Getting your sources right
What Aristotle didn't say
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23154284 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James E Mahon (0000-0003-1200-4095, Duke University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Pages | 69-80 |
| Publication date | 1999-02-11 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Researching and Applying Metaphor (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1017/cbo9781139524704.007 |
| OpenAlex | W83804085 |
| ISBN | 9781139524704 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
As at least one influential writer on metaphor has pointed out – and there are few who would disagree with him – it is still the case that “Any serious study of metaphor is almost obliged to start with the works of Aristotle” (Ortony, 1979a: 3). Most studies of metaphor, however, have scarcely a good word to say about Aristotle. The obligation to discuss him is considered to be something of a chore. Such studies always insist that Aristotle undervalued metaphor and believed it to be merely an ornamental extra in language. They also insist that he was ridiculously elitist with respect to metaphor, believing that one had to be a genius in order to use a metaphor properly. Partly as a result of this prevailing negative appraisal, the scholarship contained in these studies tends to be rather shallow. Since Aristotle's account of metaphor is fundamentally wrong, it seems, there is not much point in going into great detail about his views, or in consulting more than one of the texts in which he discusses metaphor.
Art · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Obligation · Order (exchange) · Political science · Scholarship · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1999 - 2015 (17) |
| Highly cited | No |