Chiara Ferella, "‘A Path for Understanding’: Journey Metaphors in (Three) Early Greek Philosophers", in: Chiara Ferella and Cilliers Breytenbach (Eds.), Paths of Knowledge. Interconnection(s) between Knowledge and Journey in the Greco-Roman World, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2018, 47–73

Abstract

This paper analyzes the use of journey metaphors by three early Greek philosophers, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles. My investigation emphasizes the powerful, malleable and polyvalent nature of this metaphor cluster both with reference to diverse authors and in the same text. It highlights, moreover, the relationship between metaphor, imagination and philosophical argumentation, above all when a fresh metaphorical stratum is introduced within an already established metaphor. Finally, it investigates to what extent the introduction of a fresh metaphorical stratum contributes to creative thinking and, by structuring and organizing new insights, to theoretical argumentation.

Published In

Chiara Ferella and Cilliers Breytenbach (Eds.), Paths of Knowledge. Interconnection(s) between Knowledge and Journey in the Greco-Roman World, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2018