----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
This answer is mainly not about the content of the argument - anyway the metaphor is about
unintended system consequences of elementary actions - but about the linguistic
terminology.
 
I agree that there are two parts in the expression "invisible hand". One is metaphoric,
the personification of the system of individual actions, but the other one is metonymical,
the substitution of the person's intention by the hand. The synecdoche is clearly the
substitution either of part by whole or whole by part, and the synecdoche is a metonymy.
But the substitution of intention by hand is not a synecdoche because the hand is not a
part of the intention or of the person's mind. Hand and mind are two distinct parts of the
person and intention is a product of the mind (in its environment). Hand when related to
intention is a tool used by intention.
 
Metonymy has the same goal or result (identification of two objects) as metaphor, but by
quite different means. A metaphor identifies two separate objects by a mental comparison.
A metonymy identifies two objects already linked by an extralinguistic relation of
contiguity. The latter has a more objective content than the former. And there is no doubt
that the 'hand for intention' substitution is a metonymy since hand and intention are in a
relation of contiguity through the person.
 
With respect to the 'invisible hand' meaning, I guess that it cannot be understood outside
its cultural context. I have not any reference in mind, but I think that at Smith's time
any learned person would have understood the 'invisible hand' as a traditional reference
to God - whatever 'God' was actually meaning to her or him in that enlightenment climate.
 
Jean Deflaceliere 
 
------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]