Publications

Publication details [#14507]

Roques, Magali. 2019. Metaphor and mental language in late-medieval nominalism. Bochumer Philosophisches Jahresbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 22 : 140–171. 32 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Abstract

This study is a throwback to the fourteenth century and the views of a few well-known nominalist philosophers on metaphor. Roques examines William of Ockham, John Buridan and the Ockhamist philosophers in order to find out whether there is a correlation between metaphor theory and different views over the connection strings between thought, language and communication. While all three share common -or else identical- ideas on the nature of thought, it seems that there is no consensus when it comes to the mechanisms and function of metaphor. This is not to say that there is no common ground whatsoever though. All of them treat metaphor as a meaning-transfer process from one word to another, produced deliberately by the speakers, being elicited by the similarity of the concepts.