“Reversal” and the History of Metaphor Theory
In “A Process Model (APM)” (Gendlin, 2018), the ideas formulated in “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning (ECM)” (Gendlin, 1962/1997) were applied and expanded in various ways. I consider that a typical example is his metaphor theory. Let us quote from APM:
It was long said that a metaphor is “based on” a preexisting similarity between two different things. In our model it is the metaphor that creates or specifies the similarity. (Gendlin, 2018, p. 50)
After stating the above, he states that “we reversed the order” (Gendlin, 2018, p. 51) by the preceding work, ECM. Gendlin took over the concept of metaphor presented in Chapter III of ECM, and in the subsequent section, “Reversal of the usual philosophic procedure” in Chapter IV, he stated, “... the likenesses exist only as the new meaning is created. The likenesses do not create the new meaning.” (Gendlin, 1962/1997, pp. 142-3)
However, it would be dangerous and erroneous to assume that Gendlin alone conceived the reversal of the procedure. Therefore, let us trace how the “reversal” was prepared by the preceding thinkers and philosophers and how Gendlin developed the argument.
The English literary critic and thinker Ivor A. Richards (1893-1979), in his classic masterpiece “The Philosophy of Rhetoric,” specifically discussed metaphor as follows:
Let me begin now with the simplest, most familiar case of verbal metaphor—the leg of a table for example... Now how does it differ from a plain or literal use of the word, in the leg of a horse, say? The obvious difference is that the leg of a table has only some of the characteristics of the leg of the horse. A Table does not walk with its legs; they only hold it up and so on. In such a case we call the common characteristics the ground of the metaphor. Here we can easily find the ground, but very often we cannot. A metaphor may work admirably without our being able with any confidence to say how it works or what is the ground of the shift. (Richards, 1936, p. 117)
The “common characteristic” named here as the “ground” of the metaphor is what has been called the “tertium comparationis” (the third [part] of the comparison) in Latin since ancient times. In insisting that metaphors can work without being able to say what the common characteristics are, Richards can be said to be one of those who prepared the “reversal” by Gendlin. Regrettably, however, it is the name “ground” by Richards. This naming gives the impression, contrary to the reality of the argument above, that the common characteristics had been explicitly stated beforehand and that the metaphor functions for the first time based on the explicitly stated characteristics. Such an impression is at odds with Gendlin’s “reversal.”
An analytic philosopher in the English-speaking world Max Black (1909-1988) called Richards’ argument “an interaction view of metaphor” (Black, 1955, p. 285) and took over the discussion as belonging to that lineage himself. Three years before Gendlin wrote his doctoral dissertation (Gendlin, 1958) as the original ECM, Black had already argued as follows: “... the metaphor creates the similarity than to say that it formulates some similarity antecedently existing” (Black, 1955, p. 285). In this way, Black further prepared the “reversal” by Gendlin by making Richards’ argument thorough.
After Black, Gendlin discussed the creative process of the poet (possibly Scottish poet Robert Burns) who created the line “My love is like a red, red rose” in ECM.
The first creator of the metaphor begins with his undifferentiated experience (of his girl), which the metaphor will help him specify. He specifies his experience by asking himself, "Now what is that like?" He, too, does not yet have the likeness at that point. He asserts that there is a likeness between something unspecified in his present experienced meaning (of the girl) and something (as yet not found) in his experience in general. When he finds it (a red, red rose) he has only then fully created the specific aspect of the experience of the girl. (Gendlin, 1962/1997, p. 142)
The order is that the rose is first found as something implicitly similar to the lover before the characteristics are explicitly present as likenesses —“fresh, blooming, eventually passing, beautiful, living, tender, attractive, soft, quietly waiting to be picked, part of greater nature” (Gendlin, 1962/1997, p. 142).
Gendlin later summarized his theory of metaphor in his paper “Crossing and Dipping,” which offers a specific consideration as follows:
If one says "A cigarette is a time bomb" people can state the common feature. But, if one first asks them to write the main features of a cigarette—before hearing the time-bomb metaphor, they will not list that feature. (Gendlin, 1995, p. 559)
If the common feature had been explicitly present beforehand, we could have listed that feature before hearing the metaphor. However, this was not the case, and the common features were finally derived after it was implicitly felt that a cigarette was somewhat similar to a time bomb.
Gendlin’s idea of “The commonalities [likenesses] do not determine the metaphor. Rather, from the metaphor, and only after it makes sense, is a new set of commonalities derived” (Gendlin, 1995, p. 556) is an extension of the idea Black considered in the context of linguistic analysis to the level of pre-conceptual experience. Furthermore, in his later APM, he applied this idea of “reversal” to the various stages of living processes, such as plants and animals.
References
Black, M. (1955). Metaphor. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 55 (1), 273-94.
Gendlin, E.T. (1958). The function of experiencing in symbolization. Doctoral dissertation. University of Chicago.
Gendlin, E. T. (1962/1997). Experiencing and the creation of meaning: a philosophical and psychological approach to the subjective (Paper ed.). Northwestern University Press.
Gendlin, E.T. (1995). Crossing and dipping: some terms for approaching the interface between natural understanding and logical formulation. Minds and Machines, 5 (4), 547-60.
Gendlin, E. T. (1997/2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.
Richards, I.A. (1936). The philosophy of rhetoric. Oxford University Press.
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