Metaphorical communities: metaphor as epistemological tool in the aesthetic philosophy of Mariano Iberico

This article describes and analyzes the characteristics of metaphor as a rhetorical and epistemological tool from the perspective of Mariano Iberico (1892-1974) in his treatise, Estudio sobre la metafora (1965). According to the Peruvian philosopher, metaphor serves as a mediating instance between external events and internal experiences. The mediating nature of metaphor is thus an epistemological possibility with ethical consequences since metaphorical knowledge is produced through mediations and approximations that "postulate the existence of a spiritual and psychic community" among the multiple dimensions of reality. Paul Ricoeur's notion of the human being as a mediating entity and Gaston Bachelard's ideas on poetic imagination will be valuable for the analysis.