Metaphor and the Categorization of the Senses

Abstract

The attempt to describe a particular sensation often, if not inevitably, requires people to draw metaphorical comparisons with another sense-for example, "a bitter, lemon yellow" and "the sound of a trumpet is scarlet"-with the end result that metaphors of the order "color is taste" and "sound is color" are produced. These descriptions are distinct from neurological synaesthesia in that they involve active metaphorical association. However, what is significant and what I show is that the distinction between literal and metaphorical language is bound up with the history of classification and, in particular, the classification of the senses. The 2 main competing epistemologies in the debate are, on one hand, Locke's (1690/1997) empiricism, which argues for the importance of literal language and the discrete nature of the senses and, on the other, Merleau-Ponty's (1945/1962) phenomenology, which emphasizes the positive role played by metaphor in cognition and asserts that the senses are interrelated aspects of human bodily engagement with the world. I outline the 2 epistemologies and demonstrate how they lead to different conceptions of human sensory contact with the world and the cognitive value of metaphor. In addition, these accounts allow me to show how Merleau-Ponty underlies Lakoff and Johnson's (1999) thesis in Philosophy in the Flesh.