“On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense”
What is a metaphor? The Greek etymology of metaphor is ‘to carry over.’ Authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche carry over words to compare and equalize ideas. In “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873),” Nietzsche uses a metaphor to define truth saying, “What is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms, in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, decorated and . . . illusions, metaphors that have become worn” (257). This quote shows that Nietzsche equates truth and metaphors as the same idea, which in itself is a metaphor. In other words, Nietzsche’s entire essay depends on one word: metaphors. The usage of metaphors is crucial to explain his own definitions. Moreover, Nietzsche demonstrates through the language of metaphors that the intellect can be deceiving, which causes humans to be more like the intuitive man-- one
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One must not forget that the intellect is the source of deception; moreover, the metaphor used to exhibit this idea is mythology, no longer the animal metaphor. Mythology is metaphorical and tells stories about morals or philosophical questions such as what happens after death. By answering abstract concepts, mythology parallels with metaphors that create these concepts. Mythology for Nietzsche allows him to point to famous philosophers such as Sophocles and Plato. By pinpointing these men, he challenges the history of philosophy by undercutting what philosophy is built on which is language. Language is made of words; words are made of metaphors; thus, the philosophers have fooled themselves and allowed the intellect to deceive
An example of this would be when Lincoln states “They were the pillars of the temple of liberty” (Lincoln n.pag.). Lincoln is directly comparing the people to pillars of the temple of liberty without using like or as, which is what makes it a metaphor. This metaphor greatly strengthens his argument. Without comparing the people to the pillars, he would have had a harder time trying to explain his main idea.
Another example of metaphors in
In Rhetoric and Argument and What Words Can Tell , Francine Prose brings upon a compelling look into the world of writing. A excerpt from her own personal view of writing, the article is primarily for students or those that are interested in learning more of the process of writing as told by a recognized author. Prose seeks to enlighten and teach his audience about the complexity and difficulty involved in writing a good piece of literature, and how the careful choosing of certain words can significantly alter the literature. Prose uses the rhetorical device of metaphor in your excerpt to compare the details involved in writing to the intricate wirings of a computer. Prose reveals to the audience a new view of literature, where the writing
They use metaphors to help connect their own lives to the lives of others. Whether it is from literary works that they are reading or connecting to each other’s lives. This use is very effective because it helps us to know what is going in the student's lives by connecting with things and sayings that we can understand. Allusions are also a very effective in this piece because it connects the real-life problems that the students are going through with things that everyone can understand. An example of this is when the students compare their lives to the lives of Holocaust survivors.
Metaphors are an influential piece to the literary world due to, “the process of using symbols to know reality occurs”, stated by rhetoric Sonja Foss in Metaphoric Criticism. The significance of this, implies metaphors are “central to thought and to our knowledge and expectation of reality” (Foss 188). Although others may see metaphors as a difficult expression. Metaphors provide the ability to view a specific content and relate to connect with involvement, a physical connection to view the context with clarity. As so used in Alice Walker’s literary piece, In Search Of Our Mothers’ Gardens.
Another way a metaphor is used is “when someone died it wasn’t dying...because they had their lines memorized, irony mixes” (O’Brien 480). According to the evidence, psychologically, it describes the idea of death in the minds of all soldiers while physically they had to endure suffering. Therefore, all soldiers are shown to have hardships through
Three examples of figurative language from Night by Elie Wiesel are similes, rhetorical questions and personifications. He used the simile “I was putting one foot in front of the other, like a machine” (85) to describe the time when he was running, with the SS officers behind him commanding him to quicken his pace. The similes shows how Wiesel feels inhuman, how he feels more like a machine than a person. No one thinks twice about machines, we use them until they’re broken, and then fix them up a little before they break again.
His uses of metaphors clarify and create a clear connection between his ideas and the audience. While explaining the convictions of man
In the tantalizing novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, the author uses figurative to convey his thoughts and emotions. There are two cauldrons of soup left laying in the middle of the road with no one guarding them and the starving jews are looking at them. The author uses the metaphor, “ Two lambs with hundreds of wolves lying in wait for them.” ( Wiesel 59), to vividly describe this moment in time in the book. This is an accurate comparison of the two cauldrons of soup to two helpless sheep and the Jews to hungry wolves.
The overall understanding of metaphors used in everyday language comes from learning with one another, just like Lipsitz’s idea of evolution in his book, “It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right”. Metaphors
A myth is a false belief or idea. It is usually held within an old traditional story or it is a way to explain a natural or social phenomenon, typically involving supernatural creatures or events. Myths are stories of transformation. Many people are surprised to learn that ancient myth was often at least as violent, if not more so, than the mayhem of our modern fantasies. For example, The Godfather, and its companion, Godfather II, have been justly praised for excellence in such technical matters as acting and direction; their popularity is enhanced by less pleasant preoccupations: a lust for violence accentuated in recent years; an obsession with the details of organized crime; a cynical belief that only small distinctions separate lawless behavior from ordinary business practice.
Essentially, he talks about two contradictory outlooks manifested by the ancient Greeks: the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Together, they birthed one of the world's first, most famous art form—the Athenian tragedy. Apollo, the Sun god, is considered to bear rational clarity who lights up the world with knowledge. For Nietzsche, individuals who see things from an Apollonian point of view see the world as methodical, levelheaded, and limited by definite borders. They see humanity as rather discrete and separate people not as a nebulous whole.
Amir Romero-Harvey Research Pg.1 The philosopher Immanuel Kant said that lying was amorally wrong. He argued that all people are born with an "intrinsic worth" that he called human dignity. This dignity derives from the fact that humans are uniquely rational, capable of freely making their own decisions, setting their own goals, and guiding their conduct by reason. To be human, Kant states, is to have the rational power of free choice; to be ethical, and to respect that power in oneself and others.
On the one hand, some argue that language constructs our thoughts. From this perspective, Deborah Tannen, from the language constructs thought community, states that “This is how language works. It invisibly molds our way of thinking about people, actions, and the world around us” (Tannen 14). On the other hand, however, others such as Richard Selzer, might say that language is used to represent our thoughts, but it can fall short. One of his view’s main proponents are, “these extremes of sensation remain beyond the power of language to express” (Selzer 28).
It is prima facie evidence of linguistic flexibility, proof of the great dexterity of the human mind. (Pincott,