Tagged: figurative speech

Literal and Figurative Language

If you speak as though being understood were your primary concern, then you can only say common things. For language, insofar as it is a tool of clear and straightforward communication, is by definition common, which is to say it is limited to common meanings. Nothing uncommon may be said by common means, unless those means are explicitly used against their primary function,...

The Self-Government Machine

How much of the challenge of political philosophy is rooted in deficiencies of available language? How many essential truths have failed to reach the ears they needed to reach at the critical moment, merely because the individuals who saw those truths lacked universally familiar points of reference with which to communicate their lightning bolts with sufficient precision, or at least with the shattering...