一般而言，「隱喻」在古典哲學的位置中，十分邊緣，或者是修飾文詞，或者是輔助說明，無論哪一種，都使得隱喻問題鮮少被談論。法國哲學家呂格爾卻以為，一旦隱喻不帶任何訊息，那麼隱喻就淪為裝飾性質。為此他主張將人類生活的各種活動、存有方式以及與其他存有的關係都看做是隱喻的來源，這使得隱喻具有經驗性質。其次，對於隱喻的表現方式，呂格爾將問題縮限於語言表達上，但這不意味著他對古典修辭格的認可，他以為正因為隱喻具有經驗性質，因此隱喻是生產性的新綜合結果，而不只是辭格的分類結果而已。為此，我們將先釐清詩學與修辭學之間的關係，以確認隱喻的範圍；其次，我們將通過對亞氏隱喻思想的討論，以便確認呂格爾對今日隱喻在修辭格的貧乏地位的分析，以便理解何以呂格爾轉向語意學，以話語取代符號，轉向詮釋學的活動。最後，我們討論本維尼斯特的語意學理論，並分析呂格爾而如何借助其觀點，發展有別於分析哲學觀點的隱喻理論。

Metaphor seems to play a marginal role in the classical philosophy. It may function to modify or add additional meanings to a text, yet it is hardly to be the research subject. French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, however, thought that metaphor would be nothing but decoration if it did not bring any information. For this reason, Ricoeur proposed that human activities, his existence and the relationships with other beings could be considered as sources of metaphor, which also implies a nature of experience in metaphor. Moreover, Ricoeur regarded the expression of metaphor as a linguistic question, but it does not mean that he agreed on classical rhetoric. As metaphor possesses the nature of experience, it should be the result of synthetic creation, instead of classifying metaphor.