Abstract
This thesis seeks to answer two sets of questions. One set refers to metaphor generally, and another set refers more specifically to metaphors attached to the concept of the state within the European and North American tradition of political philosophy. Questions of a general nature include: Is metaphor purely decorative? Do particular metaphors encourage certain ways of thinking and discourage others? Are abstract concepts constituted by their metaphorical associations with other domains? Are transformations in social knowledge over time defined, or limited by, the kinds of modifications in metaphor that are plausible for, and conceptually available to, individuals within particular linguistic and cultural communities? Engaging with texts from within philosophy of language, I will argue that metaphor is not wholly decorative, that it can encourage certain modes of thinking and discourage others, and that significantly abstract concepts are partly constituted by influential and widely held metaphorical associations.Building on these conclusions, I will address questions more precisely focused on the concept of the state. Such questions include: Did personification encourage certain ways of thinking about the state and discourage others? Was the concept of the state partly or fully constituted by those metaphorical associations with i) the human body, ii) the “pre-social”, atomised person, and iii) the socialised person? Can we attribute changes in understandings of legitimate political structure to the kinds of metaphor that were conceptually available to individual writers within the linguistic community of European and North American political writers? In response to these questions, and based on analysis of key texts from the history of political thought, I will argue that personification has proven itself capable of endorsing a wide programme of political perspectives; metaphorical utterances about the state depended on, and developed, prior utterances within their philosophical tradition, such as those targeting the literal connection between the individual ruler and their personalised power over persons and territory, as well as those ancient metaphors likening a social or political entity to the (human) organism; our modern understanding of the state has retained and deepened such utterances, such that states have come to be understood as entities in possession of substantive unity and indivisibility, significant moral status, a (general) will, a (national) interest and identity, and (international) rights and duties; international theory is predicated on a particular personified account of the state; and in many cases, the conceptual and linguistic entrenchment of the personified state is such that to hypothetically excise that metaphorical connection would be to fundamentally change how the state has been commonly understood. In short, personification played a key role in the development of the concept of the state.
| Date of Award | 1 Sept 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Mervyn Frost (Supervisor) |