{"id":2452,"date":"2009-09-13T11:55:34","date_gmt":"2009-09-13T15:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=2452"},"modified":"2009-09-13T11:55:34","modified_gmt":"2009-09-13T15:55:34","slug":"frye-and-logic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/09\/13\/frye-and-logic\/","title":{"rendered":"Frye and Logic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"blake-angel-of-the-revelation\"

Blake's Angel of Revelation<\/p><\/div>\n

Over the last couple of days the Comments section for a number of posts have lit up, especially for Adamson and Chrusch: “Both\/And”.<\/a>\u00a0 Michael Sinding’s comment below brings some interesting elements into play.<\/p>\n

The question of logic in language, in literature, and in Frye\u2019s ideas has at times bothered me also. First, we should remember that even though standards of logic and reference don\u2019t apply directly to literature, they certainly do apply to Frye\u2019s criticism, and I think that\u2019s one thing Clayton is getting at. But how do you apply such standards to the use of metaphor and analogy in argument?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think we should rush to toss logic overboard just by appealing to centripetal attention and human concern, as opposed to centrifugal attention and reference. With metaphor and literature, do we leave behind the world of either\/ or for the world of both\/ and, where anything goes? But then what principles of structure and order are left? How can we explain why some metaphors are sensible and powerful, and others aren\u2019t? Do they have their own kind of logic?<\/p>\n

Let me suggest another way of approaching these things\u2014one that I\u2019ve been working with, and find persuasive. It\u2019s closer to these topics than is formal logic.<\/p>\n

Frye argues that language, concepts, logic, even mathematics, have metaphorical and mythical (narrative) structure. In fact, there\u2019s been a big movement in linguistics in the past few decades, to treat metaphor in this way, as pervasive in language and conceptual structure. In \u201ccognitive linguistics<\/a>,\u201d a key idea is that a metaphor is a mapping of structure from one concept to another. Metaphors carry language, imagery, and inferential structure from concept A (usually well-understood, often concrete) to concept B (usually less well-understood: abstract or subjective). That transfer of inference, or logical entailments, is essential: it means metaphor is genuinely cognitive\u2014not simply ornamental or aesthetic. So people can and do study the metaphorical structure of linguistic concepts, logical concepts, and mathematical concepts.<\/p>\n

For example, we can talk about our lives using expressions like \u201cI\u2019ve come a long way,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m at a dead end,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m moving on,\u201d \u201cI burned my bridges,\u201d etc. This indicates an underlying mapping of Life as a Journey. Thinking with this metaphor highlights some aspects of life, and hides others. For an example from logic, categories are seen metaphorically as containers. Thing X can be \u201cin\u201d category A, or \u201cout\u201d of it. If B is a subcategory of A, then it is a smaller container inside container A. If thing X is in B, then it is necessarily also in A. So the logic of categories borrows the logic of containers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s lot of information about CL out there, and it\u2019s been used in literary studies a fair bit. A few references:<\/p>\n

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson<\/a>. Metaphors We Live By<\/a>. 1980 (2nd ed., 2003). The book that started it all.
\n\u2014. Philosophy in the Flesh.<\/a> 1999. Applies their theory of metaphor to basic philosophical concepts, like time, mind, causation, being, etc., then to some major philosophical systems.
\nGeorge Lakoff and Mark Turner. More Than Cool Reason<\/a>. 1989. Develops the theory for poetic metaphor.<\/p>\n

These are all crystal clear, highly readable, and intellectually sophisticated. I find them reminiscent of some of Frye\u2019s ideas, though I don\u2019t find any evidence of him being an influence on them (to go back to that influence stuff). They go into more detail than Frye does about the structure of concepts, and how they get mapped in metaphor, and how metaphors can combine, etc.<\/p>\n

This idea, I think, also helps us be cautious about how far our language and concepts actually fit the world. Metaphors and analogies are very useful, but we should always ask just how they fit what they refer to, and how they may clash with it. Things in the world certainly don\u2019t fit the above category logic in any simple way. So seeming contradictions may be only contradictions in terms (semantic, as Joe says), linguistic oppositions mistaken for logical ones. Frye is good at noticing and resolving these. For what it\u2019s worth, I think interpenetration is in large part a way of perceiving or experiencing things. To what extent it\u2019s reflected in the physical world I don\u2019t know. But if Blake\u2019s line \u2018to see a world in a grain of sand\u2019 expresses the idea, then the stress is on the seeing: interpenetration arises from attention. By the way, Bob Denham has a great essay in Rereading Frye<\/em> <\/a>about Frye\u2019s ideas of interpenetration and where they came from.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps it\u00a0should be emphasized\u00a0that Frye does not in any way forsake logic.\u00a0 However, he does subordinate it.\u00a0 The big reveal in “The Tentative Conclusion” of\u00a0Anatomy<\/em> is that the “literary universe” he explores across four essays turns out to be the entire “verbal universe.”\u00a0 It’s not either\/or when it comes to\u00a0 centripetal and centrifugal meaning, of course; it’s both\/and.\u00a0 However, centripetal meaning is prior, and the increasingly centifugal dialectic of language in “Theory of Symbols”\u00a0returns metaliterarily to its centripetal singularity as anagogic metaphor.\u00a0 That is not to say that all of the other applications\u00a0of language have been abandoned or supplanted.\u00a0 They have been fulfilled.\u00a0\u00a0What ought to be the\u00a0epiphanic recognition of primary concern (which Frye calls “intensified consciousness” in Words with Power) <\/em>has passed through logic and is informed by\u00a0it, although it can’t be limited or wholly defined by it.\u00a0 It’s this kind of thing that makes Frye a visionary: his ability to articulate the way in which literature is extra-rational;\u00a0not to mention that “literary” language is the foundation of all<\/em> language — something even literary scholars are often not very clear on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last couple of days the Comments section for a number of posts have lit up, especially for Adamson and Chrusch: “Both\/And”.\u00a0 Michael Sinding’s comment below brings some interesting elements into play. The question of logic in language, in literature, and in Frye\u2019s ideas has at times bothered me also. First, we should remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,92,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anatomy-of-criticism","category-literary-criticism","category-primary-concern"],"yoast_head":"\nFrye and Logic - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/09\/13\/frye-and-logic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frye and Logic - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the last couple of days the Comments section for a number of posts have lit up, especially for Adamson and Chrusch: “Both\/And”.\u00a0 Michael Sinding’s comment below brings some interesting elements into play. 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