Symposium 2001

The Internal, Layered Meaning of Words and Metaphors:

An Exploration into What Donald Davidson Disregarded in What Metaphors Mean

Peter Sabath, Senior


Our literal understandings of a word are twins in constant opposition with one another, twins in constant competition to receive the most love from their mother and father. Let us pretend the parents are the literary community that demonstrates love frequently by showing a preference for one of their twins. Donald Davidson's theory expressed in What Metaphors Mean is a tragic, intellectual miscarriage; it is a theory of language that brings forth a stillborn child, a dead metaphor.

Do you see the candle there in the window? What does it mean to you, and is your understanding of its "ordinary" essence, its literal meaning, identical to mine? Davidson assumes we both clearly know and agree upon its literal meaning, that it is literally "a cylindrical mass of tallow or wax with a wick through its center, which gives light when burned." Contrarily, however, I believe our understandings of a simple word like candle often file for divorce because they cannot resist the semantic temptation of what I metaphorically call literal-meaning infidelity. Metaphorical meaning is a sex object for literal meaning, and the mind of a creative artist, a lover of humanities and poetry, is incapable of not pursing this with passion unleashed via creative language-libido. This kind of person has a mind fundamentally opposed to the Davidsonesque mind, a mind that is constantly discovering (if he reads a book of prose or poetry) and inventing (if he writes with a pen in his hand) the metaphorical connection with lust filled eyes.

The above literal, dictionary definition of candle is not the first definition that enters my mind, I am afraid, and thus how can there only exist a literal "surface" meaning inside this word, as Davidson would argue, if a figurative meaning paradoxically surfaces before the literal? Since "surface" implies the existence of depth, it seems logical that if the metaphorical meaning was actually buried far under the literal surface that dictionaries have established (if not the dictionaries themselves, those who are responsible for making words for natural languages), it would only emerge after the literal meaning. When I look at this candle, firstly, I think of my grandmother who never lights candles in her house today because the flames remind her of grandpa's housing-renovation accident which resulted in a broken back and a one year, immobile, bed-ridden existence in which grandma had to kiss the welts that covered his back. Candles are there in their house, the same immortal ones every year. Secondly, I recall a Church related candle procession in 6th grade in which a young 3rd grader's long ruby-brown hair went up in flames that nearly reached her developing skull. One of the Catholic priests took a fire extinguisher from the wall and covered the child from head to toe with white foam. Imagine what this lady's current understanding of candle is. And finally, perhaps, I recall the common meaning cited above.

Chances are that you, the reader, have similar unusual experiences to connect to words such as candle, but that these experiences ostensibly make your understanding different from mine. I can only incorporate your understanding of a particular word into my understanding if you convey it to me somehow, be the method verbal (conversation), visual (art without language, but rather images), or literary (novel, play, poem, philosophical discourse, etc), and if I receive it with interest, whether or not I am fond of the new meaning you have shared. Once eclectic figurative and metaphorical meanings are made, I hold the conviction that they in a sense become an addition to the basic, ordinary (though not cross-culturally applicable) literal meaning for the individual that they belong to. Furthermore, at the fullest state of incorporation, metaphor cleverly and silently lives inside the shell of literal meaning, and this shell dwells inside language yet remains connected to the mind so it can infinitely be pumped filled with new and exciting meanings. It hides there but loves attention if someone cracks the shell open and discovers what is inside. Each person has a vocabulary, yet some have more extensive vocabularies than others, and thus they posses a greater number of words to select from when they write and speak to convey meaning, ideas, beliefs, etc. As we know, each word is a shell of common, ordinary meaning surrounding a nut, a delicious hazelnut lets say, its essence being the extensive system of networked metaphorical meaning. The person who has fewer shells filled with tastier hazelnuts (more meaning) is somehow greater in my eye that the person who has more shells filled with tasteless hazelnuts (less eccentric and layered metaphorical meaning). The more a person interacts with the world and lives fully in it, the more metaphorical meaning becomes incorporated into the literal, and consequently the more complete, convoluted, ambiguous, and ebullient an individual's personal dictionary becomes, and the meanings inside words forever expand beyond the conventional literal meaning. Figurative meaning never stops spreading itself into the literal, dictionary meaning of words and language, a feat that Davidson would claim is impossible because according to his theory metaphorical meaning can only exists outside of the words if it exists at all.

How can there not be internal metaphorical meaning for me when my mind involuntarily and unconsciously recalls particular stories associated with candles instead of the literal meaning? Literal meaning is just as dependent upon the mind as figurative and metaphorical meaning. Without a cognitive element interacting with language, neither a literal nor a metaphorical meaning exist, and language becomes static and humdrum. However, Davidson seems to believe that literal meaning is somehow independent of the mind, he assumes that it autonomously exist inside language and words, and is furthermore ubiquitous and unequivocal. Instead, when I look at this candle and discover my comprehensive understanding of its meaning that has been shaped by my practical and experiential relationships with candles in addition with the dictionary's conviction, my mind actually fails to escort the literal meaning into the spotlight. Thus, figurative meaning seems to be paramount. If this is so for an individual whose shells are daily implanted with new meanings, perhaps literal meaning never independently exists for a split second in the mind, in its pure dictionary form.

Consider the following metaphor I have created based upon what meaning the word candle carries for me in addition (and more significant) to the original:
The candle in the window is grandmother's insecurity.

If I had not supplied the context for this metaphor, your response to it, your attempt to decipher the layers of meaning, would have been limited to connecting the term insecurity to your literal understanding of candle and your own history with candles. If this metaphor was introduced in a piece of prose, it would connect to other metaphors and meaningful motifs inside the text and the collective meaning of the network of metaphors would create in-textual meanings that rise above, or rather sink deep below, the literal, superficial "surface" meaning. Without a context, and even with a context, both the literal and metaphorical meaning of this metaphor seems ambiguous and indefinite, even for me, the creator. However, if you try to find meaning in this metaphor by solely acknowledging "what the words, in their most literal interpretation mean," as Davidson suggests and claims is the only method, then I am convinced that not even the first layer of meaning that I have created with this metaphor would be penetrated because it does not even lie on the surface! Davidson disregards the contextually based theory of meaning by claiming that ambiguity does not exist inside literal meaning, a notion that I disagreed with above, and furthermore he argues that we deceive ourselves into believing that context alters, enhances, and transforms literal meaning into figurative meaning:

Perhaps, then, we can explain metaphor as a kind of ambiguity: in the context of a metaphor certain words have either a new or an original meaning, and the force of the metaphor depends on our uncertainty as we waver between the two meanings. Thus when Melville writes that "Christ was a chronometer," the effect of metaphor is produced by our taking "chronometer" first in its ordinary sense and then in some extraordinary or metaphorical senseIt is hard to see how this theory can be correct. For the ambiguity in the word, if there is any, is due to the fact that in ordinary contexts it means one thing and in the metaphorical context it means something else; but in the metaphorical context we do not necessarily hesitate over it meaning. When we do hesitate, it is usually to decide which of a number of metaphorical interpretations we shall accept.

Thus, according to Davidson, ambiguity inside a literal word is created by context, though in a metaphorical context we can easily decipher the literal meaning because it is located at the surface level meaning of the words.

If a metaphor's meaning always "lies on the surface" of words as Davidson asserts, then why is the meaning of metaphor often ambiguous and hard to decipher? I argue that the special, figurative meaning of words cannot be realized without the context they appear in, and thus meaning is dependent upon context to become dynamic and dimensional rather than remaining stagnant and static. Furthermore, if literal meaning is self-evident, why do "many of us need help if we are to see what the author of the metaphor wanted us to see?" Davidson says this is the case because there are many ignorant or lazy readers that need to be given "a vision like that of the skilled critic." However, as W.V. Quine declares in A Postscript On Metaphors, I too believe that "There is a mystery as to the literal content, if any, that this metaphorical material is meant to convey." Ambiguity is an inseparable component of meaning, and this inevitably fosters semantic conundrums that cannot be easily elucidated in a literal fashion. I agree with Don R. Swanson when he claims, in Toward A Psychology of Metaphor, that metaphor is "a peremptory invitation to discovery." This suggests that the entire spectrum of meaning does not merely lie on the literal surface level of meaning. Therefore, even skilled, intelligent, and clever readers can not always explain what a metaphor means in a literal fashion. In The Many Uses of Metaphor, I also agree with Karsten Harries when she says that poetic metaphors often "resist paraphrase" and appear meaningless when they are understood at the literal level. If Davidson's theory were correct, there would be no need for interpretation and explanation because all meanings would reside upon the surface of the words, at their most literal connotations. Thus, Davidson falsifies his theory in his own essay by making this concluding proposition.

It is foolish to give hypothetical examples of metaphor without context, for creative metaphors rarely appear without a context inside prose and poetry and everyday speech. Very rarely can we see them standing alone. When in a context, one metaphor will typically related to other metaphors, to other ideas, to other motifs. When a metaphor is presented autonomous from a context and a network of meaning, then Davidson's assertion that any interpretation beyond the literal is all conjecturing and reaction to what the metaphor intimates, to what it calls to our attention, is more valid but still highly unlikely, for an isolated metaphor can still carry figurative meaning in addition to the literal meaning, though the layers of meaning are not as vast or may be subtle. The meaning of a metaphor that is only a part of the whole can not be sought without acknowledging the entire system of meaning that it exists in. Davidson, however, argues that this is not a valid excuse for seeking special, figurative meaning inside metaphors because the context is the very element that creates the illusion of extended meaning living inside the words themselves. I think he is wrong in profession that the common, literal meaning of words cannot extend to a figurative realm where the entire literary setting is integrated into the interpretation of meaning.

I agree with Karsten Harries' reflection upon what happens when metaphors interact: "By their tensions and collisions certain metaphors continue to call us beyond the literal meaning of words and let their figurative meanings become active." Her belief that "there still is poetry that forces us to question the claim that metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of pragmatics and, more fundamentally, the overly restricted theory of meaning on which it rests" helps reveal the problems with Davidson's characteristically "modern," "strict," and "narrow" conception of meaning which is overly dependent upon an objective, "simple and literal sense of the text" to extract meaning. I also share Wayne C. Booths related position: "What any metaphor says or means or does will always be to some degree alterable by altering its context."

I think Davidson's theory begins to go wrong at this point when it denies that ambiguity exists in language, at the literal, dictionary level meaning of words. Therefore, his "crudely sketching (of) how the concept of meaning may have crept into the analysis of metaphor" appears irrelevant, for if meaning-ambiguity exists in words at the literal level, how is it possible that figurative meaning will not live inside the words that form metaphors, even though their "extended" meaning is not cited in the dictionary, when they stand alone as individual encoded units, separated from context and other words and ideas that have the power to alter their meanings? As I said before, figurative meaning quietly become a part of the literal meanings of words over time, but in most cases it does not eventually disappear, but exists in the literal-shell of words. This new meaning stays lodged inside the word and thrives on creating further levels of meaning. If a dead metaphor eventually results from becoming entirely integrated into common usage, it can be given new life. Davidson disagrees with this stance. He attempts to show how these new meanings loose their figurative aspects as they become part of daily speech, as they coalesce into the literal, becoming one with it. He supports his theory by illustrating how the word "mouth" can be literally applied to rivers and bottles today, when in the past these were metaphors. Thus, according to Davidson, the moment metaphors are created, we can be sure that they will eventually die, and that they can not be revived again in a new context, with a new connection. However, what if I say the following in a piece of prose:



I kissed her greenish-blue, bloodless lips, the empty bottle's mouth, and tried to fill her body with life again. I yanked the bottle from the river's mouth, the hungry thief that filled its stomach with her life. Realizing she was nearing death, I put an SOS message into the bottle's mouth and gave it back to the river's mouth. This was the greatest mistake of my life, and it has haunted me every since.


In this new context and with these new connections that I have provided, do not the dead metaphors come to life again in interesting and ambiguous ways? Davidson's theory is too limited because of its absolute dependency upon "present usage" of literal meaning. He would argue that in the above metaphors "there is nothing to left to notice" beyond the literal meaning, an idea that is absurd to me because it seems that the metaphorical meaning here must be paradoxically deciphered before the literal meaning is discovered. And, perhaps literal meaning does not even exist inside words when the full picture of the paragraph is seen, when the separate metaphors are considered as a collective whole of networked, figurative meaning that can not exist if one part is removed and the meaning fragments into it individual, ordinary parts.

In writing What Metaphors Mean, Davidson forgot that the meanings of words in natural languages often contain ambiguities at both the literal and metaphorical level. If we were machines programmed to clearly know the literal, common meanings of words, and programmed not to forget these and not to incorporate new, figurative meanings into our definition (thus, we would have an artificial language without the human mind creating layers of special meaning), then perhaps Davidson's theory would contain validity. However, as Vaclav Havel illustrates in The Memorandum, a play that wonders if it is more ideal and beneficial to communicate with a natural or an artificial language, words in natural languages (and, as the play shows, eventually words in artificial languages as well) will always contain ambiguities:



Look here. You yourself know best how many misunderstood suspected innuendoes, injustices, and injuries can be contained in one single sentence of a natural language. In fact, a natural language endows many more-or-less precise terms, such as for example the term "colored," with so many wrong, let's say emotional overtones, that they can entirely distort the innocent and eminently human content of these termsit is precisely the surface inhumanity of an artificial language which guarantees its truly humanist function! After Peydepe [the artificial language in the play] comes into use, no one will ever again have the impression that he is being injured when in fact he's being helped, and thus everyone will be much happier.


Davidson's convictions perversely try to transform, in a certain sense, our natural language into an artificial one devoid of human nature, positing that words do not absorb the special meanings humanity naturally coalesces because of its emotional overtones, impressions, and ambiguities into words. However, as Havel's play elucidates, Davidson's cannot be correct because the human mind will always perceive special figurative, additional-to-the-literal meaning inside all words, even when the particular words creating the metaphor appear in isolation, separated from a context. Words carry all meaning that the mind perceives them to carry, even if this meaning has not been formally established in dictionaries. Why should words only carry literal meaning? Furthermore, if they do not carry figurative meaning, then why do they necessarily carry literal meaning? Is meaning contingent upon established, documented agreement? Can a word only carry the literal meaning that is inscribed into the dictionary, or the metaphorical meaning that becomes commonplace? So much meaning exist inside words that all of it will never be captured in its entirety. Meanings proliferate without limitations because the human mind cannot be content with only the literal, dictionary meaning.

Returning to the metaphor that I initially posed, how would Davidson react to it? Would he make the same fundamental mistake and consider its meaning out of context just as he did with Melville's metaphor, and proceed to forget about its related parts that contribute to its meaning? Let us look into Davidson's mind reflecting upon my metaphor, and let us hypothetically assume that this metaphor is inside a novel I have written which is about anomalous characters and the various levels of unconventional, figurative meanings they have created around words and objects in their lives. The Words Misunderstood chapter of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Vladimir Nabokov's Transparent Things are contemporary equivalents of this imagined novel. It follows that my grandmother is one of the characters, and her particular object-word entity is candle. Again, this is Davidson's mind that we are looking into:


The candle in the window is grandmother's insecurity. Now, what is the meaning of this metaphor? No hidden, figurative message, whatsoever, this is certain. All I must do is examine the words and interpret them in the most literal fashion, and then I have found the only in-textual meaning possible. This is actually quite simple, Don, come on. What is a candle? Standing wax, wick, flame. It melts over time and has to be replaced, thus mortal. Now, what is insecurity? Anxiety, uncertainty, distress, lack of confidence, instability, fear of rejection, not firm, dependent upon others, unreliability. The literal meaning is right on the surface, in front of my face! This metaphor needs no paraphrase, for it is a literal statement, can't you see. Simple. The candle, when lit, gives off a flame that quivers in the wind. Shakes, you know. Dances. Everyone knows this. The image of a candle's flame shaking in the wind is universal. The candle is in the window. Perhaps it is open, so yes, it really must be shaking with the draft of air, and something that shakes is often apprehensive, unstable, dominated by anxietywhy, yes, it is insecure! Yes, the flame is insecure, which leads to the candle being insecure, which in turn logically leads to grandma being insecure. The flame is obviously grandma.

This reasoning is clearly wrong and its scope is limited because it fails to discover the layers of meaning in the words of this metaphor. Davidson has disregarded the rest of my hypothetical text, the interconnected stories of each character, and the specific story of grandmother that metaphorically connects to everything else. He pulled this one metaphor out, as he did with Melville's metaphor, and reflected upon it in a secluded, sealed vacuum to use it as an example for a hypothetical follow-up paper to What Metaphors Mean. If he had reflected upon this metaphor with the entire context that it speaks fully in, the other parts of the whole (the other metaphors, ideas, images, philosophy, words, concepts, all that language is made of to make it dynamic) would have created discrepancies, ambiguities, and falsities in his reasoning. For example, as the reader should know, grandma never lit her candles and thus her candles never burned. Thus, how could a quivering flame represent grandmother's insecurity if no flame existed? Davidson could have also made the mistake of assuming that grandmother lights her candles because she is afraid of the dark, obviously an absurd conclusion failing to capture the figurative meaning inside this metaphor because the context which brings the metaphor beyond literal meaning is ignored.

A metaphor is two naked bodies tangled together in a bed, under the covers. These bodies are lovers, and secret, hidden meanings exist between them that cannot be seen in their physical features. They are words that are grotesquely, figuratively, and creatively attracted to one another. Once entangled, their collective meanings can never claim that their pre-fusion literal meanings are the most important factors for total comprehension of their current figurative connotations and semantic hues. These bodies speak to each other in a language that cannot be understood by simply spying on them through their bedroom window or keyhole as Donald Davidson crudely and voyeuristically does. One who yearns to comprehensively decipher (if this is possible) their layers of meanings must crawl under the covers with them and perhaps even tangle his limbs with theirs.

Let us pretend that one of the bodies in bed is the word pink. In Hungary, there is an interesting proverb, "A vilagot rozsaszin szemuvegen keresztul nezi," which translates as, "see the world through pink glasses." It follows that in a Hungarian context, a metaphor relating to this proverb will be understood at the literal level quite easily. If a Hungarian analyzes the meaning inside the metaphor, "He is pink," or "The world is pink," pink refers to the well-known proverb and implies that the object in the metaphor is either blinded by happiness (this color is often applied to lovers that are only filled with felicity) or naïve (optimistic because of your or immaturity). These common notions related to the color pink are known by all Hungarians, yet these literal meanings can-not be found in a common Hungarian dictionary. Furthermore, these close-to-literal metaphors (perhaps they have become dead and cliché in Hungary) are not close-to-literal metaphors in North America, however. They mean a spectrum of things in Hungary and carry an entirely different spectrum of meaning to Americans. These particular meanings of the color pink to Hungarians are not held by most Americans because these meanings can neither be found in American proverbs nor dictionaries. They only way that these meanings can be rendered in their Hungarian sense is if they enter (intruded into) the word pink in the American context, influencing the conditioned (towards culturally dictated meanings) American mind to learn what this word denotes to Hungarian minds at the most common, literal level.

Before living in Hungary and studying the language, if I had encountered the metaphor "He is pink," my mind would have failed to consider the figurative meanings created by the Hungarian proverb because I was not aware what this particular color summons to the Hungarian mind. Instead, I would have thought of salmon, roses, and pink triangles, a symbol for gay rights that can be seen stuck to walls and woven into flags across America. Thus, at the literal level, this metaphor would have told me that "he" is effeminate, a homosexual, a lover of water and swimming perhaps (since salmon live in rivers), fond of flowers, smells wonderful, or is like the color pink (a reference to his pale, sensitive skin). Even at the literal level (and my no means is what I mentioned comprehensive in regards to the literal meaning this metaphor conjures-up and transports), can you see how much ambiguity resides in this simple, uncreative metaphor! What if we were considering a convoluted, complex, creative metaphor embedded inside a rich context instead? How can Davidson's theory be correct, then? The fact that this simple metaphor holds such a plethora of equivocal, dubious meaning seems to prove that Davidson is wrong. How can literal meaning only float on the surface of these words if there are discrepancies?

Furthermore, the ambiguity in the literal meaning does not end here. Upon consulting the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, I learn that pink literally means a host of things I have never been fully aware of. Notice how many of these literal dictionary meanings uncannily appear to be metaphors, a fact illustrating (and thus falsifying Davidson again) how figurative meanings can preserve themselves in literal expressions that have become common place enough (but are sill not known by many educated speakers of the language!) to be placed into the dictionary:



1. turning pink with confusion or embarrassment
2. having slightly left-wing views
3. to be tickled pink to death
4. in the pink of health; extremely healthy, in perfect condition; the children all looked "in the pink" after their holiday
5. having pink-eye (an infectious disease causing inflammation of the surface of the eye
6. to pierce slightly
7. to cut a zigzay or scalloped edge on
8. to make small explosive sounds (of a car engine)
9. to knock


Therefore, how is it humanly possible for a reader (even a skilled, trained critic) to know what this metaphor literally (and metaphorically) means when it is considered independently from context and with a context? How can its literal meaning be on the "surface" and in our faces as Davidson declares? Furthermore, does not cultural relativism only create further discrepancies and disagreement in the literal meaning of metaphors, for in a Hungarian context a metaphor can mean something that it can not mean to most minds in an American context (those minds that have never been exposed to the Hungarian proverb that the metaphor summons and refers to, and thus that have not imported this special meaning into their pink word-shell)? This discourse clearly reveals the weaknesses in Davidson's assertions. We should now clearly see that when a word (e.g. pink) crawls from one cultural-bed to another and tangles itself with an new word in a different context, new in-textual meanings are generated that are not necessarily cross-culturally applicable.
Here is another metaphorical example to illustrate my proposition that two tangled words carrying literal meaning in one culture may only carry unusual, metaphorical meaning in another:
Paper-car or The car is a piece of paper

The level of esoteric, special figurative meaning inside this metaphor will ostensibly fluctuate from culture to culture. Most Americans are not aware that there exist in this world cars made with paper. They do not know that the East German Trabant is made with this material. The East European mind that communes with the above metaphor would not find it a figurative statement containing metaphorical meaning unless they consider it in an unusual context. The American mind, however, would generally search for a deeper, figurative meaning inside the metaphor (the car is poorly constructed; dangerous to drive in; a surface to write upon; a canvas to paint upon, etc) without realizing it is only a literal statement. Is it possible to translate these kinds of metaphors without misunderstandings and ambiguities arising if no cultural explanations are provided? Finally, consider the film Macskajajj by Kusturica. How would the viewer that has no knowledge of the Trabant interpret the three short scenes in which a pig slowly consumes an abandoned Trabant? "How can a pig eat metal?" he may wonder. "Could this be a metaphor? Animal eating machine? What kind of figurative meaning is inside this image and idea? These very thoughts would have traversed my mind if I had watched Machdajajj with the misconception that edible, paper-cars are myths.

Now, consider the final example related to how meaning inside words is often contingent upon context. It illustrates how a layer of its metaphorical meaning can be entirely dependent upon a particular context if its meaning is to be deciphered:
The horn sings of alienation or The horn is alienation

Without the context in mind, at the literal level this metaphor means nothing close to what it means at the figurative level when the context it was based upon is acknowledged. I created this metaphor based upon Thomas Pynchon's novel, The Crying of Lot 49, and thus it refers to a special, figurative meaning inside the literary masterpiece that cannot be found in the dictionary, nor is it a commonly known meaning. In this story, a muted post horn (which paradoxically sings without making a sound!) is the symbol for those individuals who have been exploited and silenced by American corporations and have chosen to live in isolation. What would Davidson say to a metaphor like this that refers to an outside text and is not dependent upon literal meaning for its special, figurative message? For in this example it is imperative to consider the context to understand the layer of meaning I want the reader to understand being the author. I know there is "hidden meaning," a concept Davidson rejects, inside this metaphor, and I know that it cannot be decoded without probing into the word horn by going beyond its literal interpretation, by considering its context. Can you see that interpreting the metaphor by appealing to the literal meanings of horn and alienation will not yield its full spectrum of meaning, which includes the figurative? With Davidson's technique for deciphering meaning, in this example the figurative meaning remains hidden inside the metaphor and the beauty of interconnected meanings is not discovered, and thus this theory only limits the full potential of words. Without a context, the reader may think that the horn is simply playing a harmony that conjures up feelings of alienation, loneliness, isolation, etc. Or, perhaps, the reader interprets that the instrument makes its owner alienated from the world because he practices every hour of the day, and thus the horn has somehow figuratively become alienation. However, as we know, with a context in mind, the meaning of the words change and consequently the meaning of the metaphor. Furthermore, because of this new special meaning of horn that I have incorporated into my personal understanding after reading Pynchon's novel, I can neither listen to a horn nor react to a metaphor that speaks of a horn in the same way as I did prior to the reading, even if the music nor the metaphor directly refer to the peculiar, eccentric meaning inside the story. I argue that this new figurative meaning of horn has permanently synthesized with all of my other understandings of what horn means. It is now in my personal, subjective word-shell, surrounded by the vapid, superficial, prosaic literal meanings.

Donald Davidson is convinced that metaphor belongs to the domain of "use" ("what words are used to do"), which includes intimation, assertion, hinting, suggesting indirectly, etc., rather than the domain of figurative meaning ("what words mean," which is only literal). I think Davidson is wrong when he tries to separate these two domains because this division will only make language static and hinder words from absorbing new and exciting meanings that the human mind yearns to incorporate. He says, "The poem does, of course, intimate all that goes beyond the literal meaning of the words. But intimation is not meaning." However, Daivdson fails to realize that the more creative and artistic a metaphor is and the more associations it generates, it logically follows that it becomes more difficult for literal meaning to be extracted. In his essay, he also avoids considering these kinds of metaphors that would potentially undermine his assertions. I agree with Carl R. Hausman when he argues, in Metaphor and Art, that some metaphors "suggest fundamental insights into the world and humanity, insights that are seen when we are compelled to surpass their so-called literal interpretations." Davidson argues that the literal interpretation is needed to prompt the insight, whereas Hausman says the literal meaning needs to be considered transparent if the meaning of the metaphor is to be deciphered. Davidson would continue to defend himself by pointing out that Hausman's creative metaphor examples (man is the dream of a shadow; the world is an unweeded garden; the road is a rocket in the sunlight; the world is a machine; the mind is a computer) only intimate (for Hausman even uses the word "suggest") special meanings that are not bounded inside the words creating the metaphor, but rather created by the mind of the interpreter. Here, I defend my convictions and Hausman's by arguing that both literal and figurative interpretations can be made from these metaphors, interpretations that result from both common literal and special figurative meanings inside the words. These two kinds of meanings cannot be separated from one another. If they are divided and if one tries to understand a metaphor without considering all possible meanings, then the meaning cannot be fully understood.

As I have illustrated, Davidson's assertion that words mean nothing beyond the literal meaning is clearly false. And if this is the case, then all of the unusual, figurative, counter-fatuous ways words are used (the domain of use) infinitely serve as the infusion needle that transports the new meanings into the words (the shells). With the help of Milan Kundera's philosophy of meaning inside The Unbearable Lightness of Being, it becomes evident that intimation cannot be separated from the evolution of meaning inside words. Here, intimation is equivalent with special, unordinary meaning that is word-bound, for it aids the mind in connecting layers of meaning together. Contrary to Davidson, I do not think metaphorical meaning should be prevented from entering words. It should not be only relegated to our minds and response because words always have special meanings beyond the literal whether these special meanings belong to one person, two lovers, the representatives of a particular culture, or the entire world population. In the chapter entitled Words Misunderstood, Kundera ingeniously illustrates how a particular word or object (bowler hat) can carry a special network of meaning for one couple (Thomas and Sabina) without carrying the same meanings for another couple (Franz and Sabina). For Thomas and Sabina, the word contains many metaphorical and figurative links. However, for Franz and Sabina, this word does not mean much beyond the literal:
The bowler hat was a motif in the musical composition that was Sabina's life. It returned again and again, each time with a different meaning, and all the meanings flowed through the bowler hat like water through a riverbed. I might call it Heraclitus' ("You can't step twice into the same river") riverbed: the bowler hat was a bed through which each time Sabina saw another river flow, another semantic river: each time the same object would give rise to a new meaning, though all former meanings would resonate (like an echo, like a parade of echoes) together with the new one. Each new experience would resound, each time enriching the harmony. The reason why Thomas and Sabina were touched by the sight of the bowler hat in a Zurich hotel and made love almost in tears was that its black presence was not merely a reminder of their love games but also a memento of Sabina's father and of her grandfather, who lived in a century without airplanes and cars.

Now, perhaps, we are in a better position to understand the abyss separating Sabina and Franz: he listened eagerly to the story of her life and she equally eager to her the story of his, but although they had a clear understanding of the logical meaning of the words they exchanged, they failed to hear the semantic susurrus of the river of the river flowing through them.

And so when she put on the bowler hat in his presence, Franz felt comfortable, as if someone had spoken to him in a language he did not know. It was neither obscene nor sentimental, merely an incomprehensible gesture. What made him feel uncomfortable was its very lack of meaning.

While people are fairly young and the musical composition of their life is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and exchange motifs (they way Tomas and Sabina exchanged the motif of the bowler hat), but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.

I quote such a long passage from this chapter because it illustrates many of my previous arguments:
1.) Figurative levels of meaning inside words whisper (the semantic susurrus), for they do not exist on the surface. They are not extroverted and everyone cannot hear their whispers. One must create or absorb the meaning from another source before these special meanings begin to dwell inside words and objects.
2.) Understanding the literal meaning of words (their "logical" meaning) does not necessarily follow that their figurative meanings will be understood. After this passage, Kundera proceeds to give a short dictionary of the misunderstood words between Frantz and Sabina to show how meaning can never be objective and clear, even at the literal level.
3.) Kundera's metaphorical notion of one's life being a musical composition is similar to my understanding of life. The notes in the musical-score are made of words, and these words (which extend to objects) hold the potential to carry many special, figurative meanings that supercede the literal, dictionary definitions. For communication to become whole, one can not only rely on literal meaning if they want to understand the world, their surroundings, and the minds they encounter. We see that meaning is not stagnant, but that it grows with experience. We see that over time a word's or a metaphor's most special figurative meanings can become more significant than the literal, common-day meanings.

If we follow Davidson's suggestion and "give up the idea that a metaphor carries a message, that it has content or meaning (except, of course, its literal meaning)," then we will make language prosaic and thus meaning stagnant, robbing the vernacular of its natural, dynamic inclinations. And, if W.V. Quine is right when he claims that "metaphor, or something like it, governs both the growth of language and our acquisition of it," then language and meaning will tragically cease evolving. Metaphor effects the reader for the very reason Davidson denies: it has encoded content that brings the reader's mind beyond the literal surface meaning of words, into an infinite realm of interrelated, layered, anomalous meanings. As I tried to show, the reader that lives the fullest, that gives of his mind and receives from other minds, consequently has the most diverse and eclectic perception of the world which incorporates both objective (literal, common) and subjective (metaphorical, figurative) meanings. Davidson's theory is capable of doing to language and our perception of the world what Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes did to human perception in the16th and 17th centuries. The Scientific Revolution and the notion of Cartesian Duality separated the subjective mind from objective matter, creating a mechanistic universe void of subjective, figurative meaning. Objectivity dominated, and the mind was thought to be above nature. With Davidson's insistence that only objective, literal meanings can exist in words, Davidson's theory of what metaphor's mean seems to be encouraging humanity to return to a state of mind that only acknowledges objective, literal meanings in words, denying language its natural tendency of allowing meanings to evolve and expand.

It is imperative for us, especially all poets and writers of prose that use language to express figurative meaning, to critique this theory because it only decreases creativity and denies that artist say anything beyond the literal with their words and metaphors. Davidson's ideas violently affront to the purpose of our craft. If we become completely dependent upon objective, literal meaning and learn to reject subjective, figurative meaning in words, we will consequently become less human and more detached from the world, from our natural surroundings, from our fellow human beings, and from the spontaneous, creative voices deep in our guts that often speak of truths literal expression cannot capture.