Methapor, meaning, and comprehension

Abstract

In an effort to dismantle comparison and in general substitution theories of metaphor. Black proposed in a later essay what be called the 'strong creativity thesis' for metaphor2. It treated metaphors as the bearers of an irreducible cognitive content that was typically new and created by the metaphor itself. Thus, against those who claimed that the meaning of a metaphor can be expressed by a literal statement at the cheap cost of losing nothing but its ornamental component. Black argued that what he called authentic, interesting metaphors (strong metaphors), admitted of no literal substitution or equivalent. If metaphor was to have any value apart from the decorative role assigned to it by substitution theories, then it must be the fulfilling of a cognitive function: the bridging of the gap between the old and the new, the known and the unkown 3. Black conceived