TY  - CHAP
A1  - Klein, Martin
ED  - Hochschild, Joshua P.
ED  - Nevitt, Turner C.
ED  - Wood, Adam
ED  - Borbély, Gábor
T1  - Metaphors, Dead and Alive
T2  - Metaphysics Through Semantics: The Philosophical Recovery of the Medieval Mind
N2  - This paper examins how the medieval distinction between proper and improper signification can give a plausible explanation of both metaphorical use and the usual transformations a language can undergo. I will show how Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between ordinary ambiguous terms and metaphors, whereas William of Ockham and Walter Burley do not leave room for this distinction. I will argue that Ockham’s conception of transfer of sense through subsequent institution of words is best thought of as an explanation of how ordinary usage can contain ambiguities, whereas Burley’s conception of transfer of sense without new imposition is more plausible when it comes to explaining metaphors. If metaphorical use is lumped together with equivocation, the account of how they work cannot do full justice to either, an insight that we already find in Peter Abelard, if not in Boethius.
KW  - Aquinas
KW  - Ockham
KW  - Burley
KW  - metaphor
KW  - equivocation
KW  - signification
KW  - imposition
KW  - transference
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-359678
UR  - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-15026-5_8
N1  - Subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use (https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/policies/accepted-manuscript-terms).
PB  - Springer
ER  -