Armando Francesco d'Ippolito

When it comes to metaphors, a philosopher may feel inclined to become a metaphorologist, which is to say, an expert of metaphors, in the sense of an expert of what metaphors are. A talented writer would rather become a skilled user of them. Plato is certainly both things. He says very little about metaphors. However, he uses plenty of them, virtually in all dialogues. Moreover, starting from a certain point of his literary production, Plato's metaphors become more relevant from a philosophical point of view. But when does this happen exactly, and how? Are there linguistic or stylometric criteria in the light of which we might distinguish between non-philosophical and philosophical metaphors? And, more in general, does it make any sense, from a Platonic point of view, to talk about philosophical metaphors? Needless to say, the bibliography on the topic is extensive. In my paper, I focus on Pender's reading of Plato's lexicon and imagery of likeness—which is an expression that Plato prefers over the word "metaphor" in order to refer to his own abundant variety of analogies, comparisons, examples, models, paradigms, and similes. Firstly, I consider whether it possible to attribute to the latter a definite cognitive role. I argue that there are cases in which Plato seems to regard metaphors as being even more informative than direct account of things. Secondly, I focus on Plato's metaphorical devices with an eye on the early dialogues, for the purpose of noting some of the salient steps of the evolution of their philosophical relevance. Thirdly, I consider the example of some metaphors that are born great: the ones that Plato uses for the gods and the soul, with which Pender deals, and also the wide landscape of Plato's metaphors of light.

At least once in life, we all have been asked to explain what exactly philosophy is, or what a philosopher does. Some of us will have tried the etymological way: philosophy is the love (philía) of wisdom (sophía), hence philosophers are the latter’s lovers. Did that work? May etymology succeed in revealing any inner meanings of words? And also, may etymology be a useful philosophical tool? A spectacular example of the use of etymology for philosophical purposes is given by Plato in the Cratylus. This is an amazing dialogue. It is not simply on language, but more precisely on the so-called “correctness of names.” The core question is: may names come to be given to things according to any “natural” criterion, other than simple convention and agreement, in the light of which their correctness ought to be judged? Needless to say, such a question gives Plato the opportunity to combine the linguistic issue with some broader epistemological, cosmological and metaphysical investigations. Plenty of etymologies are provided, in order to verify whether they really have something to say about the “nature” of their nominata. However, most of these etymologies are funny. Over the last two hundred years, scholars have considered them philologically embarrassing, unless they are nothing but a joke by means of which Plato might have intended to parodize etymologists. On the contrary, Sedley invites us to take them seriously: we had better believe that Plato regarded the Cratylus' etymologies as “exegetically correct,” when not also “philosophically correct.” In my paper, I explore these categories, and see whether, and in what sense, we can talk of an exegetical and philosophical correctness of the Cratylus' etymologicon.

In principio è il sorgere del significato filosofico del termine greco εἶδος, rimarcante la forma, chiara e definita, indicativa dell’aspetto in cui ogni singolo ente del mondo si dà all’apparire. Tale aspetto, nella sua consistenza prima e originaria, viene a coincidere con l’essere, da parte della cosa che appare, un questo qui (τόδε τι) di cui poter dire: è. Il reale appare come teatro dell’infinito disseminarsi del Tutto in forme intese in siffatta maniera. Dall’antica filosofia greca, i cui riverberi vengono rintracciati, in epoca moderna, presso la critica artistica di J.J. Winckelmann, la letteratura di F. Hölderlin e quella di Novalis, si procede attraverso la poesia di W. Blake, l’estetica di E. Munch e la letteratura di H. von Hofmannsthal, sino ai contributi filosofici e pittorici offerti da V. Kandinskij, A. Schönberg, K. Malevič e F. Marc, rinnovando, ogni volta, l’inquietudine della domanda: si può dimostrare di esser certi della saldezza di questa struttura, per la quale il Tutto sia da pensare già da sempre salvo dalla minaccia dell’indistinto, poiché già da sempre tenuto in forma come da una sorta di giustizia cosmica?