Metaphor and non-propositional effects: insights into ‘what it is like’

After some brief discussion of wholly propositional (amodal) accounts of the interpretive effects of metaphorically used language, the paper maintains that it is essential to acknowledge non-propositional effects as well, including mental imagery and affective/emotional effects. It is argued that these are the most significant effects for poetic metaphors, especially those where the poet’s aim is to express and communicate the nature of a subjective phenomenal state, more particularly, ‘what it is like’ to be in that mental state (its qualitative feel). The epistemic value of such metaphorical uses of language, it is suggested, is that they can provide insight not only into a private individual experience but also into one that is shared more widely by people, and which cannot be articulated in literal language.