The word metaphor itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek term meaning to "transfer" or "carry across." Metaphors "carry" meaning from one word, image, idea, or situation to another. — Metaphor

Language will allow it if you can find or make one. It seems to me that context would matter. A candle lit in a dark room: "Sunlight!" Metaphor?

What was the term Heidegger used? And was it denominated a metaphor, or just called metaphorical?

Recently I heard a philosopher speaking about a certain term Heidegger used as being a 'metaphor" — jancanc

Can you go into more detail? What term is being discussed? Perhaps the philosopher wanted to emphasize that the term is not to be taken literally.

Metaphor goes deep...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphor/

Ah, Amity! It does, as do most things. It just depends on our ambition for digging. Captured metaphorically, e.g., by Freud with, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Metaphor goes deep.. — Amity

My own understanding is a bit shallow but I'll just go with the flow.

My own understanding is a bit shallow but I'll just go with the flow. — Cuthbert

Still waters run deep.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." — tim wood

A novel interpretation.
Is there a 'right way' to interpret a novel or short story...a piece of philosophy?

A novel interpretation.
Is there a 'right way' to interpret a novel or short story...a piece of philosophy? — Amity

Well, you sure lit a fuse there! My answer, yes there is a right way to interpret, but always with respect to some standard of interpretation. Thus a book is about this wrt system A of interpretation, and at the same time about B wrt system B of interpretation. That is, petting this still sleeping monster and not poking it.

Many thanks for all the answers!
Unfortunately, i cannot remember exactly (I am no Heidegger scholar but merely attended the talk), but it struck me as odd.
so even in the example provided -- "candle lit in a dark room: "Sunlight!", I would say the word "sunlight" itself does not constitute a metaphor, although we can make integrate the term into a metaphor, e.g., "the candle was sunlight in the dark room," or something like that. if I "sunlight" and point to the candle, the metaphor just mentioned is implicit, yet if I merely utterance the single word, it would not be a metaphor I think.

sorry, I completely forgot!
But with respect to your comment "the philosopher wanted to emphasize that the term is not to be taken literally", i assume you mean that, given that is the case, "metaphor" was used in a pretty lose way....

I do believe that a metonym can consist in a single word, but a metaphor, to be strict, seems to require at minimum two, since a metaphor involves a comparison between 2 or more ideas/objects etc...

Thanks again for the answer!

Well, you sure lit a fuse there! — tim wood

Blame the OP, wisnae me guv :scream:
My synapses were slumbering perfectly peacefully, thank you.

Best not raise the monsters of who is right and why...
Specially when it comes to Plato, a jolly fella with tales for all.

there is a right way to interpret, but always with respect to some standard of interpretation. Thus a book is about this wrt system A of interpretation, and at the same time about B wrt system B of interpretation — tim wood

Standards and systems. Process and procedure.
Dry or juicy. Depending.
Now to douse the sizzles...

The word metaphor itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek term meaning to "transfer" or "carry across." Metaphors "carry" meaning from one word, image, idea, or situation to another. — Metaphor

"Metaphors "carry" meaning from one word, image, idea, or situation to another.[/quote]" -- therein lies my problem with saying a mere word (in isolation) is a metaphor.
And the definition of a metaphor seems to contradict the claim that the term "metaphor" is a metaphor!

Take Geworfenheit (thrown-ness) for example. It doesn't mean that our bodies were literally 'thrown' into the world, slapping against the hard floor. But in a metaphorical sense it describes how we didn't choose this existence and just came to be somehow from apparent darkness. It's one word.

:100: I vote you get the You're Right! prize in this thread!

The word metaphor itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek term meaning to "transfer" or "carry across." Metaphors "carry" meaning from one word, image, idea, or situation to another. — "Metaphor

OK about the etymology, but the actual metaphor applies only to the Greek language! For the English language, the word "metaphor" is just a word (carrying a single meaning and used literally). :smile:

Geworfenheit — emancipate

that term, as far as I know, is Heidegger's coinage. I would say that is a concept, not a metaphor. After it is unwrapped, then it can have a metaphorical sense. "thrownness" has no metaphorical meaning when used in isolation. "Geworfenheit" has no target/source domain,

Can a Metaphor be a single word? — jancanc

Shit!

Asshole!

Here are some singe-word metaphors:

1) Plain words:
- chair: A professorship (We can say, e.g. "he holds a chair in physics")
- crane (verb): Stretch out (one's neck) so as to see something. (As a crane (machine) does. We can say, e.g. "he craned his head to see passed the people in front of him".)
- player: Used as someone who is 1) "playing" with women 2) a factor, taking part in a big business or other plan. With a reference to the primary meaning of "player", which is "taking part in sport").
...

2) Words consisting of two words blended together:
- scapegoat: A person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency. Literally, a goat sent into wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it (Bible).
- portmanteau: A word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example motel or brunch. Literally, a large travelling bag, typically made of stiff leather and opening into two equal parts.
...

Actually, the list comprises all words with double meanings, where a secondary meaning refers to, is connected to and extends the primary meaning, to describe something different in kind.

God

Actually, the list comprises all words with double meanings, where a secondary meaning refers to, is connected to and extends the primary meaning, to describe something different in kind. — Alkis Piskas

I don't think these are metaphors. The word "chair" is not a metaphor sitting there by itself. There has to be a context in which a comparison is made. Not sure of that.

Isn't "chair" a metonymy? I guess it could be both.

God — Tom Storm

What does "God" stand for, metaphorically?

Well, it is often used to describe talented or beautiful people. We had a football player called 'God'. I heard a woman describe a particular movie star as a god. From an atheist perspective, the word 'god'; is seen as and used as a metaphor for nature. I pointed at a mountain range and said, 'God made this.'

In Metaphor and Religious Language, theologian Janet Martin Soskice proposes the idea that God is a metaphor of “causal relation.” A metaphor that stands in for an as yet unidentified process that effects change in the world.

...therein lies my problem with saying a mere word (in isolation) is a metaphor. — jancanc

OK, I think I understand you.

Perhaps it is more like the idea, sense or meaning of the original word is being carried over/across but lies behind the new word or metaphor - rather than alongside in comparison...

So, it can be a concept and a metaphor at the same time. Or an automatic thought connection ?
I don't know.

"Geworfenheit" has no target/source domain, — jancanc

Can you expand or explain what you mean by that, thanks.

Found this but haven't read it through properly
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-conceptual-metaphor-1689899

I think I agree with , and . But then again, my brain is in pain :nerd:

A single-word metaphor is pretty creative, no?
It can help to describe, enlighten... or can hinder by ambiguity...vagueness...

Most fascinating and thought-provoking :smile:

:up:

Some one-word metaphors:
Enlightenment
Deadly
Levity
Pissed (drunken)
Pissed (angry)
Pissed (dissed)
Shit (too many figurative meanings to mention)
Brownies (girl guides)
Trailblazer
Cowboy
Ironic
Wordy
Wooden
Etc

Some one-word metaphors — god must be atheist

I don't think any of these words, with the exception of "shit," is a metaphor. There has to be a comparison for it to be a metaphor. To say "She is a trailblazer" is a metaphor. Just "trailblazer" by itself is not. I think "shit," as an exclamation is a metaphor, because it represents "This situation is shit," which is a comparison.

is not a metaphor a comparison between a minimum of 2 terms, concepts, etc. — jancanc

If one states the terms being compared, is that not more like an allegory? Plato's allegory of the cave places our experience of knowing and ignorance side by side with an image that is meant to correspond with it.

The use of metaphor is more of a direct predicate. Like Eliot saying: "We are the hollow men, leaning together, headpiece filled with straw." How will one compare that identity with another?

Where next? What is metaphor and how does it work ?
Creative multilingualism.

*

Watch short documentaries about: Metaphor and Linguistic Diversity, Metaphor and Emotion, Metaphor and Communication, and Metaphor and Creativity.

The Creative Power of Metaphor conference: multimedia output (including films of keynote speakers and roundtables, plus short interviews with poster presenters)

* Links at end of this informative article:

The research project conducted in the context of Creative Multilingualism is designed to investigate metaphor as a phenomenon that is both cognitive and linguistic, and to engage with the movement between cognition and language that is involved in the production and reception of metaphor. Processes are harder to define than things, and a key challenge is that giving ‘cognition’ and ‘language’ separate names presupposes a division within the continuum that is at stake.

The concept of metaphor at the centre of this research project builds on an approach to the phenomenon that George Lakoff and Mark Johnson articulated in 1980 as follows, in a book programmatically entitled Metaphors We Live By:

Metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. [...] We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. (G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, 22003, p. 3)...

Our approach is programmatically holistic, and crucially concerned with metaphor as a phenomenon that involves linguistic diversity and action in diverse cultural contexts.
Rather than defining what precisely metaphor is, the research is more concerned with the question of what it does, and how it does what it does. The key area of investigation is the interface between thought and language, their interplay, interaction and convergence. — Creative multilingualism

https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/what-metaphor-and-how-does-it-work/index.html

So many great answers here. The difference in viewpoints can be explained by the fact that there is not a universal consensus on the definition of a metaphor. However, there seems to be a consensus that a necessary condition for an expression to qualify a metaphor is there is a comparison being made between a minimum of 2 ideas/terms.

A metaphor pretty much has 3 parts.. a subject (tenor), the "metaphorical vehicle," and the ground.
the subject or tenor is that what is being spoken about. the characteristics of the vehicle are transferred to the tenor. very simple example:
Life is a journey.

Life- tenor
journey- vehicle

the tenor and vehicle can also be called the target and source domain.
the characteristics of the source domain (the vehicle) are "mapped" onto the target domain (tenor).

so with "Geworfenheit" there is merely a tenor. there can be no mapping. Although it is understandable why one would think it is a metaphor, it seems technically not to be.

Some people have provided examples of what the think are one worded metaphors, but I think most are technically "metonyms", or there is an implicit metaphor insofar as in the expression is being implicitly compared to another object/idea etc.