The Role of Image and Imagination in Paul Ricoeur’s Metaphor Theory

Paul Ricoeur uncovered the creative aspect of language in his theory of metaphor. The metaphor is a special combination of words that as a clash of distant semantic fields forces the reader to interpret the sentence in a new way and see things in a new light. It is a process in which the imagination plays an important role. Ricoeur compares the metaphor to the Kantian schema which is a procedure to provide an image to a concept. The image helps in the process of assimilating distant elements and thus to achieve a new interpretation. To change perspective the suspension of reference (imaginary neutralization) is also needed. The aim of this essay is to analyze the imaginative functions which are operative in the metaphor and look for an answer to the question about the role of the imagination as a productive power as well as a power of internal intuitions.