In The Rule of Metaphor, Paul Ricoeur developed his influential concept of the living metaphor. For Ricoeur, metaphor is not just a rhetorical flourish or a substitution of one word for another. Instead, it is a site of creativity in language, a moment when new meaning emerges. The living metaphor is “alive” because it reshapes how we think, challenges conventional categories, and discloses fresh perspectives on reality.
The Failure of Literal Language
A metaphor begins when literal language reaches its limits. In ordinary usage, a phrase like time is money does not make literal sense—time cannot be counted like coins. But in this semantic tension, metaphor creates new meaning. It bridges domains of experience, enabling thought to move in unexpected directions. For Ricoeur, this innovation is the heart of the living metaphor.
Semantic Innovation and Surplus of Meaning
The living metaphor is an act of semantic innovation: it brings together terms in a way that disrupts established meaning and generates a surplus of significance. Unlike dead metaphors that fade into cliché (for example, “the leg of a chair”), living metaphors preserve their power to provoke thought. They carry within them a surplus of meaning, always open to reinterpretation and capable of shaping how we perceive the world.
From Rhetoric to Hermeneutics
Traditional rhetoric treated metaphor as a matter of style or substitution—saying the sea is angry instead of the sea is stormy. Ricoeur reinterprets metaphor hermeneutically: it is not just about words but about how language discloses new realities. The living metaphor is a dynamic act of redescription. It invites us to reimagine the world differently, and in doing so, it expands our horizon of understanding.
Metaphor, Imagination, and Thought
Ricoeur famously argued that “the symbol gives rise to thought,” and the same is true of metaphor. Living metaphors engage the imagination, enabling us to see one thing as another. They do not simply decorate thought; they generate thought. A poem, for example, uses living metaphors to open up new ways of experiencing time, love, or mortality. Philosophy and science, too, rely on metaphors to shape their concepts—think of “the fabric of space-time” or “the social body.”
The Life Cycle of Metaphors
Ricoeur distinguishes between living and dead metaphors. A metaphor is alive when it still shocks, surprises, and generates new meaning. Over time, however, many metaphors become absorbed into ordinary language. Terms like “the foot of a mountain” or “the flow of conversation” were once metaphoric but have become fixed expressions. Ricoeur acknowledges this process but emphasizes the ongoing vitality of metaphors that resist closure.
Ethical and Existential Dimensions
The living metaphor also has ethical significance. By opening new ways of seeing, metaphors reshape human identity and community. They enrich narrative identity, offering fresh symbols through which we tell our personal and collective stories. In theology and biblical hermeneutics, living metaphors—such as “the Kingdom of God” or “light in darkness”—invite believers into transformative ways of inhabiting faith.
Metaphor as Creation of Meaning
For Ricoeur, the living metaphor is more than ornamentation; it is a fundamental operation of language and thought. It creates new meaning, reshapes imagination, and discloses hidden dimensions of reality. By keeping language alive, metaphors keep thought alive.
In this sense, the living metaphor is at the core of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics: a reminder that meaning is never fixed, always open, and endlessly creative.
