Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

What role do metaphors play in philosophical language? Are they impediments to clear thinking and clear expression, rhetorical flourishes that may well help to make philosophy more accessible to a lay audience, but that ought ideally to be eradicated in the interests of terminological exactness? Or can the images used by philosophers tell us more about the hopes and cares, attitudes and indifferences that regulate an epoch than their carefully elaborated systems of thought? In Paradigms for a Metaphorology, originally published in 1960 and here made available for the first time in English translation, Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) approaches these questions by examining the relationship between metaphors and concepts. Blumenberg argues for the existence of "absolute metaphors" that cannot be translated back into conceptual language. "Absolute metaphors" answer the supposedly naïve, theoretically unanswerable questions whose relevance lies quite simply in the fact that they cannot be brushed aside, since we do not pose them ourselves but find them already posed in the ground of our existence. They leap into a void that concepts are unable to fill. An afterword by the translator, Robert Savage, positions the book in the intellectual context of its time and explains its continuing importance for work in the history of ideas.

"Gillray's cast of characters include Napoleon, the younger Pitt, Edmund Burke, Admiral Nelson, Lady Hamilton, the Duke of Belford, King George III and Queen Charlotte, Josephy Priestly, Charles James Fox and other dignitaries ..."--Back cover."

Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sept. 13, 2011-Mar. 4, 2012.

James Gillray was a British caricaturist and printmaker active from 1779 to 1811. He became famous in his own lifetime for his unmerciful satires on politicians, high society and the Royal family during the scandal-rich Regency period, earning him the contemporary description of 'a caterpillar on the green leaf of reputation'. Today, he is arguably the most influential caricaturist the world has known. But while he is credited with being the father of the political cartoon, he also dabbled in the world outside the high and mighty, satirizing everyday social situations from ideas often provided by friends. As I delved into his work, I became familiar with those prints also, some of which had no known background descriptions in either contemporary books or the British Museum's archives. I thought it would be fun to remedy that situation which was the inspiration for the stories in this book.

A lively, richly illustrated study of iconic caricatures, showing the interrelationship between art, satire and politics in the Romantic period.