From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2003 - 01:33:08 GMT
Erin,
It seems to that Campbell would follow Donald Davidson and Rorty is saying
that metaphors are "unfamiliar sounds." Literal words are "familiar
sounds." What Davidson and the neo-pragmatists are suggesting is that
metaphors have no cognitive meaning. We simply can't explain them
according to other things that we've explained (literal words). As soon as
we can explain a metaphor, it dies, it ceases to be a metaphor. Literal
words and sentences can give us reasons for thinking things and doing
things i.e. reasons can lead to causes. Metaphors can only cause us to do
or think things, not give us reasons.
This may seem an odd thing to say, but it is, I believe, what Campbell is
saying in the passages Erin gave. Campbell then says that "believers" take
metaphors as facts and atheists as "lies." I'm not sure how to interpret
what he means, but here's a stab: he's saying that believers think that
metaphors have cognitive meaning (and are therefore important) and atheists
don't think they have cognitive meaning (and are therefore unimportant).
If what he means is something along the Davidsonian lines I drew above
(which I think he might given "God is a metaphor for that which trancends
all levels of intellectual thought."), then Campbell would say the fact/lie
distinction should be blurred. Metaphors don't have cognitive meaning, but
that doesn't mean they aren't important. In fact, metaphors are essential
for evolving better linguistic tools for coping with reality.
So, to say that pragmatists think metaphors a lie, I think, is to
misunderstand what they are saying about metaphysics (and James well known
defence of believers). Pragmatists don't like metaphysics because it
typically banks on a distinction that forces us to chase after an Absolute
Truth. When we make a distinction between appearance and reality, then we
will be constantly be trying to pull back appearances to get at reality.
Pragmatists don't want to make that distinction. They simply want to cope
with their experiences and environment (or enjoy them, as the case may be).
Pragmatists, as I've been presenting them, have no problem with the
metaphor "Quality." They do have a problem with the degenerate activity
that Pirsig calls the Metaphysics of Quality. "Quality is reality" is a
metaphor because it doesn't make any literal sense. As soon as we
literalize it, we hypostatize it as a metaphysical chess piece. I've been
urging that we follow the pragmatists in resisting this.
Matt
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