Stern J. Metaphor in Context

Boston: MIT Press, 2000. — 406 p. — ISBN10: 0262194392; ISBN13: 978-0262194396.The many philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists writing on metaphor over the past two decades have generally taken for granted that metaphor lies outside, if not in opposition to, received conceptions of semantics and grammar. Assuming that metaphor cannot be explained by or within semantics, they claim that metaphor has little, if anything, to teach us about semantic theory. In this book Josef Stern challenges these assumptions. He is concerned primarily with the question: Given the received conception of the form and goals of semantic theory, does metaphorical interpretation, in whole or part, fall within its scope? Specifically, he asks, what (if anything) does a speaker-hearer know as part of her semantic competence when she knows the interpretation of a metaphor?According to Stern, the answer to these questions lies in the systematic context-dependence of metaphorical interpretation. Drawing on a deep analogy between demonstratives, indexicals, and metaphors, Stern develops a formal theory of metaphorical meaning that underlies a speaker's ability to interpret a metaphor. With his semantics, he also addresses a variety of philosophical and linguistic issues raised by metaphor. These include the interpretive structure of complex extended metaphors, the cognitive significance of metaphors and their literal paraphrasability, the pictorial character of metaphors, the role of similarity and exemplification in metaphorical interpretation, metaphor-networks, dead metaphors, the relation of metaphors to other figures, and the dependence of metaphors on literal meanings. Unlike most metaphor theorists, however, who take these problems to be sui generis to metaphor, Stern subsumes them under the same rubric as other semantic facts that hold for nonmetaphorical language.Metaphorical CompetenceKnowledge that Metaphor, Knowledge of Metaphor, and Knowledge by Metaphor
Metaphor and Context- dependence: A Quick Tour of the Argument
Methodological PreliminariesFrom Metaphorical Use to Metaphorical MeaningMeaning vs. Use
If Literal Meaning, Why Not Metaphorical Meaning?
Metaphorical/literal Dependence I: Davidson’s Causal Explanation
Metaphorical/literal Dependence II: Davidson on Referential Definite Descriptions, Malapropisms, and Metaphor
The Autonomy of Meaning and Metaphor
Is a Semantic Theory of Metaphor Possible?Themes from DemonstrativesSome Prehistory
Character and Content
Direct Reference: Singular and Predicative
Indexicals and the Parametric Determination of Their Referents
Dthat-descriptions and Complete Demonstratives
Demonstrations as Presentations
Dthat-descriptionsKnowledge of MetaphorThe Context of a Metaphor: Presuppositions
Presupposition, Belief, Pretense, and Presupposition
Utterance-presuppositions and Metaphor
Is Knowledge of Metaphorical Character Really Semantic?Knowledge by Metaphorical ContentA History of Similarity in Metaphor
Exemplification
Metaphors of Exemplification
Thematic and Inductive Networks
Lakoff et al. on Metaphor
Exemplification, Catachresis, and De Re Knowledge by MetaphorMetaphorical Character and Metaphorical MeaningKnowledge of‘Mthat’
Metaphorical Incompetence
The Interpretation vs. Evaluation of a Metaphor
Metaphorical Meaning
Metaphor and Indirect Speech Acts
Nominative Metaphors
Metaphor and Simile
Is There One Natural Kind of Trope?
Three Semantic Theories of Metaphor: A Comparison
Objections and RepliesKnowledge by Metaphorical CharacterMarie’s Problem — and Ours
The Rise and Fall of Literal Paraphrasability
The Endlessness of Metaphorical Interpretation
Metaphorical Mode of Presentation
Surprise
Metaphorical Perspective
Metaphor and Seeing-as
Metaphor and Pictures I
Metaphor and Pictures II
Belief in Metaphor: Marie Again
The Moral of the StoryFrom the Metaphorical to the LiteralNonlinguistic Metaphors
Historical and Contemporary Notions of the Literal
Dead Metaphors
Literal Interpretations as Context-independent Interpretations