Conceptual Metaphors of Soul in Philosophical Discourse

Abstract

Philosophy has historically engaged with fundamental metaphysical questions concerning human life and death, the nature of mind, truth, knowledge, “the existence of God, the immortality of the soul and the freedom of the will” (Broad, 1923, p. 1). Its primary aim has been to clarify human understanding of the external world and the internal structures of thought and reasoning. Among the earliest systematic explorations, Plato and Aristotle developed influential theories of the soul, employing numerous analogies to render this abstract concept more comprehensible. In doing so, they unknowingly employed metaphors. The emergence of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) in the 1980s, which posits that metaphors arise from and structure our conceptual system, significantly expanded the scope of metaphor studies. Johnson (2008), after examining the concept of causality, argued that all abstract concepts are necessarily conceptualised metaphorically. From this perspective, philosophy - a discipline concerned with abstract and theoretical constructs - can be regarded as fundamentally engaged in studying metaphor. Nevertheless, relatively little scholarship has examined philosophical discourse through the lens of CMT. This study therefore sets out to: (a) analyse philosophical discourse, focusing on classical philosophy, to identify conceptual metaphors on the soul; (b) classify these metaphors into three principal subtypes -structural, ontological, and orientational; and (c) evaluate their functions and significance. The analysis draws on Steen’s (2010b) Metaphor Identification Procedure in Discourse (MIPVU), supplemented by procedures for transforming linguistic metaphors into conceptual ones (Steen, 1999). The empirical material consists primarily of the works of ancient philosophers, particularly Plato and Aristotle, thereby demonstrating that metaphor has always served as a crucial means of rendering abstract ideas accessible, long before the formalisation of CMT. The findings reveal 55 examples of linguistic metaphor, which were subsequently grouped into distinct conceptual metaphors. The data underscore the central role of metaphorisation in philosophical discourse: the theories of the soul advanced by ancient philosophers were deeply reliant on metaphorical analogies. This emphasises the importance of continued research into the metaphorical dimensions of philosophical texts to enhance our understanding of philosophical reasoning and trace the evolution of metaphoric paradigms across intellectual history.