Argumentation as a Bridge Between Metaphor and Reasoning
Maria Grazia Rossi2018, Argumentation Library
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Abstract
The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between metaphor and reasoning, by claiming that argumentation might act as a bridge between metaphor and reasoning. Firstly, the paper introduces metaphor as a framing strategy through which some relevant properties of a (generally more concrete and know) source domain are selected to understand a (generally less concrete and know) target domain. The mapping of properties from the source to the target implicitly forces the interpreter to consider the target in a specific perspective. Secondly, the paper presents metaphor as an implicit argument where some inferences can be drawn from the comparison between the source and the target domain. In particular, this paper aims to understand whether and to what extent such an argument might be linked to analogical reasoning. The paper argues that, in case of faulty analogy, this kind of argument might have the form of a quaternio terminorum, where metaphor is the middle term. Finally, the paper presents the results of an experimental study, aiming to test the effect of the linguistic nature of the middle term on the detection of such faulty analogy. The paper concludes that a wider context is needed to make sense of an analogical argument with novel metaphors, whilst in a narrow context a lexicalised metaphor might be extended and the overall argument might be interpreted as metaphoric.
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