In this work, I argue that creative metaphors are formed when some persistent problem, caused by an inadequacy in preexisting knowledge, descends into the collective unconscious, is reconfigured unconsciously in novel ways, and then reemerges back into consciousness where the impasse is resolved by the metaphorical expression of new knowledge. To develop this position, I (1) review and critique some well-known language-based studies of metaphor, (2) summarize psychoanalytic and depth psychological approaches to the psyche as one way to overcome the (...) shortcomings of the language-based scholarship, (3) relate C. G. Jung's account of the psyche and his related notion of synchronicity to creative metaphors, (4) graft a quantum physics approach to material reality back onto Jung's work as a provisional structure of the collective unconscious, and finally, (5) offer some suggestions about how creative metaphors might work psychologically. (shrink)

The question contrasts two ways of expressing the role of the sense organ in perception. In one the expression referring to the sense organ is put into the dative case ; the other is a construction with the preposition δiá governing the genitive case of the word for the sense organ.

Paul Horwich’s Use Theory of Meaning (UTM) depends on his rejection of Paul Grice’s distinction between natural and non-natural meaning and his Univocality of Meaning Thesis, as he wishes to deflate the meaning-relation to usage. Horwich’s programme of deflating the meaning-relation (i.e. how words, sentences, etc., acquire meaning) to some basic regularity of usage cannot be carried through if the meaning-relation depends on the minds of users. Here, I first give a somewhat detailed account of the distinction between natural and (...) non-natural meaning in order to set the stage for Horwich’s critique of it. I then present Horwich’s critique of the distinction and show how that rejection accords with his overall view of meaning as use. Horwich’s rejection of the distinction between natural and non-natural meaning, I argue in the last section, is ill founded, and because UTM depends on this rejection, UTM is stillborn. (shrink)

Locke's main semantic thesis is that words stand for, or signify, ideas. He says this over and over again, though the phraseology he employs varies. In Book III chapter 2 alone we find the following statements of the thesis: ‘ … Words … come to be made use of by Men, as the Signs of their Ideas’ [III.2.1; 405:10-11); The use then of Words, is to be sensible Marks of Ideas; and the Ideas they stand for, are their proper and (...) immediate Signification’ [III.2.1; 405:15-17]; ‘Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind of him that uses them’ [III.2.2; 405:21-2]; That then which Words are the Marks of, are the Ideas of the Speaker’ [III.2.2; 405:27-8]; ‘ …. (shrink)

(First paragraph.) Different views on the relation between phenomenal reality, the world as we consciously experience it, and noumenal reality, the world as it is independent from an experiencing subject, have different implications for a collection of interrelated issues of meaning and reality including aspects of metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and philosophical methodology. Exploring some of these implications, this paper compares and brings together analytic, continental, and Buddhist approaches, focusing on relevant aspects of the philosophy of Donald Davidson, Jacques (...) Derrida, Dharmakīrti, and Dōgen. Prima facie, these philosophers have little in common, and indeed the differences are vast. Even in case of the two Western thinkers there is a fundamental difference between Davidson’s anti-dualist identification of phenomenal, experienced reality with the noumenal, real, external world on the one hand, and the bracketing or elimination of noumenal reality at the base of Derrida’s thought on the other, which lead to radically different ideas with regards to (the possibility and nature of) objectivity and our linguistic access to the real/external/noumenal world. Nevertheless, there are important similarities between Dharmakīrti’s theory of apoha and Davidson’s and Derrida’s theories of triangulation and différance respectively, and these similarities can be exploited to bridge some of the differences and attempt a constructive engagement. (shrink)