An Eye for Resemblances
The Teaching
But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
— Aristotle, Poetics
Ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh. … By “making them see things” I mean using expressions that represent things as in a state of activity.
— Aristotle, Rhetoric
Commentary
Aristotle gives metaphor its oldest job description. Plain words can only hand back what you already know, and a metaphor gets hold of something new. His example was a poet calling old age “a withered stalk”. You knew what old age was and what a stalk was, but not the dryness and lightness the two produce together.
He also thought the gift couldn’t be taught: you have the eye or you don’t. And he noticed what keeps a metaphor alive. The best ones show things “in a state of activity”, moving and living. A still image goes dead, and an image in motion keeps being seen.
The philosopher Eugene Gendlin argued with him across twenty-three centuries. For Aristotle, a good metaphor spots a likeness that was already there. For Gendlin, the metaphor comes first and the likenesses pour out of it afterwards. Nobody had a list of the ways old age resembles a stalk until the poet said it. Inquiry II, Carrying Over, follows that argument into the evidence.
Themes
Connections 5
Travelled
Terence McKenna read and drew on Greek thought.
Travelled
Greek thought reached Christianity by 50 CE. The New Testament is written in Greek. John’s Logos is a Greek idea, and the Church Fathers read Plato.