Ontological Metaphor

Desmond takes another enthralling step. If “seeing is” may be “seeing is,” then metaphor might reveal being.

“Metaphor may be a revelation of reality. Metapherein – the thing carries itself across to revelation, metaphorizes itself; this is its spread beyond univocal identity. In its self-metaphorizing, it reaches out to more, reaches into the meta , the middle. The metaphorical ‘as’ thus seeks to identify the plurivocal ‘is’ of the ‘thing’ in its otherness. Thus the thing may be, so to say, an ontological metaphor , bespeaking the power of being, and not just the human imagination. If the thing is a poiesis of the original power of being, then the metaphorical ‘as’ may well be in rapport with the ‘is’ of the thing, and rapport in an entirely realistic, though not objectivisitic, sense.” The viewpoint of the artist gets at reality better than the viewpoint of the philosopher, since the artist recognizes that things are “already charged with value.”

This goes one better than the metaphorical epistemology of Lakoff and Johnson.