Metaphor and Disorientation

Abstract

This essay investigates the place of disorientation within the systems of interpretation we employ to experience, understand and act within the world. It takes as its starting point disorientation's status as a metaphor based on the term's etymological meaning as an inability to locate the rising sun. It then proceeds to explore metaphor's capacity to convey, be assailed by and play host to disorientation. Metaphor has, after all, been identified throughout its history as one of the principal devices through which we come to understand, or – what is at least as important – fail to understand, ourselves and our world. For this reason, theories of metaphor tend to double up as theories of human nature, understanding and morality more generally. By exploring the forms and functions disorientation assumes within different conceptions of metaphor, this article aspires to point towards some of the forms and functions disorientation assumes with in the systems of interpretation and evaluation we employ in personal, social, intellectual and moral life.