Ricoeur’s analysis of imagination’s role of the metaphorical play of language leads him to the ontological paradox of creation-as-discovery. ‘Through the recovery of the capacity of language to create and recreate, we discover reality itself in the process of being created…Language in the making celebrates reality in the making.’ Ricoeur can thus conclude that ‘the strategy of discourse implied in the metaphorical language is…to shatter and to increase our sense of reality by shattering and increasing our language…with metaphor we experience the metamorphosis of both language and reality’.

From On Paul Ricoeur: The Owl of Minerva by Richard Kerney

Mixed media piece by Juliet Vles

Tags:Continental PhilosophyJuliet VleslanguagemetaphorePaul Ricoeurpost-modernismrealityRichard Kerny