Abstract
The aim of the article The Metaphorical Nature of Language in Herder is to present how Herder's thesis on the metaphorical character of language is reflected in his conception of the relationship between language and the world. A comparison with Friedrich Nietzsche's conception of this relationship in On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense will help to clarify Herder's position.
While both thinkers share a thesis about the metaphoricality of language, the implications they draw from it are different: For, unlike Nietzsche, Herder does not come to be sceptical about the ability of language to reveal the world, and he understands language not only as a tool of survival but also as a tool of knowledge - not in spite of its metaphorical nature, but precisely because of it.