Abstract

"Allameh Tabatabai considered ‘practical credita’ (iʿtibārāt-i ʿamalī) to be the product of the activity of the estimative faculty (al-quwwah al-wahmiyyah) and defined it as: ‘The attribution of the limit or judgment of one thing to another by the estimative faculty.’ He classified these credita under the categories of metaphor (majāz), specifically as a type of ‘social metaphor.’ However, his phrasing remains ambiguous regarding which specific type of metaphor he intended, a fact that has led to various interpretations. Mutahhari interpreted his statement according to Sakkaki’s theory of metaphor, while others regard it as consistent with a less common reading of the standard view on metaphor. In the present work, by reviewing various perspectives on the nature of metaphor, it is concluded that, firstly, the popular understanding of Sakkaki’s view is inaccurate, and secondly, Allameh’s view does not correspond with that of Sakkaki or other rhetoricians. The author argues that: first, practical credita are social metaphors governed by the estimative faculty, which generates such constructs for the purpose of sustaining the worldly life of humans and animals; and second, while the core of these concepts originates as a ‘metaphor in attribution’ (majāz fī al-isnād), the estimative faculty subsequently modifies them to produce figurative representations that do not apply to the real instances of the original meaning."