Questions from Q&A 5 (Part 1)
Q: Although Davidson maintains that metaphors do not contain any specific cognitive content, is it possible to support his view of metaphors, while, at the same time agree that certain meanings of metaphors are more likely?
We spent a significant amount of class time on Friday discussing the fact that Davidson stated that metaphors do not have any specific cognitive meaning. Accordingly, accepted prima facie, this would imply that metaphors could be interpreted in any way. As expected, Davidson received a lot of heat from our class because of this statement. I completely understand why this is seen as problematic, but it seems that we may not being providing our best interpretive charity in the case of analyzing Davidson’s argument. I say this because, while writing my Q&A, I began to question whether Davidson’s theory should be interpreted as stating that absolutely any possible meaning for a metaphor should be viewed at the same level of effectiveness.
I accept the idea that every metaphor does not have any specific cognitive meaning, but does this also imply that every possible meaning for a metaphor should be viewed as equal in consideration? For example, Nicole stated in class that if we use the metaphor “Henry was a lion”, the term lion could not possible be referring to a space alien. Avery responded to Nicole by pointing out that an example could be construed to illustrate that lion, could in fact, be interpreted as referring to a space alien. Avery also mentioned that this would also be a very rare occurrence, and that in the majority of cases, the metaphorical meaning of Lion would be viewed as only being one of a limited number of choices. Accordingly, it seems that although almost any possible metaphorical meaning could work within a certain context, there could be a network of possible meanings that are ranked according to relevance. Therefore, Davidson may maintain that each metaphor could be interpreted in a vast number of ways, but this does not mean that we should not put preferences of certain meanings.
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