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RAFAEL DE CLERCQ
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fact that aesthetic terms share their resistance to
metaphorical transference with other universally applicable terms such as the predicate
interesting and the verb to exist. (Nothing
can be said to exist metaphorically speaking.)
Of course, some aesthetic terms may already
be metaphors. The predicate balanced may be
a case in point. However, this does not contradict the suggested explanation since balanced
may be universally applicable when used
metaphorically. Moreover, the metaphorical
nature of some aesthetic terms may provide an
additional explanation of their resistance to
metaphorical usage. It seems that to apply a
metaphor metaphorically just is to apply a metaphor. At first sight, there seems to be no such
thing as a second-order metaphor.
Note that I am not saying that all metaphors
are category mistakes. In other words, I am not
saying that metaphorical usage always involves
substituting one domain of application for
another. This would be contradicted by such
metaphors as the brain is the heart of the nervous system. What I am claiming, though, is
that metaphorical usage always requires the
possibility of category mistake. Clearly, this
condition is satisfied in the case of heart because
we can say such things as investigators have
hit the heart of the criminal organization. However, if what I have said so far is right, then the
condition is not satisfied in the case of aesthetic
terms such as beautiful and sublime.
One might ask why universal applicability
orwhat comes to the same thingthe impossibility of category mistakes explains resistance
to metaphorical usage. An obvious answer to
that question, it seems to me, is (1) that a terms
universal applicability deprives it of substantial
descriptive content and (2) that in the absence
of substantial descriptive content, there is nothingor at least too littleto serve as the paraphrasable core meaning of a metaphor. (And
metaphors always have such a core meaning.)3
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Institute of Philosophy
University of Leuven
B-3000 Leuven
Belgium
INTERNET:
rafael.declercq@hiw.kuleuven.ac.be
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explains why they have come to be regarded as truisms. For
recent doubts concerning the Acquaintance Principle, see
Malcolm Budd, The Acquaintance Principle, The British
Journal of Aesthetics 43 (2003): 386392, and Paisley
Livingston, On an Apparent Truism in Aesthetics, The
British Journal of Aesthetics 43 (2003): 260278.
9. See the references to Monroe Beardsley and Alan
Goldman in note 28 of The Concept of an Aesthetic
Property, p. 176. In addition, see note 1 of Jerrold
Levinson, Aesthetic Supervenience in Jerrold Levinson,
Music, Art, and Metaphysics (Cornell University Press,
1990), pp. 134135.