Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy

This collection of essays examines the role of metaphors in philosophy against the background of a reflection on the nature and function of metaphors in general. Drawing on the insights formulated in Ralf Könersmann's 'Wörterbuch der philosophischen Metaphern' and in the 'Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie', the editors acknowledge that philosophical metaphors are to be distinguished from philosophical concepts properly speaking, that not all metaphorical language in philosophy can be translated into pure concepts and that philosophical metaphors can have their own irreducible cognitive value. In the first and systematic part of the book different approaches to the role of philosophical metaphors in general are proposed from different angles. In the second part some selected metaphors in the history of modern philosophy are discussed. In the third part selected cases of metaphorical philosophical language are studied.