R. Wadenstrom - 2001 - Acta Philosophica Fennica 69:213-218.

Innocent Metaphors and Less

Innocent Ones
Metaphors make speech and text enjoyable. A text can
become terribly dry and prosy, if the metaphors are removed.
However, metaphors do not only have an aesthetic value:
metaphors are often necessary in order to grasp phenomena
that still lack established concepts, or that are too
complicated or abstract (for a particular purpose or a
particular audience) to be explained in literal words. When a
phenomenon is simplified by using a metaphor, it, however,
usually means emphasizing one aspect and obscuring others.
A metaphor may help the observer to see a phenomenon
from one perspective, which means not seeing it from another
perspective. Isn't it true that life is a theatre! But used in the
wrong context, the metaphor might hurt. In times of pain and
sorrow, life is no theatre.

In order to understand or grasp something new, unknown,

complicated or abstract, we borrow models from things that
are already known or which are more concrete. When the
space ship was new, it was apprehended as a ship for
journeys in space, like the air ship had been a ship for
journeys in the air. Today computer viruses are imagined as
viruses which infect. Perhaps in the future, organic viruses
will be imagined as software, that one should protect one self
from with the help of (organic) anti-virus programmes.

If we consider the notion of ship, we may say that this notion

has acquired a wider sense. However, as for the notion of
virus, it is obvious that, in spite of the common term, we are
dealing with two entirely different notions, which are coupled
with each other by an analogy.

Sometimes a distinction is made between metaphor and

simile as well as between proper metaphor and on the other
hand metonymy, synecdoche and irony. It is however not
always clear whether a metaphor is a metaphor proper or not.
I will here use the notion 'metaphor' in an inclusive sense.
Still, it might be needed to give these concepts definitions.
With metonymy I understand the replacement of a word with
the name of a thing nearly associated: we say that we read
Kafka, when we actually read some literature written by
Kafka; we talk about the White House, when we refer to the
President of the United States. With synecdoche, which
sometimes is interpreted as a kind of metonymy, I
understand the replacement of the name of referred thing
with the name of a part of this thing: fifteen heads for fifteen
persons, butter on the bread for welfare. Sometimes
metonymies and synecdoche's are only shortenings, but they
often say more or less than the proper word: they exemplify,
dramatize or create desired fuzziness.

An expression may sometimes be interpreted as a metaphor

proper as well as a metonymy. Lots of examples can be found
in vulgar speech. - I will not mention any here. But a
metaphor in a proper sense may also be used as a metonymy
on another level. If we mention the Holy See, we thereby let
the see, i.e. a chair, represent the entire papacy, but the
chair itself is a metaphor. If we talk about the fall of the
Berlin wall, we seldom talk about the concrete event of
tearing down the wall. Instead, we use one detail, the
destroying of the wall, as a synecdoche of a more
comprehensive process. Additionally, the fall of the Berlin wall
is a metaphor that figuratively describes the unification of
Germany and the whole Europe.

After the retreat of the Finnish president Urho Kekkonen, a

book was published with the title Tamminiemen pesänjakajat.
Here pesänjakajat is a metaphor proper, while Tamminiemi
(the home of the former president) is a metonymy. As a
whole the notion is, however, clearly metaphoric. The Paris-
Bonn axis used to be mentioned in political texts. Here the
axis is a metaphor, perhaps a dead one. But even Paris and
Bonn are metaphors, or parts of a metaphor, and metonymies
as well. As metonymies they represent the respective
governments or central administrations. It is, however, not
self-evident that the name of a capital is used for the
government of a country. At least outside Italy, "Rome"
usually stands for the Pope and the Catholic Church.
Similarly, outside Belgium, "Brussels" stands for the European
Union and its various bodies, of which not all are located in
Brussels.

Lets move on to more scientific matters. A scientific text is

supposed to use exact and well defined concepts. Accordingly,
metaphors are banned. Still many exact scientific concepts
are originally coined as metaphors. When the concepts have
established themselves, they have become dead metaphors,
that are not any more associated with the word in its literal
sense. However, metaphors are not always as dead as they
seem to be.

Take black holes as an example. A black hole is not a literal

hole. Hardly any physicist imagine that it would be, but
among laymen there are many, who imagine black holes by
the model of literal holes. For physicists it does not make a
big difference that black holes are called "black holes" and not
for instance "cosmic implosions", but for laymen as well as for
writers of science fiction, it might be a determining factor in
the understanding of what a black hole is. We could add that
the English word 'hole' has two (or more) meanings. How the
word 'hole' is translated to other languages can further on
influence conceptions about black holes. Still, the notion
'black hole' is, as a metaphor, an innocent one.

In physics it is not always obvious whether we are dealing

with a metaphor or only an analogy when we use the same
name for two entirely different but structurally similar things.
Without the common form with more concrete things and
phenomena, it would often be extremely difficult to get an
idea of certain aspects of the physical world. Physics has
borrowed lots of terms from other fields of knowledge and
most of the terms are by no means chosen randomly. But
physical notions have further been borrowed into other fields.
Ironically, it is often so that neither humanists nor physicists
have realized that we are here usually dealing with metaphors
or, at its most, analogies. There is no point in being against
the (postmodernist) use of scientific metaphors and
analogies, as long as it is clear that the metaphors are just
metaphors and the analogies just analogies. If a physical
appellation is used in a transferred sense in another field, the
experience from physics may help us to understand a
phenomenon which does not belong to the world of physics,
but physics may have borrowed the same term from a non-
physical phenomenon that is in some way similar.

In the didactic of physics, dead metaphors may be brought

back into life for purely pedagogical reasons. When a pupil or
a student is learning something new, he will understand the
notion as a metaphor. When he has learned to know the
phenomenon, the metaphor will become a dead metaphor for
him too. The teacher may even use parables and metaphors
that are not suggested by the name of the phenomenon.
When the physics teacher compares the force between
positively and negatively charged particles with the attraction
between a man and a woman, he is thereby helping the pupils
to understand the physical phenomenon, but in the same
time he gives them a model for the sexual orientation of
(normal) human beings.

One dominant figure of speech or model of thought that has

been borrowed from natural science to economics is the
"natural selection". Darwin's theory of the evolution of species
helps us, transferred to another level, to get an idea about
the mechanisms of the free market economy. (Whether the
idea is right or wrong is an other topic.) Nevertheless, Darwin
himself is supposed to have taken inspiration for his theory
from the liberal economical theories of his time. It is not
always easy to tell which one came first, the egg or the hen.

One could claim that the Darwinist model helps us to

understand the market economy, although it gives a wrong
understanding. The Darwinist paradigm perhaps help us to
misunderstand the market mechanisms, but
also misunderstanding is a kind of understanding, although
not it an exclusive sense. Whether a model gives a correct
understanding might depend on how much of the model is
taken from the one field to the other one. The image of
particles helps us to understand elementary particles, as long
as we don't apply the idea of solidity to the elementary
particles.

In the humanities and, especially in history, living metaphors

are used even in specialist literature. The phenomena that
history gives an account of are so complex, that any
interpretation demands simplifications. Simplify is just what
metaphors do. Metaphors expose some aspect of a
phenomenon, while they hide other aspects. Metaphors can,
just for that reason, be used to interpret the past according to
specific interests. Compared to metaphors used in natural
science, metaphors used in historiography are not completely
innocent.

In religion and politics metaphors are still more common and

visible than in history. Religious people might not apprehend
metaphors as metaphors, but religious language is difficult to
imagine without metaphors. To be religious with necessity
implicates to live by metaphors. The choice of images might
also have an impact on the structure and rules of the
community as well as on religious life. If, for instance, a priest
is understood as a father it might be more difficult to accept
female priests than if a priest is understood as an elder, as a
shepherd or a minister. Whether God is a father, the Lord of
Hosts or a hen that gathers her chicks under her wings has an
impact on the relationship with God. The metaphors of
religious language are innocent in the sense that the minister
or at least the common religious person seldom create or
choose a specific metaphor in order to convince people about
something. In religion metaphors are given. The Lord remains
"my shepherd", even if young urban people hardly know what
a literal shepherd is.

Political metaphors, unlike religious metaphors, are often

consciously chosen, in order to support certain interests.
When Finland in the middle of the 90's was to decide whether
to join the European Union or not, the discussion
concentrated on whether there would be other trains, if we
lost the current one, and in which class - first or second -
Finland in that case would travel. To travel together with
former communist East-European countries would not have
been pleasant! The metaphor did not question whether it was
desirable to get to "Brussels". (Here Brussels is also, of
course, a metaphor or perhaps a metonymy.)

In the time of the Soviet Union Finland and Finnish politicians

had to keep good relations with "Moscow". By using this
metonymy, one could avoid specifying who exactly one
wanted to please. - Perhaps "Moscow" even sometimes stood
for the Finnish president Kekkonen! By using the Moscow
metaphor one could also avoid telling who exactly had the
power in the Soviet Union.

Recently the Finnish presidential election has been discussed

using a game-terminology. Game is an old metaphor for
politics and political acting and not remarkable in itself. When
the election has been compared to a game of cards or horse
racing it has been obvious that the game is a metaphoric one,
but when the word presidenttipeli (presidential game) has
been used it has not always been clear that the game is a
game only in metaphoric sense. A game doesn't always have
to be either literal or metaphoric. As a comparison, a sweet
girl is, at least in English and Swedish, sweet both in a literal
and a metaphorical sense. It is obvious that there is a
resemblance between the sweetness of a girl and the
sweetness of a berry, but both can simultaneously be literally
as well as metaphorically sweet. There is a similar
relationship between the computer virus and the organic
virus. There are lots of examples of this kind, but they are
often bound to a certain language. A notion may be based on
entirely different metaphors in different languages. To change
from one language to another may therefore mean changing
a whole system of metaphors.

As for viruses, it is obvious that the two types mentioned

belong to entirely different classes or categories. It is not
certain whether the same can be said of various kinds of
power. For a physicist, it may be obvious that physical
energy, force and power are essentially different from other
kinds of energy, force or power, but this is not necessarily
obvious from a non-physical perspective. Why should a
physical interaction between particles necessarily be
essentially different from a social or political interaction?
Whether physical power and political power belongs to
completely different categories, depends on the language
game the word 'power' is used in.

Members of a class do not have to be united by a single,

common quality, but can instead be associated by a network
of family resemblance and analogy. Ludwig Wittgenstein, who
introduced the notion 'family resemblance', mentions
precisely 'game' as an example of how family resemblance
might keep a concept together. When in Finland the
presidential election consequently has been compared to
other games, people have probably more and more
understood it as a literal game. This, of course, has
consequences for democracy: democracy becomes a voting
game, or, even worse, a game show. And not only in a pure
metaphorical sense. The game is not anymore only a
harmless metaphor, but it has become a dominating
paradigm.

Like in politics, metaphors are common in economics.

Economic phenomena are often very complex, and economic
notions often lack strict definitions. What else are overheat,
casino economy or economic bubble than metaphors? These
metaphors make abstract and complex phenomena intelligible
for laymen. Furthermore, they have a moral dimension, which
directly influences financial policy. In this case it is easy to
see that metaphors can be useful and even desirable.
However, when politicians or journalists consciously choose
and use metaphors in order to give desired "signal" or to form
the opinion, the metaphors have lost their innocence.