday Thinking
Metaphors are deeply engrained in the language we use everyday; they are far from being solely the concern of poets. George Lakoff, professor of linguistics and cognitive science, and English professor Mark Turner, among others, have demonstrated that metaphors are built into the way we think. (See Lakoff and Turner’s book, More than Cool Reason, a Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, University of Chicago Press, 1989.) As such, metaphors routinely constitute our assumptions about the world and our place in it. Life, for example, is a journey. To become successful, you climb a ladder. Being up is a good thing. To be down is to be unhappy and blue. These are all metaphors. If we accept their implicit arguments in an unexamined way, they call the shots in our lives more than we should allow them to.
Although figurative logic does not operate in the same way as claims-based (propositional) logic, it nevertheless produces arguments, the reasoning of which can be analyzed and evaluated. Let’s start with a definition. A metaphor works by analogy— a type of comparison that often finds similarities between things that are otherwise unlike. Consider the simile “My love is like a red red rose.” A simile, identifiable by its use of the words “like” or “as,” operates like a metaphor except that both sides of the analogy are explicitly stated. The subject of the simile, love, is called the tenor; the comparative term brought in to think about love, rose, is called the vehicle.
In metaphors, the thought connection between the vehicle (rose) and the tenor (my love) is left unstated. But for our purposes, the clearer and more explicit simile will do. It is the nature of the resemblance between the speaker’s “love” and roses that we are invited to infer.
What are the characteristics of red roses—especially red red (very red) roses—that might be relevant in this piece of thinking by analogy? Well, most people find roses to be beautiful. Most people associate red with passion. In fact, science can now measure the body’s response to different colors. Red produces excitement. Red can even make the pulse rate go up. Roses are also complicated flowers. Their shape is convoluted. Roses are thought of as female. Rose petals are fragile. Many roses have thorns. So, the simile is actually a piece of thinking about love and about women.
It is not a very deep piece of thinking, and probably many women would prefer that the thorn part not be made too prominent. In fact, a reader would have to decide in the context of other language in the poem whether thorniness, as a characteristic of some roses, is significant and ought to be considered. The point is that the simile does make an argument about women that could be stated overtly, analyzed, and evaluated. The implication that women, like roses, might have thorns—and thus be hard to “pick,” defending them from male intruders, and so forth is part of the argument.
Here is the procedure for exploring and decoding the logic of metaphor—what we have to do, more or less automatically, to understand the thinking that the metaphor suggests.
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