Anthropocentric Nature of Figurative Simile and Its Correlation with Metaphor

Abstract

The article presents an anthropocentric vision of the nature of figurative simile against the background of its correlation with metaphor, since simile, which underlies human cognitive mechanisms and is at the same time the basic structure, mechanism, and operation of virtually all components of the human thought process, still remains an incompletely studied phenomenon. The authors consider simile to be the quintessence of human cognitive activity, since, by creating a person’s imaginary world, it implements the ability to compare fragments of the world picture, which is inherent in the foundations of thinking, and which is a fundamental factor in categorisation and conceptualisation as the main processes of cognition. It has been found that the anthropocentric approach to the analysis of simile is justified in view of the anthropological understanding of this phenomenon as a universe of human thinking and cognition. It is fundamentally important in an anthropocentric view of the essence of simile to recognise that it lies not in the nature of the world, but in the nature of man – in human consciousness, i.e. simile is not just a way of thinking about the world, but also about what is beyond human perception – in metaphysics. It is revealed that human existence is closely connected with simile as a mental operation and an epistemological and semantic category, which is one of the powerful factors that create the inner world of a person – a picture of the world – in the mind. The interpretation of language as a complex “living” system, a creative “spirit of the folk” suggests the existence of the cognitive principle of “comparo ergo sum”. The latter is the source of the anthropocentric charge of simile, because, when cognising the world, a person compares everything to himself and likens everything to himself, which is the reason to consider this principle a separate manifestation of anthropocentrism. This also serves as a basis for defining simile as the main operation of axiological cognition, which is the basis for the formation of value concepts and value judgements.