Peter Lamarque

The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language

Originally published in English in 1978, this full-scale examination of the philosophy of metaphor from Aristotle to the present, brings together and discusses significant viewpoints on metaphor held by writers in various disciplines. These include linguistics and semantics, the philosophy of language, literary criticism, and aesthetics.

Objects of Interpretation

The paper examines the relation between interpretation and the objects of interpretation, principally, but not exclusively, in the realm of art. Several theses are defended: that interpretation cannot proceed without prior determination of the kind of thing being interpreted; that the mode of interpretation is determined by the nature of its object; that interpretation, of a meaning-determining rather than generic kind, focuses at the level of works, not descending to a bedrock of “mere objects”; that because works and their appropriate mode of interpretation are constituted by convention-bound practices, it follows that no clear line can be drawn between properties “in” a work and those “imputed to” it through interpretive procedures endorsed by the practice. The debate over constructivism or “imputationalism”– between Margolis and Krausz, on the one hand, and Stecker and Levinson, on the other – is engaged with an attempt to show a core of truth in each of the conflicting theories, once the right distinction between object, work, and interpretation is in place.

Tragedy and moral value

(1995). Tragedy and moral value. Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 239-249.

Reasoning to what is true in fiction

The paper discusses the principle by which we reason to what is ‘true in fiction’. The focus is David Lewiss article ‘Truth in Fiction’ (1978) which proposes an analysis in terms of counterfactuals and possible worlds. It is argued thatLewiss account is inadequate in detail and also in principle in that it conflicts radically with basic and familiar tenets of literary criticism. Literary critical reasoning about fiction concerns not the discovery of facts in possible worlds but the recovery of meanings in interpretative frameworks. The model theoretic approach fails to account for common literary or rhetorical devices like unreliable narration, connotation and point of view. And in explaining indeterminacy of content in terms of truth-value gaps it gives too simplistic an account of critical reasoning about character motivation and thematic development. A more adequate account of content-indeterminacy can be provided through a comparison of the interpretation of fiction with the interpretation of human action. A broader motif in the paper is the underlying tension between what is required for the logic of fiction and what is required for the aesthetics of fiction.

Philosophy and the Lyric

Abstract The paper surveys and comments on some of the issues that arise about the lyric in philosophical, principally analytical, aesthetics. In brief these are: definition, expression, paraphrase, form-content unity, experience, and truth and profundity. The paper shows in each case why these issues are important from the perspective of analytical philosophy but also why lyric poetry is not always an easy subject matter to accommodate to standard analytical presuppositions. It might be thought that theories of meaning within philosophy of language (be it semantics, speech act theory or truth-conditions) should be applicable to a full range of linguistic usage. But lyric poetry confounds that expectation and yields a context where familiar models of meaning and communication can seem inadequate. Yet analytical philosophers should not simply dismiss poetry as somehow exceptional or aberrant but would gain from looking afresh at basic assumptions to see how their views about language might be broadened and modified.

The Nature of Fiction.

Preface Acknowledgements 1. The concept of fiction 2. The structure of stories 3. Interpretation 4. The characters of fiction 5. The response to fiction In conclusion.

Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism.

In this controversial volume (originally published in 1975) Peter Unger suggests that, not only can nothing ever be known, but no one can ever have a reason at all for anything. A consequence of this is that we cannot have any realistic emotional ties: it can never be conclusively said that someone is happy or sad about anything. Finally he argues that no one can ever say, let alone believe, that anything is the case. In order to get beyond this apparent bind - and this condition of ignorance - Unger proposes a radical departure from the linguistic and epistemological systems we have become accustomed to. Epistemologists, as well as philosophers of mind and language will undoubtedly find in this study of the limitations of language an invaluable philosophical perspective.