Metaphor in European Philosophy after Nietzsche: An Intellectual History

222 Pages·2020·1.463 MB·English

by  Andrew Hines

Metaphor in European Philosophy after Nietzsche
An Intellectual History
LEGENDA
legenda is the Modern Humanities Research Association’s book imprint for new
research in the Humanities. Founded in 1995 by Malcolm Bowie and others within
the University of Oxford, Legenda has always been a collaborative publishing
enterprise, directly governed by scholars. The Modern Humanities Research
Association (mhra) joined this collaboration in 1998, became half-owner in 2004,
in partnership with Maney Publishing and then Routledge, and has since 2016 been
sole owner. Titles range from medieval texts to contemporary cinema and form a
widely comparative view of the modern humanities, including works on Arabic,
Catalan, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish,
and Yiddish literature. Editorial boards and committees of more than 60 leading
academic specialists work in collaboration with bodies such as the Society for
French Studies, the British Comparative Literature Association and the Association
of Hispanists of Great Britain & Ireland.
The mhra encourages and promotes advanced study and research in the field of
the modern humanities, especially modern European languages and literature,
including English, and also cinema. It aims to break down the barriers between
scholars working in different disciplines and to maintain the unity of humanistic
scholarship. The Association fulfils this purpose through the publication of journals,
bibliographies, monographs, critical editions, and the mhra Style Guide, and by
making grants in support of research. Membership is open to all who work in the
Humanities, whether independent or in a University post, and the participation of
younger colleagues entering the field is especially welcomed.
also published by the association
Critical Texts
Tudor and Stuart Translations • New Translations • European Translations
MHRA Library of Medieval Welsh Literature
MHRA Bibliographies
Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association
The Annual Bibliography of English Language & Literature
Austrian Studies
Modern Language Review
Portuguese Studies
The Slavonic and East European Review
Working Papers in the Humanities
The Yearbook of English Studies
www.mhra.org.uk
www.legendabooks.com
STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Editorial Committee
Chairs: Dr Emily Finer (University of St Andrews)
and Professor Wen-chin Ouyang (SOAS, London)
Dr Ross Forman (University of Warwick)
Professor Angus Nicholls (Queen Mary, University of London)
Dr Henriette Partzsch (University of Glasgow)
Dr Ranka Primorac (University of Southampton)
Studies in Comparative Literature are produced in close collaboration with the British
Comparative Literature Association, and range widely across comparative and theo-
retical topics in literary and translation studies, accommodating research at the
interface between different artistic media and between the humanities and the
sciences.
also published in this series
20. Aestheticism and the Philosophy of Death: Walter Pater and Post-Hegelianism, by Giles Whiteley
21. Blake, Lavater and Physiognomy, by Sibylle Erle
22. Rethinking the Concept of the Grotesque: Crashaw, Baudelaire, Magritte, by Shun-Liang Chao
23. The Art of Comparison: How Novels and Critics Compare, by Catherine Brown
24. Borges and Joyce: An Infinite Conversation, by Patricia Novillo-Corvalán
25. Prometheus in the Nineteenth Century: From Myth to Symbol, by Caroline Corbeau-Parsons
26. Architecture, Travellers and Writers: Constructing Histories of Perception, by Anne Hultzsch
27. Comparative Literature in Britain: National Identities, Transnational Dynamics 1800-2000,
by Joep Leerssen
28. The Realist Author and Sympathetic Imagination, by Sotirios Paraschas
29. Iris Murdoch and Elias Canetti: Intellectual Allies, by Elaine Morley
30. Likenesses: Translation, Illustration, Interpretation, by Matthew Reynolds
31. Exile and Nomadism in French and Hispanic Women’s Writing, by Kate Averis
32. Samuel Butler against the Professionals: Rethinking Lamarckism 1860–1900, by David Gillott
33. Byron, Shelley, and Goethe’s Faust: An Epic Connection, by Ben Hewitt
34. Leopardi and Shelley: Discovery, Translation and Reception, by Daniela Cerimonia
35. Oscar Wilde and the Simulacrum: The Truth of Masks, by Giles Whiteley
36. The Modern Culture of Reginald Farrer: Landscape, Literature and Buddhism, by Michael
Charlesworth
37. Translating Myth, edited by Ben Pestell, Pietra Palazzolo and Leon Burnett
38. Encounters with Albion: Britain and the British in Texts by Jewish Refugees from Nazism,
by Anthony Grenville
39. The Rhetoric of Exile: Duress and the Imagining of Force, by Vladimir Zorić
40. From Puppet to Cyborg: Pinocchio’s Posthuman Journey, by Georgia Panteli
41. Utopian Identities: A Cognitive Approach to Literary Competitions, by Clementina Osti
43. Sublime Conclusions: Last Man Narratives from Apocalypse to Death of God, by Robert
K. Weninger
44. Arthur Symons: Poet, Critic, Vagabond, edited by Elisa Bizzotto and Stefano Evangelista
45. Scenographies of Perception: Sensuousness in Hegel, Novalis, Rilke, and Proust, by Christian
Jany
46. Reflections in the Library: Selected Literary Essays 1926–1944, by Antal Szerb
47. Depicting the Divine: Mikhail Bulgakov and Thomas Mann, by Olga G. Voronina
48. Samuel Butler and the Science of the Mind: Evolution, Heredity and Unconscious Memory, by
Cristiano Turbil
49. Death Sentences: Literature and State Killing, edited by Birte Christ and Ève Morisi
50. Words Like Fire: Prophecy and Apocalypse in Apollinaire, Marinetti and Pound, by James
P. Leveque
Metaphor in European Philosophy
after Nietzsche
An Intellectual History
❖
Andrew Hines
Studies in Comparative Literature 54
Modern Humanities Research Association
2020
Published by Legenda
an imprint of the Modern Humanities Research Association
Salisbury House, Station Road, Cambridge cb1 2la
ISBN 978-1-78188-428-7
First published 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or disseminated or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or
stored in any retrieval system, or otherwise used in any manner whatsoever without written
permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of a licence permitting restricted copying issued
in the UK by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London
ec1n 8ts, England, or in the USA by the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,
Danvers MA 01923. Application for the written permission of the copyright owner to reproduce
any part of this publication must be made by email to [email protected].
Disclaimer: Statements of fact and opinion contained in this book are those of the author and
not of the editors or the Modern Humanities Research Association. The publisher makes no
representation, express or implied, in respect of the accuracy of the material in this book and
cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
© Modern Humanities Research Association 2020
Copy-Editor: Dr Nigel Hope
CONTENTS
❖
Acknowledgements ix
Note xi
Introduction 1
1 The Aristotelian Paradigm of Metaphor and its Evolution 31
2 The Watershed Moment: Nietzsche and the Reversal of the Aristotelian
Paradigm of Metaphor 59
3 Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur and Metaphor as Poetic Revelation 87
4 Likeness as Consensus: Hans Blumenberg and the Riddle of Metaphor 123
5 Jacques Derrida and the Undecidability of Metaphoric Meaning 155
Conclusion 183
Bibliography 193
Index 203

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
❖
This book grew out of two places; my time as a PhD student at Queen Mary
University of London, and the two years immediately following, which culminated
in the Covid-19 pandemic. As the period 2013–2020 contains events of immense
personal importance, such as getting married and finishing a PhD, but also events
such as the Brexit referendum, the election of Donald Trump, the killing of
George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, and the global Covid-19
pandemic, it is fitting to reflect on those individuals and institutions who helped
this project be realised and provided a thread of stability to the seemingly timeworn
garment of the world.
For continually challenging me, and for their support and guidance during my
PhD, I would first like to thank my former supervisors Professor Angus Nicholls
and Professor Galin Tihanov. This book would not be possible without you. Thank
you especially to Angus for ‘climbing the mountain’ of chapter two with me as
well as introducing me to Blumenberg’s phlosophy. Thanks especially go to Galin
for challenging my argumentation and pushing me to find my own voice in the
project. I would also like to thank my PhD examiners Professor Clive Cazeaux and
Professor Andreas Musolff for the comments, questions and advice that assisted me
in moving this work from thesis to book.
A significant portion of the research in this book, particularly chapters two and
four, was carried out in the summer of 2015 when Professor Benjamin Specht very
kindly hosted me at the University of Stuttgart and, through our conversations,
prompted me to critically engage with nineteenth-century German philology.
During this summer I also had the opportunity to spend time at the Deutsches
Literatur Archiv Marbach. I would like to thank their staff for their assistance with
Hans Blumenberg’s Nachlass. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Bettina
Blumenberg for her permission to use her father’s short text on Nietzsche and
metaphor which is published in chapter 4 of this book.
Many of the ideas in this book have been shaped by fellow scholars. Special
thanks go to all those who debated, challenged and questioned me at the 2016
RaAM conference in Berlin and the 2017 Blumenberg seminar in Leipzig. I am
particularly grateful to Professor Petra Gehring for her deeply thought-provoking
comments in our correspondence on the concept of truth in both Nietzsche and
Blumenberg. Also, to Professor Anne Sheppard for helping me understand the
context surrounding figurative language in the Graeco-Roman world. To Professor
Joseph Cohen for, all those years ago, helping me see that there was more to Derrida
than the anglophone reception of Derrida and for his injunction to ‘remain rigorous’
about my interest in metaphor. Finally, to my friend and fellow scholar Dr Bart
Zantvoort for our endless discussions on all things philosophical and European.
x Acknowledgements
The experience of bringing this book together would not be possibly without the
support of my editors at Legenda, Dr Graham Nelson, Dr Emily Finer and Professor
Wen-chin Ouyang. Thank you for your kindness, guidance and rigour. Thank you
also to Dr Nigel Hope for his eye for detail and patient guidance in editing the final
manuscript, and to Dr Amanda Wrigley for her expert editing of the index. Also, to
the anonymous editors out there: thank you for thinking that there was something
worth seeing the light of day in these pages.
The global circumstances of the last few years bring home, perhaps more than
ever, the fact that intellectual work is deeply dependent on everyday life and friends
and family. To those who proofread either sections or the entirety of this book,
such as Laura, Charlie and Oliver, thank you. My copy-editor would have had an
even more difficult job had it not been for you. Thank you also to my family in the
USA for the variety of ways that you supported my decision to take a break from
consultancy and take the time to turn my ideas into a book. Finally, and above all,
thank you to Helen for more things than I could say. But particularly for putting up
with more than the occasional conversation about Nietzsche before 9 a.m.
a.h., London, August 2020