ABSTRACT
In La Métaphore Vive, spatial understandings pervade much of Ricoeur’s discussion of metaphor in terms of proximity and distance, tension, substitution, displacement, change of location, image, the ‘open’ structure of words, closure, transparency and opaqueness. Yet this is usually where space is discussed within metaphor, and as a metaphor itself, rather than as a precondition or prior system of relations to language interacting with language. Diametric and concentric spaces are argued to be such a prior system of relations to language, as a protolanguage actively framing metaphor. This chapter examines the relevance of this prelinguistic spatial discourse to Ricoeur’s framework of metaphor and interrogation of the copula, influenced centrally by early Heidegger. Concentric spatial assumed connection and diametric spatial assumed separation offer a framework for understanding, what Ricoeur characterises as the conflict between identity and difference in metaphor. Key words: metaphor, structuralism, being, analogy, protolanguage, belonging, identity, difference
