Metaphors and ways of life

E. M. Zemach

pp. 243-254

in: Jaakko Hintikka (ed), Aspects of metaphor, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

Case #1: In New Guinea there is a tribe of crocodiles, that is, human beings who say they are crocodiles. These tribesmen are neither blind nor crazy; for example, they do not swim in crocodile-infested rivers (otherwise, they could not survive). They are not so foolish as to believe that they are more like crocodiles, or more similar to crocodiles, than other tribes are, or that they resemble crocodiles more than they resemble fish or sharks. It is not that an etiological story relates them to crocodiles; they say not that they are related to crocodiles but that they are crocodiles. How are we to understand these people? To call a man "a crocodile", we say, is to use the term "crocodile" metaphorically. Right: but what is that? If these people are crocodiles metaphorically, they are not merely being crocodile-like or crocodile-related. To "translate" them thus banalizes and impoverishes what these people say. On the other hand to say that they use the term "crocodile" metaphorically, without explaining what the metaphorical sentence says, is empty. To explain what a metaphor is we must, therefore, explain how a human being can be a crocodile.