Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [134]
Step 2: Articulate the characteristics of the vehicle, its defining traits.
Step 3: Select the characteristics of the vehicle that seem most significant in context.
Step 4: Use these significant characteristics of the vehicle to prompt interpretive leaps to what the metaphor communicates. Make the implicit explicit.
Notice how, in the rose example, our recasting of the original simile has made explicit the implicit meanings inside the figurative language. This recasting is a useful act of thinking, one that makes evident the thought process that a metaphor sets in motion.
What such recasting reveals is not only that metaphors do, in fact, make claims, but that they are remarkably efficient at doing so. A metaphor can say a lot in a little by compressing a complex amalgam of thought and feeling into a single image.
What objections might remain to thinking that figurative language has an implicit logic and is a way of thinking and making arguments? People who pride themselves on being logical thinkers and place great value on rationality are inclined to think of metaphorical language as imprecise and too little available to any systematic way of arriving at meaning that all who encounter the metaphor might share. This is a reasonable objection, but one that can be answered in the terms that we introduced in our discussion of Practical Reasoning above.
As we argue at some length in Chapter 6, Making Interpretations Plausible, certainty and single right answers are very rarely available, especially when our evidence consists of words. Even in areas, however, where it is not possible to prove beyond a doubt that one statement of meaning is truer and more accurate than another, people will usually accept some reasoning from evidence as better—truer to the meaning of the words in context—than others. The meaning-making process is social and consensual. To put a Rogerian slant on this point, understanding figurative logic involves careful listening to language, an openness to multiple possibilities, and it also requires empathy—much like what is required of us in understanding people’s arguments in everyday life.
Skepticism about the logic and usefulness of metaphorical language is especially common among people who like to think of themselves as completely out-front (a metaphor!) and practical—always saying what they mean, as though it were possible for everything that mattered to be made entirely overt and equally understandable by all, regardless of background and experience.
The fact that metaphors require interpretation—as do most uses of language— does not take away from the fact that metaphors are a way of thinking. Being able to articulate the implicit arguments embodied in metaphors, making their meanings explicit so that they can be opened to discussion with others—is an important thinking and language skill to acquire.
A BRIEF GLOSSARY OF COMMON LOGICAL FALLACIES
This last section of the chapter offers a brief discussion of common fallacies—false moves—that can subvert argument and interpretation. If you can recognize these fallacies, you can more easily avoid them both in constructing arguments and in analyzing the arguments of others.
The logical fallacies share certain characteristics. First of all, they are forms of cheating in an argument, which is to say that, however false and misleading they may be, and however intentional or unintentional, these tactics are often quite successful. They offer cheap and unethical ways of “winning” an argument—usually at the cost of shutting down the possibility of negotiation among competing views and discovery of common ground that are the goals of Rogerian argument.
The most noticeable feature of arguments based on the logical fallacies is sloganizing— or slogan-slinging, which is a suitably graphic way of putting it. In sloganizing, each side tries to lay claim to various of a culture’s honorific words, which then are repeated so often and so much out of context that