Hannah Jackson: Outside Reading Blog Posts
9/12/19- Donald Davidson and Metaphor Donald Davidson’s conception of metaphor is simple: they mean exactly what they mean. In his essay “What Metaphors Mean,” Davidson seeks to discredit the common idea that metaphors work by operating on two levels; one literal and one outside of the literal meaning of the words. He centers specifically on the idea of metaphors being impossible to paraphrase but offers a perspective beyond the usual explanation of them conveying ideas that simply don’t lend themselves to condensing. Metaphors cannot be paraphrased because they are already in their most condensed form and say all they have to say. This is where the phenomenology of Davidson begins to appear. He founds his argument on an understanding of a sort of universal human experience of metaphor. What they accomplish is not the issue at the core of his argument, how they accomplish what they do very much is. As Davidson moves through the conventional theories of metaphor he