Reified Thought and Metaphor

[Cael]

Can anyone recommend an essay or article on metaphor as a form of reified thought (or vice versa as the case may be.)

[Andropov]

Can anyone recommend an essay or article on metaphor as a form of reified thought (or vice versa as the case may be.)
Have a read of this, I hope it helps you comrade, its good for a laugh if for nothing else - http://irishsocialistrepublic.blogspot.com/

[Cael]

Have a read of this

Off you go now and let the grown ups talk.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The best book on metaphor is the followng:

White, R. (1996), The Structure Of Metaphor (Blackwell).

He shows that metaphor is far too rich, wide and varied to be captured by a neat formula (like the one you mention).

I have yet to come across anything on the internet that is any good.

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This should be in Philosophy.

[Cael]

Yes, of course our whole conceptual systems are based on metaphor. But can we not say the same about reified thought? And, if metaphor is a form of reification, what implications does that have for the Marxist objective of getting beyond refied thought?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Can you give me an example?

[Andropov]

Off you go now and let the grown ups talk.
Sorry a chara, just trying to help you out.
Perhaps you should have a look at an interesting article called Republican Anarchism?

[Cael]

Sorry a chara, just trying to help you out.
Perhaps you should have a look at an interesting article called Republican Anarchism?

You follow me around this forum like a little mongrel pup yapping at my heels. You really are tiresome.

[Cael]

Can you give me an example?

Of reified thought?

[Pogue]

Is there really much point in letting a silly argument esculate, Riite Boi and Cael?

[Cael]

Is there really much point in letting a silly argument esculate, Riite Boi and Cael?

Im not arguing with anyone. Im trying to have a serious discussion here and somebody is spaming the thread. Hopefully a moderator will remove the spam and allow the discussion to continue. Anyway, it is removed for me, as the idiot has become the only member of my ignore list.

[blake 3:17]

Stephen Jay Gould on images of evolution. No time to find at moment, but it he constantly debunks reified images of evolution.

[Cael]

Stephen Jay Gould on images of evolution. No time to find at moment, but it he constantly debunks reified images of evolution.

Thanks for that a chara.

[Andropov]

Im not arguing with anyone. Im trying to have a serious discussion here and somebody is spaming the thread. Hopefully a moderator will remove the spam and allow the discussion to continue. Anyway, it is removed for me, as the idiot has become the only member of my ignore list.
Cael you were spamming my profile with comments laughing at child prostitution, its quite disgusting. I feel obliged to report this, I just feel bad that you have dragged me into this pettyness.

[Pogue]

By the looks of it actually Cael is the one trolling here, apologies to Riite Boi for assuming this was some sort of mutual argument.

[Cael]

By the looks of it actually Cael is the one trolling here, apologies to Riite Boi for assuming this was some sort of mutual argument.

I ask for recommendations on the question of metaphor and reification and some fool posts a link to my own blog and tells me to read it - and Im the one trolling??? :thumbdown:

[Cael]

Can you give me an example?

Comrade blake 3:17 has given a very good example of a reified catagory when he refered to Stephen Jay Gould. Gould shows how "intelligence" is presented as a reified entity, i.e. as a "thing" which is generated by the brain, or which resides in the brain. This "thing" is then considered to be measurable, or inherited, or capable of being passed on, and people are classified according to the proportion of this thing that they are supposed to possess, or which is supposed to reside in them.

And is this reified catagory, i.e. "intelligence is a thing" not also a metaphor - as with metaphors such as "life is a war" or "my love is a rose?"

[Buffalo Souljah]

For an excellent analysis of the concept of reification in the process of history read Georg Lukacs's essay entitled "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat" in History and Class Consciousness, in which the category of mediation and the 'thing-in-itself' are central points of contention. Lukacs argues that mediation arises in order to "become [for the bourgeousie and the proletariat] the authentically objective reality" (150). He goes on further to make the point that all history or theory has the class or national class interest of the particular historian or theorist to wrestle with before it comes to clear ground, and that this "standpoint of history" (ff) shapes the development of history and theory. He argues further that "universal or world history can only be written... with the aide of a system of cultural values." (ibid).

Basically, what he is arguing is that a historian or philosopher's opinions and class standing will always enter into his work and that this presence will always take the form of an a priori "thing-in-itself" that achieves this form through reification. He argues that the only way past reification is to view reality and its reproductions as what they are, dialectical entities which derive their value only through participation. This point is fundamental to Lukacs's theory of revolution, which he argues will come about when the imputed (or inherited) class consciousness of the proletariat reaches a certain point of self-realization. He was not a fatalist, but believed that, were a cohesive whole to appear out of self-alienated proletarian culture (which is alienated by and through efforts of bourgeousie reification), revolution would naturally follow. Intense and worthwhile reading, really.

The full work can be found here: marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/lukacs3.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Cael:


Comrade blake 3:17 has given a very good example of a reified catagory when he refered to Stephen Jay Gould. Gould shows how "intelligence" is presented as a reified entity, i.e. as a "thing" which is generated by the brain, or which resides in the brain. This "thing" is then considered to be measurable, or inherited, or capable of being passed on, and people are classified according to the proportion of this thing that they are supposed to possess, or which is supposed to reside in them.

And is this reified catagory, i.e. "intelligence is a thing" not also a metaphor - as with metaphors such as "life is a war" or "my love is a rose?"

There are plenty of such 'reified' concepts; here are a few: "mind", "thought", "Being", "Becoming", "Identity", "Difference", "consciousness", "contradiction", "negation"...

[kalu]

Nietzsche "On Truth and Lying in a Non-moral Sense"
George Lakoff (haven't really read him)
Paul Ricoeur (from the hermeneutic tradition)

[blake 3:17]

Not sure if this appropriate, but... http://www.pcpinball.com/history/evolution.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

On the contrary, you can be sure it isn't.