Violazione del canone, canone della violazione : interpretazione e razionalità in Paul Ricoeur

Paul Ricoeur’s analysis of metaphor focuses on its capacity to renew the semantic resources of a given linguistic code. Yet, how is it possible to reconcile this dynamism with a “referentialist” conception of language? This essay introduces an interpretation of the process of metaphorization that insists on the notion of “category mistake”, understood as a regulated violation of the rules of reference. Each metaphor, when it is a “good metaphor”, exposes itself to a criterion of contextual evaluation, which brings back linguistic evaluation to a canon able to estimate its success: instead of an absolute violation of a pre–existing canon (the so called “descriptive” language) a rigidly codified violation. The space within which language renews itself is completely determined by this play of rules and violations, which measures the effectiveness of the process.