ABSTRACT
Hannab Arendt, who would dismantle metaphysics, is interested from a different motive in the possibility of radical metaphor. In preparation for dealing with metaphor's way with the ineffable, Arendt enunciates some 'reminders' to keep us on track that might be condensed thus: Language enables one's to think because it brings in metaphor and image. Arendt says that there is an 'ineffability' about thinking itself, indicated in the fact that the process can be described only by the use of less than fully secured metaphors. Arendt exposes Aristotle's useful account of metaphor as too simple for her main purposes. Arendt has 'reinstated the primacy of the surface' and yet must deal with this invisible, inaudible thinking. When Arendt says something provocative and paradoxical she then dismantles it rather than defending it at all costs. Arendt is alive to the fact that a rock in the sea that 'endures' the winds and waves is a metaphor for endurance in battle.
