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In his recent writings, Richard Rorty has sketched a theory of cultural change. He finds that metaphor is at the leading edge of culture, and that the gains of metaphor are consolidated in literalization. Yet his understanding of meaning and metaphor requires him to draw a sharp "line" between metaphorical and literal uses - a line that has some unfortunate implications for the study of religion. As it turns out, however, Rorty's line is difficult to discern in actual cases of literalization. By examining his account of one of his own acts of literalization, I argue that the problem lies not merely in the application of Rorty's theory but in the theory itself.

The thing that seems most of all to characterize [religious thought] is a natural taste for immoderate confusions as well as jarring contrasts. It freely tends to excesses m both directions. When it relates things together it confounds them; when it distinguishes between things, it opposes them. It knows nothing of restraint or gradations, it seeks extremes; as a result, it uses logical mechanisms in a clumsy way, but it does not overlook any of them. Durkheim