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The Rule of Metaphor

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4.08  ·  Rating details ·  184 ratings  ·  11 reviews
Paul Ricoeur is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. In The Rule of Metaphor he seeks 'to show how language can extend itself to its very limits, forever discovering new resonances within itself'. Recognizing the fundamental power of language in constructing the world we perceive, it is a fruitful and insightful study of how language ...more
Paperback, 464 pages
Published August 21st 2003 by Routledge (first published January 1st 1975)
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Alan Lindsay
Jul 17, 2012 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: philosophy
I’ve finished the rule of metaphor—a book whose conclusions re: philosophy and metaphor are—one must use a metaphor—enlightening. One can take from this work of philosophy the fact of the necessary failure of philosophy which is an effect of the failure of language, the inability of language to articulate even once the thing the speculative philosopher desires, attempts to articulate. Metaphor is the conduit from the known to the unknown. Metaphor always erases what it writes as it writes, ...more
Alex Lee
Dec 13, 2014 rated it really liked it
Shelves: 2014, philosophy, rhetoric
I've decided that Ricoeur is more of a meta-rhetorician, a philosopher of rhetoric in the sense that unlike many other rhetoricians and semioticians, he doesn't do any hard low level analysis himself. He may analyze terms, other's uses of terms, and with encyclopedic mastery, run the gambit of tearing through collected works of so many others to pull the threads he needs to weave a larger discourse, but he almost never takes you through line by line synthesis and application. Stranger too, he ...more
Mary Fisher
Apr 14, 2015 rated it really liked it
The first time I read this book 1998-99 I read it badly and did not realize until I was more than half way through that I had read it badly. so I started from the beginning again and realized how important it was for me, especially with Time and Narrative.

But it was key for my understanding of use of language as the biblical canon developed over more than a millennia.

I see it as a key book for understanding theological hermeneutics. Along with Ricoeur's use of Frank Kermode' concept that the end
...more
Christopher
Dec 09, 2009 rated it really liked it
Hard going, but presented in a reader friendly manner, really I only ploughed on through as this book forms a pair with the Time & Narrative volumes, which is where more of my interest really lies.

Check: 'predication' + 'syntagmatic' + a host of literary terms.

Get the most out of this linked collection of studies by reading the original texts that Ricoeur covers.

Fascinating to follow the development of his argument, stretching from Aristotle up to more contemporary treatments of metaphor.

...more
N Perrin
Aug 23, 2018 rated it it was amazing
The Rule of Metaphor is a sequence of eight studies which begins with the history of rhetoric, moves into an analysis of metaphor, a reflection on the nature of language, before offering an entire redescription of speculative discourse and the nature of reality.

Most works of philosophy begin with profound observations before subsiding into repetitions of lesser themes. Ricoeur accomplishes the reverse by beginning with interesting exegesis of Plato that eventually culminates in a potentially
...more
Carl
Sep 26, 2007 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: philosophy, litcrit
I love Ricoeur and enjoyed his take on metaphor in his slim volume "Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning", and I'm interested in the Cognitive Linguistic take on metaphor, so I hope to read this as well. Actually, Gary Holland recently did an analysis of skaldic kennings using Cog Ling metaphor theory, and my dissertation is all about skaldic poetics, so it could be that this whole area is a chapter waiting to be concieved. I'd better read fast.

Nov 2008 update-- have read
...more
Ben
Sep 02, 2010 rated it liked it
Well, I'm sure this book is better than I rated it, but it rather exposed my lack of philosophical training. Still, despite really following about half of it, I found it a very useful review of the development of metaphor theory from Aristotle to the mid-twentieth century. I learned quite about about new (to me) philosophers like Max Black and French schools of thought.
Mary
Apr 12, 2011 rated it it was ok
Shelves: rhetoric
Ugh. Why are the continentalists do dang difficult to read? If they really loved poetry of language, couldn't they practice a little of it? Still, it's nice to get the perspective of this Structuralist as well as heaping quotes from theorists like Jakobson and Max Black to round out my education.
Marc
Aug 22, 2012 rated it it was ok
Shelves: phi-on-you
Tout ça pour ça...

A whole lot of wearisome (but minute) studies to end on a totally idealistic (and unfunded) conclusion. I was not really enlightened about what metaphor was all about.
Dean Allison
May 16, 2015 rated it it was ok
Stars are meaningless. The book is so in love with its own content. I don't believe that it is talking of metaphor.
Ivan
Dec 17, 2014 rated it it was amazing
A grate and important read...
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Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished philosophers of the twentieth century. In the course of his long career he wrote on a broad range of issues. His books include a multi-volume project on the philosophy of the will: Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary (1950, Eng. tr. 1966), Fallible Man (1960, Eng. tr. 1967), and The Symbolism of Evil ...more