By Max Black (NHC Fellow, 1987–88) Shortly before his death in 1988, Max Black brought together for this collection previously published major essays on ten intriguing questions concerning ordinary language, rational choice, and literature. Individual chapters explore such fundamental problems as the puzzles posed by meaning and verification; what metaphor is and how metaphors work; … Continued
By Aileen Ward (NHC Fellow, 1986–87)
By Judith H. Anderson (NHC Fellow, 1995–96) While Anderson's overarching concern is with metaphor as a creative exchange, a source of code-breaking conceptual power, each of her chapters focuses on a different but related issue and cultural sector. Foci include the basic conditions of linguistic meaning in the early modern period, instantiated by Shakespeare's plays … Continued
By Christian Thorau (NHC Fellow, 2008–09) “What is still a description in any other art is already a metaphor in the art of music.” Eduard Hanslick already pointed out the special role of metaphors in understanding music in his work Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (1854). From sound to metaphor takes up the metaphor-theoretical discussions of the 20th and … Continued
In this video recollection, author and conservation activist Terry Tempest Williams describes her first encounter with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the ethical questions shared by her grandmother about taking personal responsibility for the natural world. As she says of this moment, “On that day, I became an environmentalist.” In discussing Carson’s influence as a … Continued