- Title Pages
- Hans Blumenberg: An Introduction
-
1 The Linguistic Reality of Philosophy -
2 World Pictures and World Models -
3 “Secularization” -
4 The Concept of Reality and the Theory of the State -
5 Preliminary Remarks on the Concept of Reality -
6 Light as a Metaphor for Truth -
7 Introduction to Paradigms for a Metaphorology -
8 An Anthropological Approach to the Contemporary Significance of Rhetoric -
9 Observations Drawn from Metaphors -
10 Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality -
11 Theory of Nonconceptuality -
12 The Relationship between Nature and Technology as a Philosophical Problem -
13 “Imitation of Nature” -
14 Phenomenological Aspects on Life-World and Technization -
15 Socrates and the objet ambigu -
16 The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object -
17 Speech Situation and Immanent Poetics -
18 The Absolute Father -
19 The Mythos and Ethos of America in the Work of William Faulkner -
20 The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the Novel -
21 Pensiveness -
22 Moments of Goethe -
23 Beyond the Edge of Reality -
24 Of Nonunderstanding -
25 Unknown Aesopica -
26 Advancing into Eternal Silence - Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Light as a Metaphor for Truth
Light as a Metaphor for Truth
At the Preliminary Stage of Philosophical Concept Formation (1957)
- Chapter:
- (p.129) 6 Light as a Metaphor for Truth
- Source:
- History, Metaphors, Fables
- Author(s):
Hans Blumenberg
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter assesses Hans Blumenberg's essay, “Light as a Metaphor for Truth” (1957). With this essay, Blumenberg formulated the seed of the project for which he is, at least in Germany, best known: his “metaphorology.” While metaphorology initially seemed to be an extension of conceptual history — a research project aimed at investigating the semantic changes to central concepts of philosophy — it at the same time called into question the very centrality of concepts and terminologies as the only and authentic bearers of philosophical thought. Instead, it makes the case for studying the role pre- and nonconceptual speech plays in the language of philosophy. Where traditionally theories of truth would be interpreted in terms of their propositional content or logical validity, Blumenberg's article instead looks at the metaphors with which truth is described and which operate, as he puts it in the subtitle, “At the Preliminary Stage of Concept Formation.”
Keywords: Hans Blumenberg, metaphorology, philosophy, philosophical thought, speech, language of philosophy, metaphors, conceptual history
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- Title Pages
- Hans Blumenberg: An Introduction
-
1 The Linguistic Reality of Philosophy -
2 World Pictures and World Models -
3 “Secularization” -
4 The Concept of Reality and the Theory of the State -
5 Preliminary Remarks on the Concept of Reality -
6 Light as a Metaphor for Truth -
7 Introduction to Paradigms for a Metaphorology -
8 An Anthropological Approach to the Contemporary Significance of Rhetoric -
9 Observations Drawn from Metaphors -
10 Prospect for a Theory of Nonconceptuality -
11 Theory of Nonconceptuality -
12 The Relationship between Nature and Technology as a Philosophical Problem -
13 “Imitation of Nature” -
14 Phenomenological Aspects on Life-World and Technization -
15 Socrates and the objet ambigu -
16 The Essential Ambiguity of the Aesthetic Object -
17 Speech Situation and Immanent Poetics -
18 The Absolute Father -
19 The Mythos and Ethos of America in the Work of William Faulkner -
20 The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the Novel -
21 Pensiveness -
22 Moments of Goethe -
23 Beyond the Edge of Reality -
24 Of Nonunderstanding -
25 Unknown Aesopica -
26 Advancing into Eternal Silence - Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index