PART I: GROUNDWORK
6. Thematics on Interpretation
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topic of which the text is about” (Moran 1989, 108). The whole text, as we have said, may contain other expressions on the topic, both literal and figurative ones, which can help in the interpretation of a single metaphor (Stern 2000, 173). In the core chapters of this dissertation, I would also hope to examine the archery metaphor in the light of the whole text. I agree with Paul Ricouer’s hermeneutic strategy of looking for “clues in the text”, and of arriving at a plausible explication of the metaphor in a way that will satisfy principles of congruence and plenitude with the rest of the text (Ricouer 1974, 103-104).
Apart from the text surrounding a metaphor, scholars call our attention too to the fact that knowledge of the speaker is crucial for interpretation as well. Unless the author of the metaphor intends to deceive his listeners or holds preposterously inconsistent views, it is his beliefs – or what we are able to gather about his beliefs – that guide us in comprehending his metaphoric utterance (Moran 1989, 104, 106). In the end, speaker meaning and utterance meaning converge in a metaphor (Searle 1979, 78; Moran 1989, 95), since it is normally the speaker’s own view and beliefs which he communicates in framing a metaphor. We can further appreciate the importance of knowledge of the speaker among the factors that make up the context of a metaphor by calling to mind the features of metaphor discussed in the previous section, features such as exemplification and schematicity, highlighting and concealing. What a metaphor conveys is largely dictated by its creator, since it is he who selects, emphasizes, suppresses, and organizes the features of the object (Black in Ortony 1974, 29) precisely by his choice of image and manner of expression. Along the same line, the following observation by Richard Moran is worth noting: “a good metaphor sums up, amplifies, and focuses on the speaker’s beliefs” (Moran 1989, 110). If so, the archery metaphor – assuming that it is a good one – can be highly illuminative of Confucian and of Aristotelian ethical views. In fact, so long as we agree that archery functions as a typical metaphor, the number and length of passages where it occurs will matter little. A single, appropriate use of it can open a breadth of meaning and implications.
6. Thematics on Interpretation
We saw that the mere comprehension of a metaphor already involves some degree of peripheral knowledge beyond – though not completely detached from – the basic semantic meaning of words. In this dissertation, we aim to give plausible interpretations of archery metaphors in the Analects and in the Nicomachean Ethics after thorough examination of archery in ancient Chinese and Greek societies. I hope to achieve, in other words, a text-in-context reading. Metaphors, however, are open to different degrees of interpretation beyond those that stay close to the literal.
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Metaphors, especially good, strong ones, have “reverberations”56 and “resonances”, they can “support implicative elaborations” (Black in Ortony 1979, 26) which come to light not only when it is placed in its schema57 but also when it is received in a different time and place. The matter introduces us now to the interesting issue of
“endless interpretation”, a phenomenon which non-cognitivists take against the objectivity of knowledge relayed through metaphor.
Cognitivists are undaunted by the charge. One author insists that metaphors can be objectively interpreted because the properties of the terms involved are recoverable (Beardsley 1969, 305), while another points out that meaning – literal and semantic, pragmatic and contextual – acts as constraints on otherwise innumerable interpretations (Stern 2000, 214). Hence, even though there are
“endless ways that things are alike” (Moran 1989,106), because of the context-dependence of metaphors, it is possible to reach plausible interpretations, as well as to be conscious of the different levels of interpretation that can be made (Stern 2001, 195).
If at all, cognitivists take openness of interpretation as a positive characteristic of metaphors, its potential to continue to provoke thinking and offer fresh insights on a theme through time. An author observes with delight that “metaphors have an open-ended quality; with good metaphors, the more one thinks of them, the more one discovers” (Bezuidenhout 2001, 172). Even Josef Stern, who prefers interpretation grounded on the semantics of the text and its original context, acknowledges that interpretations beyond what the author may have had in mind may prove “more informative, interesting, or illuminating” on the topic (Stern 2000, 203), and admits, in continuation, that “once proposed, a metaphor possesses a life of its own and need not be determined by its author, only by the character and presuppositions of (its) users” (Stern 2000, 270). The point is interesting because in the case of the archery metaphor, it has astounded me that there exist interpretations not exactly in keeping with the original text and context but nonetheless worth knowing. Such interpretations may be born of alterations in
“doxastic knowledge” surrounding concepts through time, or disparities in the physical experience and cultural horizons of later receptors. While we are primarily interested in doing textually and contextually grounded analysis of archery metaphor, exploration of interpretations beyond these levels signals future possibilities for developing our research.
56 For an example of the kind of “reverberations” that a strong metaphor can have, see Lakoff &
Johnson 1980, 141-143.
57 The context, as we know, yields multi-faceted information, enabling us to draw out extensions, constituents, consequences, commitments, inferences, and links with other members in the family, cf.
Stern 2001, 216.
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Another thematic which I wish to raise pertains to metaphor effect. We have had several occasions in the course of this chapter to mention the potentially compelling influence of metaphors as mode of expression. On the one hand, it involves our emotions, perhaps because of the “surprising, unexpected analogs”
(Davidson 1978, 33, 40), or the delight in beholding a fresh perspective. On the other hand, the pictorial element of metaphor also makes it more graphic and accessible to the listener. Because of this, metaphors are easier to interiorize, and what they
“make us see” can carry illocutionary force, for “we feel like what we see like”
(Ricouer 1978, 166; emphasis mine).58 There is another way that metaphors can be compelling, and it is the simple fact that they engage us by requiring more mental work from of us. Comprehending a metaphor poses a challenge which invites us to be active receptors. We are called upon to figure out how the terms are alike and what is highlighted among the shared attributes (Searle 1979, 116; Miller in Ortony 1979, 222). Our knowledge and experience too of the terms involved in the metaphor are called into action. Precisely, metaphors are not explicit and ask the audience to make inferences (Moran 1989, 101). Metaphors, in sum, “demand an uptake” (Black in Ortony 1979, 29).
The situation which a metaphor introduces us to, alongside its capacity to structure our thinking on a subject, may produce what authors call a “doxastic grip”:
a metaphor’s convincing representation which can be exploited or abused by the creator or users of a metaphor (Miller in Ortony 1979, 212). Moreover, metaphoric representation of reality can admittedly be partial and selective since it highlights and conceals features.59 For all the “bad press” that metaphor gets60, however, it is almost unnecessary to say that its use is beneficial and its advantages far out-number its limitations. It seems, moreover, that the limitations of metaphor – such as ambiguous expression and “myopic” representation of reality – are either workable or can be overcome by understanding their nature, function and manner of
58 Being told that one is “threading on thin ice” or “running on empty” effects a call to action. The image in a way conditions the way we view our situation as we place ourselves under the circumstances evoked by the expression and go on to envision the likely consequence of falling into ice water or of stalling in the middle of nowhere in a vehicle that has ran out of gas. The Chinese saying of having one’s feet in two different boats (腳踏兩條船) has the same effect of pointing out the precariousness of a situation and the consequent need to give up one of two incompatible plans.
59 Metaphor as “restricted reminding”, Searle 1979, 105; or, more derogatorily for Donald Schön, a
“cognitive myopia, in which some aspects of a situation are unwittingly emphasized at the expense of other, possibly equally important, ones”, Ortony 1979, 6.
60 Hugh Petrie, who considers metaphor a useful and powerful device in education, summarizes the
“bad press” that metaphor receives in his field as follows: “metaphors are used when one is too lazy to do the hard, analytic work of determining precisely what one wants to say. Consequently, metaphors encourage sloppy thought. In addition, metaphors are tremendously misleading (…) Finally, metaphors and their close cousins, slogans, are often used to cloud educational issues and reduce complex matters to simple-minded banalities. (So claim) depreciators of metaphor”, Petrie in Ortony 1979, 438.
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interpretation, in the way that we have tried to do in this chapter. An informed and constructively critical reading of a metaphor, for example, will make us conscious of what it intends to emphasize (perhaps exaggeratedly), and what it conceals about the subject. Ultimately too, the possibility remains open to agree, reject, or refine the perspective presented by the author.
Looking back, it has not been easy to give a clear definition of metaphor. We know that the general notion has evolved over time from a mere figure of speech to a figure of thought. The first definition I tackled takes metaphor as a phenomenon of language, an expression that deviates from literary meaning and which speaks of its subject by bringing it in a nuanced relation of similarity with another thing whose salient or exemplary features highlight an aspect of the subject. The second, more technical definition referred to metaphor as a mapping across domains of meaning, usually from a more concrete and familiar field, to a more abstract and unfamiliar one. The second definition attends to the structured manner of thinking on a subject that underlies metaphoric thought. The first definition speaks of language metaphors, while the second of conceptual metaphors. Surprisingly, scholars of metaphor usually do not distinguish between language metaphor and conceptual metaphor. Perhaps this is because for them instances of metaphor in language enmask just that aspectival thinking with structures that vary in degrees of completeness and extension. In other words, language metaphors are at the bottom conceptual metaphors. Be that as it may, many of these scholars, do not commit to some conclusions of Lakoff and Johnson’s metaphor theory, namely, that all higher mental operations are offshoots of metaphoric inference, or that the associations involved in metaphoric thinking correspond to neural mappings. Perhaps it is too early or too sweeping to make such claims as Lakoff and Johnson do. At any case, their ideas are more relevant to cognitive theory and brain study, which are beyond the scope of the study.
We have seen in the course of this chapter the history behind metaphor study, what metaphor is, its implications, its interpretation. Before concluding this chapter, I wish to make two notes. First is that the ideas expounded about metaphor in this chapter are, I believe, applicable to metaphor use in different language traditions.
One thing which I’d like to bring up, however, is the idea of a “twice true”
phenomenon, i.e., metaphors that are literally and metaphorically sound. The phenomenon, seldom manifest in Western metaphors, seems to occur more in Chinese.61 The point is interesting again for our study, for it does seem that while
61 In light of theories related to traditional Chinese medicine (e.g., Yin and Yang 陰陽, Five Elements
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archery and ethics clearly belong to different categories of human activity for Aristotle62, in Confucius, archery is part of moral cultivation. So, for example, when Confucius says that “gentlemen compete as in archery”, or quotes that “in archery it is not piercing the hide that counts”, both expressions make literal sense, that is, about the ethical way that gentlemen should act – or the moral dispositions they ought to cultivate – when they shoot arrows. David Punter suggests a possible explanation for why literal meaning will tend to have greater relevance in Chinese metaphors alongside figurative meaning by quoting Western sinologists on the idea of “correlative cosmology”, according to which Chinese view diverse phenomena as manifesting the same qualitative patterns. As a result, the two domains in a metaphor structure will converge rather than run parallel to each other. He writes,
It is this concept of ‘convergence’ which is critical for an understanding of Chinese metaphor. Metaphor (…) is not a question of demonstrating human wit or ingenuity in yoking together disparate realms; rather, it is a way of revealing or explaining that convergence of things, the ways in which they tend towards a common objective, as it were, echoing each other according to a wider natural law. (Punter 2007, 35)
Whether we agree with Punter or not, – my impression is that metaphors in Chinese generally display the nature, mechanism and effects of metaphor discussed in this chapter and are not as different from Western ones as Punter claims –, what we can safely assert from foregoing discussion is that metaphors, due to their high degree of context-dependence, are greatly illuminative of a conceptual system or given worldview. Analysis of metaphor can lead us to salient points and manners of thinking on a subject. Good metaphors are a window to the values and beliefs of a culture (Dilin 2002, 7-8, 119).
This chapter constitutes the theoretical groundwork for analyzing archery metaphor. Going back to my intention to do a contextualized reading of figurative speech in early Confucian and Aristotelian literature, a group of scholars specializing in Chinese texts have raised the important point that “a particular text may be
五行, etc.), some metaphoric sayings can almost be taken literally, particularly those expressing emotions of anger, e.g. “to emit air from the spleen” (發脾氣). For an exhaustive list of examples, see Ning Yu’s Contemporary Theory of Metaphor: A Perspective from Chinese (John Benjamins Publishing, 1998). In English, anger is similarly associated with releasing hot air from inside, for instance, “smoke coming out of the nostrils” or feeling like one is “about to explode”. Perhaps physiological alterations accompanying angry feeling such as rise in body temperature or the face turning warm are universal bodily experiences that ground these metaphoric expressions. Without the background of Chinese medicine, however, the expressions in English cannot be taken literally.
62 The latter involves skill, which Aristotle clearly delineates from the excellence of moral actuation.
Skill and moral excellence, however, have points of similarity: both require habituation and, once acquired, enable one to act with certain ease. We shall touch on this in a later chapter.
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contextualized in many ways, but there is in that text a surplus that exceeds the aggregate of its contextualizations (…) any text can be explained by many contexts, none of which, even in the aggregate, can fully account for the particular” (Yu et al.
2000, 2, 5). The manner which I have thought it safe and practical to contextualize – or “retrospectively construct” (ibid., 5) – early Aristotelian and Confucian texts is by investigating the historical and cultural background of archery in ancient China and Greece by consulting literary and material sources that predate or are contemporary with the foundational periods of these schools – a task which proves complicated on the Chinese side –, as well as later sources illuminative of said period. I hope in this way to utilize material that are fundamental while containing the pool of sources to examine. As Pauline Yu and companions warn us, however, my contextualization will be far from definitive and cannot but be limited in objectivity.
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CHAPTER 2
Archery in Ancient China
A man of Jing lost his bow. Instead of seeking it, he said, “A man of Jing has lost it, a man of Jing will find it. Why should I seek it, then?” When Confucius heard about it, he said, “If he leaves out Jing, it will be all right.”
- From the Lüshi Chunqiu 1.41
We have seen in the previous section that context is imperative for metaphor understanding. Chapter two explores archery in ancient China and Greece. I do not pretend to “reconstruct” the worlds of Confucius or Aristotle and am aware of the impossibility of directly accessing “what went on in their minds”. In this chapter and the succeeding one on Greece, my aim is rather to survey the historical and cultural panorama of archery in these two civilizations, scanning for details that would have fallen within the field of vision of the traditions to which our esteemed thinkers belonged. Given the temporal distance, this step is indispensable: I expect the investigation to aid us towards textually grounded metaphor interpretation by alerting us to the significance of certain terms and expressions. Moreover, recollection of the past can help vivify and consolidate archery-related images in the Analects and the Nicomachean Ethics.
Exactly when and where the bow and arrow originated is difficult to ascertain.
Scholars of military history complain about scarcity of documentation in key regions and of lack of cooperation in comparative analysis of archeological finds. The search for possible origins is further hampered by the fact that bows and arrow shafts were made of decomposable parts such as wood, bamboo, horn, silk, and other organically constituted material. Dating archery specimens hence depends largely on arrowheads which were of more robust matter: splintered stones and bones in the early ages, and bronze or iron in later eras. Fortunately in China, metal clamps (柲) were used as early as Shang times to keep unstrung bows in shape, that is, aligned and straight (正). The presence of this accessory in excavated tombs facilitates the analysis of archery specimens in Bronze Age sites.2
1 Anecdote shared and translated by Heiner Roetz in Roetz 2009, 371.
2 These clamps were attached to the mid-section of the bow’s belly and could be finely embellished with carved designs and bells, Yang 1992, 37. Another method for the same purpose was the use of bamboo frames to which stored bows were attached. There are allusions to these practices in the Shijing (詩經) for instance, in No. 128, Xiao Rong (秦風‧小戎), and No.175, Tong Gong (小雅‧彤弓).
It is worth noting how the bow and its accessories are subjects of very early poetry in China, alongside ritual objects and elements of nature. It is apparent that the bow was a prestige object and was connected with princely character and demeanor.
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Western historians mention pre-historic paintings on European caves as early evidences of archery while recognizing that primitive signs appear too in a number of Stone Age sites across the globe (Selby 2003, 9; Rausing 1997, 32-34; Burke 1957, 10).
In Egypt, where horns of wild antelopes and reeds from the Nile were used for making bows and arrow shafts, archery was a popular sport of pharaohs (Laycock &
Bauer 1965, 7). A Chinese source, Yang Hong (楊泓), mentions a 28,000-year old
Bauer 1965, 7). A Chinese source, Yang Hong (楊泓), mentions a 28,000-year old