“Metaphor” by Max Black: Summary and Critique

🔵 1. Rejection of Metaphor as Mere Ornament

Black criticizes the belief that “addiction to metaphor is held to be illicit,” equating metaphorical expression with frivolity or unclear thinking (p. 273).
🔹 “To draw attention to a philosopher’s metaphors is to belittle him—like praising a logician for his beautiful handwriting” (p. 273).

---

🟡 2. The “Substitution View” of Metaphor Is Inadequate

This outdated view treats a metaphor as a coded or poetic stand-in for a literal equivalent.
🔸 “The meaning of [a metaphor], in its metaphorical occurrence, is just the literal meaning of [its replacement]” (p. 279).

---

🟢 3. Comparison View Also Falls Short

Metaphors are often falsely treated as elliptical similes: “Richard is a lion” becomes “Richard is like a lion (in being brave)” (p. 284).
🔹 “The metaphor creates the similarity rather than formulates a similarity antecedently existing” (p. 285).

---

🔴 4. Introduction of the “Interaction View”

Black’s main innovation: metaphors involve interaction between two subject systems—a “principal subject” and a “subsidiary subject.”
🔸 “A metaphorical statement has two distinct subjects—a ‘principal’ subject and a ‘subsidiary’ one” (p. 291).
🔸 “We can say that the principal subject is ‘seen through’ the metaphorical expression” (p. 288).

---

🟣 5. Metaphor as Conceptual Filter

Like looking through tinted glass: metaphor emphasizes, organizes, and suppresses aspects of the principal subject using the implications of the subsidiary.
🔹 “The metaphor selects, emphasizes, suppresses, and organizes features of the principal subject” (p. 292).
🔹 “The chess vocabulary filters and transforms: it not only selects, it brings forward aspects…that might not be seen at all” (p. 289).

---

🟤 6. “Associated Commonplaces” Are Central

Metaphors activate culturally shared assumptions or “commonplaces” about the metaphor’s vehicle.
🔸 “To call a man a ‘wolf’ is to evoke the wolf-system of related commonplaces” (p. 288).
🔸 These include ideas like “fierce,” “scavenger,” “hungry,” which shape perception of the man.

---

⚪ 7. Cognitive Value of Metaphor Surpasses Literal Paraphrase

Metaphors carry insights that paraphrase cannot match. Literal restatements lose the richness and nuance.
🔹 “The literal paraphrase inevitably says too much—and with the wrong emphasis” (p. 293).
🔹 “It fails to give the insight that the metaphor did” (p. 293).

---

🟥 8. Philosophical and Epistemic Importance of Metaphor

Far from decorative, metaphor is a tool for thought. Black defends its role in serious inquiry:
🔸 “A prohibition against their use would be a wilful and harmful restriction upon our powers of inquiry” (p. 294).

---

📌 Summary of the Interaction Theory in 7 Points (from p. 291–292)

1. Two distinct subjects: principal & subsidiary
2. Subjects are systems, not just terms
3. Meaning arises from the interaction of systems
4. These involve associated implications (commonplaces)
5. The metaphor organizes perception
6. Involves semantic shifts—sometimes metaphorical
7. No universal rule for what makes a metaphor effective

🔵 Interaction Theory of Metaphor as Cognitive Process
→ Black’s central claim is that metaphor is not just linguistic ornamentation, but a way of knowing, creating meaning by interaction between subjects.
📚 Structuralism / Cognitive Poetics
📝 “The meaning is a resultant of their interaction” (p. 286).
📝 “Metaphor… selects, emphasizes, suppresses, and organizes features…” (p. 292).
✅ This aligns with structuralist ideas that meaning emerges from relational systems, and anticipates cognitive theories that link language and thought.

---

🟣 Challenge to Substitution and Comparison Views
→ Black dismantles classical views of metaphor as merely decorative or rhetorical devices (substitutes or comparisons).
📚 Formalism / Classical Rhetoric (critique)
📝 “The metaphorical use of an expression consists… in other than its proper or normal sense” (p. 279).
✅ His rejection of the ornamental view reshapes metaphor as essential to discourse—not an optional flourish, but foundational.

---

🟢 Introduction of “Associated Commonplaces”
→ Metaphors draw on culturally embedded “commonplaces,” showing that meaning is socially constructed.
📚 Reader-Response Theory / Cultural Criticism
📝 “To call a man a ‘wolf’ is to evoke the wolf-system of related commonplaces” (p. 288).
✅ Meaning depends on the reader’s cultural background, positioning metaphor as interpretively flexible and subjective.

---

🔴 Metaphor as Semantic Innovation (Meaning Creation)
→ Metaphors don’t just reflect meaning—they create it, often producing insights unavailable in literal language.
📚 Deconstruction / Poststructuralism
📝 “It would be more illuminating… to say that the metaphor creates the similarity than to say that it formulates one” (p. 285).
✅ Undermines stable meaning, supporting poststructuralist ideas of fluid, shifting significations.

---

🟡 Critique of Rigid Semantics: Emphasis on Pragmatics
→ Meaning is context-bound, tied to speaker intent, tone, occasion, and cannot be dictated solely by linguistic rules.
📚 Pragmatics / Speech Act Theory
📝 “We must not expect the ‘rules of language’ to be of much help…” (p. 278).
📝 “Recognition and interpretation… may require attention to the particular circumstances of its utterance” (p. 277).
✅ Helps literary theorists see how language performs, not just represents, meaning.

---

🟤 Metaphor as Epistemological Lens
→ Like a lens or screen, metaphor highlights and conceals—framing perception.
📚 Phenomenology / Hermeneutics
📝 “The metaphor acts as a screen… seen through the metaphor” (p. 288).
✅ Reinforces Heideggerian or Gadamerian notions that language discloses the world, not neutrally reflects it.

---

🟠 Valuation of Metaphor in Philosophy and Literature
→ Argues that metaphor is not a fallacy or simplification but a philosophically legitimate tool for inquiry and reflection.
📚 Philosophy of Language / Literary Philosophy
📝 “Metaphors are dangerous—and perhaps especially so in philosophy. But a prohibition… would be a harmful restriction…” (p. 294).
✅ Elevates metaphor from literary fringe to central in philosophical analysis.

---

🟣 Bridging Literary Criticism and Analytic Philosophy
→ Black borrows from literary critics to address philosophers’ neglect of metaphor.
📚 Interdisciplinary Literary Theory
📝 “Since philosophers… have so neglected the subject, I must get what help I can from the literary critics” (p. 273).
✅ Encourages cross-disciplinary dialogue, anticipating literary philosophy and analytic aesthetics.

🔺 Vagueness in the “System of Associated Commonplaces”
Black relies heavily on culturally shared assumptions (commonplaces), but critics argue these are not clearly defined or universally shared, making interpretation subjective and unstable.
➡️ “The metaphor works by applying to the principal subject a system of ‘associated implications’…” (Black, 1955, p. 292)

🔻 Potential for Infinite Regress
Critics note that if metaphors themselves contain metaphorical implications (as Black suggests), each metaphor could contain layers of others, leading to an endless chain of interpretation.
➡️ “The primary metaphor…has been analyzed into a set of subordinate metaphors…” (p. 290)

⚠️ Underdeveloped Cognitive Framework
Black touches on the cognitive impact of metaphors but doesn’t fully explore their psychological or neurological processing, leaving a gap that later scholars (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson) attempted to fill.

🟠 Neglect of Audience Diversity
Black assumes a reader who shares cultural knowledge. But in multicultural or global contexts, the same metaphor can evoke vastly different associations, limiting the theory’s universality.
➡️ “A metaphor that works in one society may seem preposterous in another…” (p. 287)

🔹 Ambiguity Between Focus and Frame
While innovative, the distinction between “focus” and “frame” can be blurry in complex texts, making it difficult to apply consistently, especially in layered literary metaphors.
➡️ “Let us call the word ‘ploughed’ the focus of the metaphor, and the remainder of the sentence…the frame.” (p. 276)

🚫 Dismissal of Other Metaphor Types
Some critics argue that Black’s elevation of interaction metaphors inadvertently dismisses valid uses of substitution and comparison metaphors, especially in rhetorical or poetic traditions.

🟣 Not Empirically Testable
The theory is largely philosophical and interpretive, lacking empirical methods or linguistic models that could verify or falsify its claims in practice.