ABSTRACT
Aristotle takes a more consistently positive attitude toward metaphor, treating it under the art of rhetoric, as having a philosophically significant role in the skill of persuasive argument, and, under the art of poetry, as one of the poet’s tools by means of which he provides knowledge through artistic imitation. As M. C. Beardsley has noted, any adequate theory must explain how we distinguish metaphorical from other types of speech. This has seemed a reasonable starting point to many, since an answer to this question would both carve out a domain of discourse and indicate essential components of metaphoric comprehension. Investigation of the way metaphors achieve their effects introduces a cluster of questions concerning whether a metaphor may be reduced to literal discourse without a loss of cognitive content and concerning the proper role of metaphor in various cognitive disciplines. According to the comparison theory, there is nothing unique about metaphor in making truth claims.
