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8. Terminologization of a Metaphor: From ‘Verisimilitude’ to ‘Probability’
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VIII Terminologization of a Metaphor: From ‘Verisimilitude’ to ‘Probability’ In keeping with what was announced in the title to these studies, we have not set out to provide an exhaustive account of the relationship between myth, metaphor, and logos; we purport only to exemplify a particular manner of questioning, a par‑ ticular analytic approach. This admission of the modesty of our enterprise is even more pertinent, perhaps, to the complex field of transitions from metaphors to concepts , which we will now attempt to contour with reference to the paradigm of ‘veri‑ similitude’, ‘truthlikeness’, or ‘probability’ [Wahrscheinlichkeit].1 In this case, the metaphor has been absorbed by the word; although it has been flattened out by the terminological expression [i.e., Wahrscheinlichkeit in the conventional sense of ‘prob‑ ability’], it can always be foregrounded again through a shift in focus: Wahrscheinlichkeit denotes the semblance [Schein] of truth [Wahrheit], whereby semblance has the double meaning of reflection, irradiation, aura, translucence, of representative and apophantic shining, on the one hand, and empty glitz, chimerical deception, 1. [Wahrscheinlichkeit literally means “verisimilitude” or “truthlikeness” but today has the primary meaning of “probability”; the difference is that between the likeness and likelihood of truth. My transla‑ tion of the term varies depending on context. I have modified the title of this section accordingly. In Ger‑ man, it reads: “Terminologisierung einer Metapher: Wahrscheinlichkeit.”] 82 Paradigms for a Metaphorology illegitimate simulation, of fakery and forgery, on the other. The metaphor here takes the word at its word, not as the name for a defined rule governing a body of facts. To illustrate with an example how, and at what point in its history, the word’s metaphorical aspect is no longer perceived, I quote a passage from the “Sys‑ tem of Stoic Philosophy” by Dieterich Tiedemann (Leipzig, 1776), I 22, where Ci‑ cero’s purposive determination of logic in “De finibus” (III 21, 72) is described as follows: “It is meant to make us withhold our approbation from a false proposition, and to prevent us ever being taken in by a fraudulent semblance of probability [betr üglichen Schein der Wahrscheinlichkeit] . . .”2 The metaphor doubtless has its roots in the ambivalence of ancient rhetoric: the orator can cause truth to ‘appear’ in its rightful splendor, but he can also make falsehood ‘look’ true; how his ability is better invested will depend on a basic predisposition that we have already discussed in relation to the metaphor of the ‘mightiness of truth’, and that we must constantly bear in mind here. Precisely this question of man’s ‘natural’ relationship to truth was positively settled by Aristo‑ tle in a passage toward the beginning of his “Rhetoric” (1355a14), where, draw‑ ing on Plato’s definition of likelihood (εἰκός) in the “Phaedrus” (273D) as δι’ ὁμοιότητα τοῦ ἀληθοῦ ἐγγιγνόμενον,3 he coined the expression ‘truthlikeness’ (τὸ ὅμοιον τῷ ἀληθεῖ), later translated and popularized by Cicero as verisimile. A Platonic element, reinforced by Academic Skepticism, is in play here. We should not be too hasty to dismiss Cicero’s self‑understanding as a Platonist, even if he belongs ‘only’ to the supposedly degraded form of Academic Skepticism. The lat‑ ter is more consistently ‘Platonic’ than it may appear at first glance; more than a revolt in the doctrinal history of Platonism, it is equally a response to the height‑ ening of the transcendence character of truth we find in the late Plato. The anec‑ dote related by Sextus Empiricus about the school head Arcesilaus, according to which he continued to teach Platonic orthodoxy to a select group of students even as he exoterically professed to Skepticism,4 has never been taken all that seriously; it nonetheless provides an illuminating pointer to this context. The situation of the hopeless unattainability of truth had been vividly brought home to his read‑ ers by the late Plato. At the beginning of the second part of the “Timaeus” (48D), the εἰκός, that which looks to be true, is introduced as a way out of disorienting and disconcerting confusion; God is called upon “to see us through a strange and unusual argument to a likely conclusion.”5 Likelihood is the graciously conferred ‘representative’ of truth; it will guide the errant seeker to salvation, provided that 2. sie soll uns hindern, einem falschen Satz Beyfall zu geben, und uns nie von einem betrüglichen Scheine der Wahrscheinlichkeit hintergehen (zu) lassen . . . 3. [Tisias, some time ago, before you came along, we were saying that this probability of yours was accepted by the people because of its likeness to truth; Plato, Phaedrus, trans...