ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of metaphor is far more prevalent than is generally admitted by philosophers and it raises two main questions: What is "metaphorical meaning"? And how do hearers grasp metaphorical meaning as readily as they do? Most theorists have thought that metaphor is somehow a matter of bringing out similarities between things or states of affairs. Searle treats metaphorical meaning as speaker-meaning that is also conveyed meaning, and invokes Gricean apparatus to explain it in much the way he explained indirect force. A further theory of metaphor is based on the phenomenon, important in its own right, of single words' analogical differentiation into hosts of distinct though related meanings. According to the Naive Simile Theory in particular, a metaphor derives from the corresponding simile by ellipsis. In each case, the Figurative Theory remedies a deficiency of the Naive Theory by lodging the needed material in the now figuratively interpreted corresponding similes and letting the respectively derived metaphors inherit it.
