Abstract
Plato's writings abound with colorful analogies and comparisons, such as the myth of the charioteer, the tale of the world's creation, and the myths of the sun, the cave, and the divided line. The value and aesthetic appeal of the Platonic mythos can be traced to the nature of metaphor. The objective of this essay is to demonstrate how metaphor parallels the process of Platonic love. The relationship between Plato's reliance on metaphor and his understanding of love should help to dispel the conception that metaphor functions primarily as a stylistic ornament, at best an expendable addition to Platonic philosophy.
For the purpose at hand, metaphor is defined as the assertion of something as that which is different from, but related to, itself. The metaphoric relation depends on similarity between predicator and predicated while maintaining a tension between the terms which prevents their equivalence. The predication "x is (like) y" can occur without explicit mention of the grounds for comparison. Metaphor can also be treated as a process applicable to entire literary passages, e.g. the myth of the charioteer in Phaedrus, rather than Aristotle's transfer of a name to a new bearer. Aristotle's definition restricts metaphoric action to the level of individual words, whereas I focus on entire Platonic myths.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Speech Communication
Volume
20
Issue
2
First Page
9
Last Page
18
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Schwartzman, Roy
(1988)
"Plato's Metaphoric Bridge Between Being and Becoming,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 20:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol20/iss1/4
Copyright
©1988 Iowa Communication Association
