Max Black
Max Black (1909-1988) was a philosopher whose work addressed language, logic, mathematics, science and art. His account of metaphor is especially relevant to this wiki because it considers how a comparison can organise a subject in a new way.
Academic work
Black studied mathematics at Cambridge and later studied at Göttingen. He received his doctorate from the University of London. He taught at London and the University of Illinois before joining Cornell, where he became Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy and directed the Society for the Humanities. These appointments and his publications are documented by Dartmouth's Montgomery Fellows programme and the Cornell archive of his papers.
Interaction and metaphor
In his essay "Metaphor", Black distinguishes the word used metaphorically, which he calls the focus, from the surrounding expression, which he calls the frame. These are parts of the wording. They should not be confused with the two subjects being compared, or treated as alternative names for Richards's tenor and vehicle.
Black's interaction account describes how associations with one subject can select and organise features of another. Those associations may be familiar assumptions rather than accurate descriptions. A comparison involving a wolf, for example, can draw on a community's beliefs about wolves without being a zoological claim. The context helps determine which implications matter.
The account also explains why replacing a metaphor with a literal list can change its effect: the list may lose the pattern of emphasis created by the original expression. This is an argument about language and interpretation, not a fixed method for reading someone's personality. Black, "Metaphor", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 55 (1954-1955), pp. 273-294.
Selected reading
- Language and Philosophy (1949).
- Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (1962), a collection that includes his work on metaphor and models. Publisher's digital edition.
- The Labyrinth of Language (1968), listed in the Dartmouth profile.
Related pages
- Interaction Theories of Metaphor
- A History of Metaphor Theory
- Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, Analogy and Symbol
- I.A. Richards
- George Lakoff
- Paul Ricoeur
- Metaphor Categories