Paul Ricoeur derives his theory of metaphor from the referential relationship of language to the world, to its reality. In the seventh chapter of his seminal work The Rule of Metaphor (title: Metaphor and Reference), Ricoeur extends Frege's idea of reference in semantic and hermeneutic frameworks from nominal to sentential or synthetic-predicative and finally to textual, i.e. pertaining to discourse. Ricoeur points out, on the one hand, how the semantic and hermeneutic referentiality is opposed to the semiotic confinement of language and, on the other hand, the gradation of this referentiality according to the proximity of the reference to the world, which constitutes an extra-linguistic reality: “Grounded on the predicative act, what is intended by discourse [l'intenté] points to an extra-linguistic reality which is its referent. Whereas the sign points back only to other signs immanent within a system, discourse is about things. Sign differs from sign, discourse refers to the world. Difference is semiotic, reference is semantic.” Furthermore, Ricoeur attributes to metaphor—as a linguistic possibility and crisis at the same time—the unique function of freeing the language from its characteristic extra-worldliness caused by its semiotic closure, which should consequently enable the language to have closer referential access to the world. However, according to Ricoeur, the metaphorical reference is a “suspended reference”; it also forms a second-level reference when the literal or first-level reference is suspended. Ricoeur develops the idea of suspended reference based on his original ideas of literal reference as non-ostensive reference, null reference and as refiguration, which he introduces and discusses in the work Time and Narrative (Temps et récit, Vol. 3). In my paper I try to show how Ricoeur's idea of suspended reference, which seems to indicate the extra-worldliness of metaphor or metaphor's impossible referential access to the world, actually suggests its worldliness. The referentiality of metaphor in the mode of a referential access to an extra-linguistic world also requires a reversal of the epistemic directionality of concept formation (Begriffsbildung), to which Nietzsche's theory of metaphor, introduced in his early work On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense (Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne), points. Such a reversal of epistemic directionality should complement Ricoeur's idea of metaphorical reference as suspended reference and thereby decisively secure the worldliness of metaphor.

The Suspended Reference: The Worldliness of Metaphor in Paul Ricoeur’s Thought

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2025年

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Babu Thaliath

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Paul Ricoeur derives his theory of metaphor from the referential relationship of language to the world, to its reality. In the seventh chapter of his seminal work The Rule of Metaphor (title: Metaphor and Reference), Ricoeur extends Frege's idea of reference in semantic and hermeneutic frameworks from nominal to sentential or synthetic-predicative and finally to textual, i.e. pertaining to discourse. Ricoeur points out, on the one hand, how the semantic and hermeneutic referentiality is opposed to the semiotic confinement of language and, on the other hand, the gradation of this referentiality according to the proximity of the reference to the world, which constitutes an extra-linguistic reality: “Grounded on the predicative act, what is intended by discourse [l'intenté] points to an extra-linguistic reality which is its referent. Whereas the sign points back only to other signs immanent within a system, discourse is about things. Sign differs from sign, discourse refers to the world. Difference is semiotic, reference is semantic.” Furthermore, Ricoeur attributes to metaphor—as a linguistic possibility and crisis at the same time—the unique function of freeing the language from its characteristic extra-worldliness caused by its semiotic closure, which should consequently enable the language to have closer referential access to the world. However, according to Ricoeur, the metaphorical reference is a “suspended reference”; it also forms a second-level reference when the literal or first-level reference is suspended. Ricoeur develops the idea of suspended reference based on his original ideas of literal reference as non-ostensive reference, null reference and as refiguration, which he introduces and discusses in the work Time and Narrative (Temps et récit, Vol. 3). In my paper I try to show how Ricoeur's idea of suspended reference, which seems to indicate the extra-worldliness of metaphor or metaphor's impossible referential access to the world, actually suggests its worldliness. The referentiality of metaphor in the mode of a referential access to an extra-linguistic world also requires a reversal of the epistemic directionality of concept formation (Begriffsbildung), to which Nietzsche's theory of metaphor, introduced in his early work On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense (Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne), points. Such a reversal of epistemic directionality should complement Ricoeur's idea of metaphorical reference as suspended reference and thereby decisively secure the worldliness of metaphor.