Rehabilitation of the metaphor

[Jakob]

“[…]in spite of everything that ties Nietzsches first works to tradition, the novelty which they bring regarding the rank of the metaphor, testifies to a new conception of philosophy and of the philosophical ‘style’. It introduces new relations between philosophy, art and science. Hitherto, science and philosophy have, because they want to say things absolutely, demonstrate without persuading by means of images or comparisons, banished the metaphor to the realm of poetry. The philosopher only used the metaphor for didactic reasons and as a lesser evil and with great prudence. To bestow the metaphor with such precise limits, he hides at the same time that conceptuality is itself metaphorical. Erasing the opposition of natures between metaphor and concept by merely allocating a difference of degrees (the least metaphorical being the metaphor), Nietzsche unveils a type of philosophy which uses the metaphor deliberately, at the risk of being confused with poetry. A confusion which is not, for Nietzsche, regrettable: the opposition of philosophy and poetry amounts to metaphysical thought; it rests on the fictive separation of the real and the imaginary, on which the no less fictive ‘faculties’. Philosophy is a form of poetry. Speaking by metaphors is rediscovering in language it’s most natural expression, the expression of image which is “the most right, the most simple and the most direct” (1).”

size=85 Ecce Homo, p.137[/size]" - Sarah Kofman - Nietzsche et la Metaphore

[jonquil]

I have sometimes wondered whether Nietzsche, as an ultimate aesthetician, might have been better off moving philosophy into poetry, that is, being a poet and infiltrating that poetry with philosophy. His ideas would probably have been much less confusing and contradictory that way, plus he would have been tapping and expressing his essential energy more effectively and directly.

[Sauwelios]

A piece of symbolism that might interest you, Jakob: there’s a passage from the notebooks in which the place the moonlight has in GS 341 and TSZ “The Vision and the Enigma” is occupied by Sirius—i.e., Daäth instead of Yesod. Daäth and Yesod are of course each other’s mirror images in Tiphareth. Moreover, Daäth corresponds to the microcosmic throat, and in “The Vision and the Enigma”, the black snake has bitten itself fast in the young shepherd’s throat. The black snake symbolises the terrifying—to Zarathustra—aspects of the thought of eternal recurrence, which he called his “most abysmal thought”.

[size=95]In the Qabalistic system of Crowley, the Abyss contains the 11th (hidden) sephira, Da’ath, which separates the lower sephiroth from the supernals.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyss_(Thelema)#Theory_and_Practice][/size]

[jonquil]

Eternal recurrence is an idea that doesn’t settle well with me, but to be fair, I do give it thought occasionally. Lately I’ve been thinking that if such a thing were possible, I am so glad that I would not have to eternally recur as Nietzsche.

[Jakob]

@jonquil

I have sometimes wondered whether Nietzsche, as an ultimate aesthetician, might have been better off moving philosophy into poetry, that is, being a poet and infiltrating that poetry with philosophy. His ideas would probably have been much less confusing and contradictory that way, plus he would have been tapping and expressing his essential energy more effectively and directly.

What you miss here is that Nietzsches thought needs to be poetic to be proper philosophy. Ideas have to be grasped and expressed using poetic method. Contradictions, at least ideas which to the uninspired mind seem logically irreconcilable, in Nietzsches case merely present different sides of “The Real”, to use that elusive term again, which cannot be grasped otherwise than to approach it from different angles and to understand it in different ways, which are not all logical, but also emotional, aesthetic, provocative, suggestive, comical, ironic, etcetera. He has more means to grasp reality simply because he doesn’t try to contain it in the left-brain realm of logic and dialectic.

@Sauwelios

A piece of symbolism that might interest you, Jakob: there’s a passage from the notebooks in which the place the moonlight has in GS 341 and TSZ “The Vision and the Enigma” is occupied by Sirius—i.e., Daäth instead of Yesod. Daäth and Yesod are of course each other’s mirror images in Tiphareth. Moreover, Daäth corresponds to the microcosmic throat, and in “The Vision and the Enigma”, the black snake has bitten itself fast in the young shepherd’s throat. The black snake symbolises the terrifying—to Zarathustra—aspects of the thought of eternal recurrence, which he called his “most abysmal thought”.

[size=95]In the Qabalistic system of Crowley, the Abyss contains the 11th (hidden) sephira, Da’ath, which separates the lower sephiroth from the supernals.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyss_(Thelema)#Theory_and_Practice][/size]

That is interesting - I’m not sure I understand though, Nietzsche surely did not mention Sirius himself? Could you perhaps quote that passage?
In any case, the ‘crossing of the abyss’ has a strong significance in the context of the metaphor; I now think that Daath, when it operates as the bridge across the abyss (not as in Crowleys quote here as the last stronghold of duality), is the location where object and fact-based conception moves into a truer, more direct conception, which is more bound to context and moment but as such more real. By use of metaphor, the world (the self as a stream of impressions) can be conveyed directly.

[Sauwelios]

@Jakob

@Sauwelios

A piece of symbolism that might interest you, Jakob: there’s a passage from the notebooks in which the place the moonlight has in GS 341 and TSZ “The Vision and the Enigma” is occupied by Sirius—i.e., Daäth instead of Yesod. Daäth and Yesod are of course each other’s mirror images in Tiphareth. Moreover, Daäth corresponds to the microcosmic throat, and in “The Vision and the Enigma”, the black snake has bitten itself fast in the young shepherd’s throat. The black snake symbolises the terrifying—to Zarathustra—aspects of the thought of eternal recurrence, which he called his “most abysmal thought”.

[size=95]In the Qabalistic system of Crowley, the Abyss contains the 11th (hidden) sephira, Da’ath, which separates the lower sephiroth from the supernals.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyss_(Thelema)#Theory_and_Practice][/size]

That is interesting - I’m not sure I understand though, Nietzsche surely did not mention Sirius himself? Could you perhaps quote that passage?

[size=95]Everything has recurred: Sirius, and the spider, and your thoughts at this hour, and this thought of yours that everything recurs.
[Nietzsche, Nachlass 1881-82, my translation.][/size]

[Jakob]

@Sauwelios

[size=95]Everything has recurred: Sirius, and the spider, and your thoughts at this hour, and this thought of yours that everything recurs.
[Nietzsche, Nachlass 1881-82, my translation.][/size]

I remember Bill suggesting that Nietzsche was an initiate of some occult order. If he privately related the eternal recurrence to Sirius and the spider (connected to, in 19/20th century kabbalism, respectively Daath and Binah) this suggestion gains some credibility. Noting that the consciousness connected to the supernal triangle is supposed to be timeless, or not framed by time.

[Sauwelios]

@Jakob

@Sauwelios

[size=95]Everything has recurred: Sirius, and the spider, and your thoughts at this hour, and this thought of yours that everything recurs.
[Nietzsche, Nachlass 1881-82, my translation.][/size]

I remember Bill suggesting that Nietzsche was an initiate of some occult order. If he privately related the eternal recurrence to Sirius and the spider (connected to, in 19/20th century kabbalism, respectively Daath and Binah) this suggestion gains some credibility. Noting that the consciousness connected to the supernal triangle is supposed to be timeless, or not framed by time.

And of course the supernals : the Superman.

Lampert connects the spider with “the cosmic spider”, i.e., the moral God. I’m not sure, though.

[Jakob]

Realization of the eternal recurrence is then linked to crossing the abyss. From Sirius, the point of the transition, concentration of all the celestial monographs up until Jupiter into a single experience. Then attitude of direction is the principle determinating ‘faculty’.

A collapse of consciousness or psychosis which turns an innocent man into a ‘black brother’: someone who does not willingly make the choice but crosses the abyss anyway.
This results in great fear: everything breaks down and the supernal to be attained to as new metaphysical ground is fundamentally (by choice, or lack thereof) detached from him that the ‘disciple’, or the guy who plays with drugs, is paralyzed with fear. One can only cross the abyss willingly, facing the consequences willingly. And for that of course you have to know them, or at least conceive of them subconsciously, so that intuition can serve as a sense of hearing and balance in the new environment. Then, as a master of the temple, life is supposed to be very different.

Let’s attribute to Daath the image of Forrest Gump.
A true leaper of faith, a crosser of the Abyss - we can use new symbols and we can make them from everything around us. I’m always surrounded by movie imagery, and I think James Bond is Hod/Mercurius. With all the technology and force (path to Geburah/Mars) and sexual charm (to Venus/Netzach and YesodMoon) and of course to the sun, to win the heart of the audience.

There is no direct path between Forrest and Bond, only through the heart of the audience or the sphere of force, Geburah/Mars, for which we have no symbol yet. I think two is not bad for now. A symbol for the sun would be an object-space of contemplation.

[Jakob]

@Sauwelios

And of course the supernals : the Superman.

Right. The Superman is then idivided in three fases: Magister Templi, Magus and Impsissimus.
And Forrest Gump is the Babe of the Abyss and James Bond a Practicus if I’m not reading it wrong. (I don’t know how they get 13 initiations)

“Lampert connects the spider with “the cosmic spider”, i.e., the moral God. I’m not sure, though.”
I’m not sure either, and I’m pretty comfortable with that. I think it is the dark side of Form as Death, the one who reaps from the web of time.

[JohnJones]

@Jakob

“[…]in spite of everything that ties Nietzsches first works to tradition, the novelty which they bring regarding the rank of the metaphor, testifies to a new conception of philosophy and of the philosophical ‘style’. It introduces new relations between philosophy, art and science. Hitherto, science and philosophy have, because they want to say things absolutely, demonstrate without persuading by means of images or comparisons, banished the metaphor to the realm of poetry. The philosopher only used the metaphor for didactic reasons and as a lesser evil and with great prudence. To bestow the metaphor with such precise limits, he hides at the same time that conceptuality is itself metaphorical. Erasing the opposition of natures between metaphor and concept by merely allocating a difference of degrees (the least metaphorical being the metaphor), Nietzsche unveils a type of philosophy which uses the metaphor deliberately, at the risk of being confused with poetry. A confusion which is not, for Nietzsche, regrettable: the opposition of philosophy and poetry amounts to metaphysical thought; it rests on the fictive separation of the real and the imaginary, on which the no less fictive ‘faculties’. Philosophy is a form of poetry. Speaking by metaphors is rediscovering in language it’s most natural expression, the expression of image which is “the most right, the most simple and the most direct” (1).”

size=85 Ecce Homo, p.137[/size]" - Sarah Kofoman - Nietzsche et la Metaphore

[Jakob]

@JohnJones

@Jakob

“[…]in spite of everything that ties Nietzsches first works to tradition, the novelty which they bring regarding the rank of the metaphor, testifies to a new conception of philosophy and of the philosophical ‘style’. It introduces new relations between philosophy, art and science. Hitherto, science and philosophy have, because they want to say things absolutely, demonstrate without persuading by means of images or comparisons, banished the metaphor to the realm of poetry. The philosopher only used the metaphor for didactic reasons and as a lesser evil and with great prudence. To bestow the metaphor with such precise limits, he hides at the same time that conceptuality is itself metaphorical. Erasing the opposition of natures between metaphor and concept by merely allocating a difference of degrees (the least metaphorical being the metaphor), Nietzsche unveils a type of philosophy which uses the metaphor deliberately, at the risk of being confused with poetry. A confusion which is not, for Nietzsche, regrettable: the opposition of philosophy and poetry amounts to metaphysical thought; it rests on the fictive separation of the real and the imaginary, on which the no less fictive ‘faculties’. Philosophy is a form of poetry. Speaking by metaphors is rediscovering in language it’s most natural expression, the expression of image which is “the most right, the most simple and the most direct” (1).”

size=85 Ecce Homo, p.137[/size]" - Sarah Kofman - Nietzsche et la Metaphore

I know, I am getting there. The Tree of Life is a detailed metaphor containing 32 other metaphors, all of them decorated by a bunch of symbols. It’s the most comprehensive metaphor I know, so that’s my reason for addressing it.
I can imagine very well that this doesn’t make sense to a lot of people.

[Jakob]

"Difficulty of writing about Nietzsche increases when it concerns the metaphor. Isn’t it reducing the Nietzschean text, which is outside of the most traditional categories, to talk about it conceptually? Isn’t it a paradox to just use concepts in writing about a philosopher who favors the metaphor? Shouldn’t one to be true to Nietzsche adopt a metaphorical “style” which signifies that philosophy and poetry are not opposed to each other and that “the display of mathematics doesn’t belong to the essence of philosophy”? That would also betray Nietzsche, for whom philosophy, if it is not science, isn’t poetry either. Impossible to classify in any existing category, it demands the invention of a new kind of writing, irreducible to any other: “Great perplexity: is philosophy an art or a science? It’s an art in its ends and it’s products. But its method of expression, the exposition by means of concepts, it has in common with science. It’s a form of poetry. Impossible to classify. We have to invent a new category.” (N.R.F.(?))

There is not one philosophical method, one road to follow, tracked by all eternity or even tracked by Nietzsche, and which we have to follow in our turn:
“I have arrived at my truth by many roads and as many ways; I have not ascended just one ladder to the height from where my eye can see in the distance. And it’s always been reluctantly that I’ve claimed my road. It was always contrary to my taste! I have always preferred to question and test the roads themselves. To question and test, that has been my way of walking, and in truth, one has to learn to answer to similar questions! Because this is of my taste: it is not a bad, nor a good taste, but it is my taste, from which I can not hide nor be ashamed. But is this now my way or is it your way? This is my answer who would ask about “the way”. Because the way doesn’t exist,”
or so said Zarathustra." (ASZ, Of the spirit of gravity)

There is no “the way” because there is no equal moment in time. A way is always created live, on the spot. Improvisers are leaders, systematicians servants, wheels in the machine of the experienced creative mind. There is no system to attain to: only the body in it’s optimal form. The physical body and the body of the mind, which both need to be understood to survive. Understanding both to perfection is the aim of any culture which is worth it’s salt.

These methods have to be devised. Methods come and methods go - but some remain in action very long. Poetic styles are the guiders of wit and clever quicksilver mind. as well in science as in poetry. I am convinced of this by the natural sense of humor of the theoretical physicist. There is a poetry to the universe, and what’s poetic about it is our aim when we interpret it. The idea of an aim itself is poetic.

As a mechanism poetry uses absurdity of language exposed to an unsettling effect, thereby communicating more ‘profoundly’ than with logical dialectic. More physical, bypassing a lot of muck of habit and going directly to the place where shit needs to happen. What’s important to us all (Look out for the giant octopus behind you, by the way) is to look out for a constructive poetry, one that will provide our allegorical ‘senses to which we come back’ with durability. No more postmodern, everything is everything look a little bunny flashes but more soberly impressive, properly glamorous, hypnotic imagery.

[Jakob]

“The way” is synonymous with “not a way”.

[jonquil]

---

[objet_petit_a]

Jakob, I am not sure what you want with this topic. I am going to throw two things into this:

1. The effects of Language are twofold: metonymy and metaphor.
2. Is it not true that the symbols tries to refer from the imaginary towards the real?

[Jakob]

Haha, jonquil, finally I manage to leave you speechless.
Was it the Forrest Gump reference that did it?

@objet petit a

Jakob, I am not sure what you want with this topic. I am going to throw two things into this:

1. The effects of Language are twofold: metonymy and metaphor.

That’s too simple. What is unexplored is the difference between a ‘live’ metaphor - a metaphor used in the knowledge that it is a metaphor - and a ‘dead’ one, which is an image eroded to merely refer to a concept.

2. Is it not true that the symbols tries to refer from the imaginary towards the real?

Yes, that is true, but the real changes permanently. That’s why poetry is ‘open’, it allows for shifts in perspective without losing it’s meaning. Formal language doesn’t allow this, that is why it gets out of touch with reality. The best way to freshly refer to the real from the imaginary is to constantly learn new languages, so that your power of verbalization never becomes formalized.

[objet_petit_a]

@Jakob

That’s too simple. What is unexplored is the difference between a ‘live’ metaphor - a metaphor used in the knowledge that it is a metaphor - and a ‘dead’ one, which is an image eroded to merely refer to a concept.

I think the usage of a metaphor as a metaphor is included in my metaphor remark. The eroded image is a consequence of several metaphor’s and metonymy’s.

Yes, that is true, but the real changes permanently. That’s why poetry is ‘open’, it allows for shifts in perspective without losing it’s meaning. Formal language doesn’t allow this, that is why it gets out of touch with reality. The best way to freshly refer to the real from the imaginary is to constantly learn new languages, so that your power of verbalization never becomes formalized.

I am not sure I agree with you. I think it doe not matter which word I choose to express my thought, so a formal word can be chosen as well. However, this may evolve into a private language of some sort over time. It does not have to happen though because we cans till remember the words as they were originally known to us. The choice stays the same: I choose a word to express my thought.

[Jakob]

@objet petit a

@Jakob

That’s too simple. What is unexplored is the difference between a ‘live’ metaphor - a metaphor used in the knowledge that it is a metaphor - and a ‘dead’ one, which is an image eroded to merely refer to a concept.

I think the usage of a metaphor as a metaphor is included in my metaphor remark. The eroded image is a consequence of several metaphor’s and metonymy’s.

You can claim that, but I’m not, how to put it, convinced, charmed or glamoured by a reductionistic categorical approach to language, or to anything that is not strictly mathematical or physical. I think that it is a mistake to apply the method of categorization as it applies to absolute formulas to the human sciences. To my purposes, the Gestalt approach is more satisfactory, more fertile there.

Yes, that is true, but the real changes permanently. That’s why poetry is ‘open’, it allows for shifts in perspective without losing it’s meaning. Formal language doesn’t allow this, that is why it gets out of touch with reality. The best way to freshly refer to the real from the imaginary is to constantly learn new languages, so that your power of verbalization never becomes formalized.

I am not sure I agree with you. I think it doe not matter which word I choose to express my thought, so a formal word can be chosen as well. However, this may evolve into a private language of some sort over time. It does not have to happen though because we cans till remember the words as they were originally known to us. The choice stays the same: I choose a word to express my thought.

Fair enough, we disagree, and probably use language in different ways, or have different things to express.
Likely our imaginary, personal worlds relate differently to the real.

Speaking for myself, at one point I found I was unable to express anything meaningful anymore in the languages I knew well enough to formulate thoughts (dutch and english), and I was so forced to learn another, altogether different one. As I started learning, the interior of my understanding, if you can follow me (language!), turned out to possess many qualities I had not known, as language revealed new ways of relating to the real.

I explain this to myself as follows; since spoken language is physical, and not for nothing called a tongue, it stands between the imaginary and the real. Perhaps, and I probably go outside of Lacan with this, the physical possibility of it is even a direct property of the real, which is not the case with the concepts embedded in / conveyed by language as thought. Consequently, I see formal language, which is the same as conceptual thought, as derived of the physical powers a given type of creature to express itself.

[objet_petit_a]

Before we continue, may I ask why you are bringing Lacan into this?