Early Greek medical metaphors and the question of deliberateness
This paper analyses deliberate metaphor use in three Hippocratic treatises and in
Empedocles’ two famous similes. By exclusively examining direct metaphors and
their textual markers, I first investigate the communicative function metaphors
have in ancient Greek anatomical and physiological argumentation. These are
illustrative tools, items of evidence and/or elements that demonstrate a
given hypothesis, as well as instruments of a heuristic method of enquiry. Second,
I show that there are explicit claims by both authors to deliberate metaphor use:
they claim to use metaphors as metaphors and leave their addressees no option but to
recognise the source domain as such, as this represents the field
in which both theoretical construction and the demonstration of a given hypothesis
take place.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Hippocratic comparisons
- 3.Two famous comparisons by Empedocles
- 4.The question of deliberateness in the Hippocratic author and in
Empedocles
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
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