Abstract
Judging from this quote, Charles Darwin certainly was not afraid of metaphors and seemed to be convinced that no one should be. Against the background of such an innocent approach the recent flood of publications on the notion of metaphor appears to be rather mysterious. Indeed, a look at the bibliographies of metaphors compiled by Noppen and others in 1985 and 1990 provides a first insight into what Noppen calls the “metaphormania” of the intellectuals since the 1970s.2 Although both bibliographies are not considered exhaustive, they already contain more than 6,000 entries; the recommendations for beginners alone amount to more than 200 entries. Not only is the sheer amount of publications impressive but so is the variety of disciplines and research areas covered by them: pertinent studies are to be found in linguistics, semiotics, rhetoric, literature, as well as in philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, political sciences, medicine, or artificial intelligence.
“Every one knows what is meant and implied by... metaphorical expressions, and they are almost necessary for brevity.”1
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Notes
Charles Darwin, The Origins of Species (New York: Collier ed., 1962), p. 216.
Jean-Pierre van Noppen, et al., Metaphor. Bibliography of Post-1970 Publications (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1985)
Noppen, and Edith Hols, Metaphor II. A Classified Bibliography of Publications, 1985 to 1990 (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1990).
Mae-Wan Ho, and Sydney W. Fox, Evolutionary Process and Metaphor (Chichester: New York, 1988), p. 1.
Generally, the relationship between literature and science manifests itself mainly in two ways: 1) as an exchange of concepts across the boundaries of the different types of discourse; and 2) through its literary usage the metaphor provides, implicitly or explicitly, a model also for scientific use. As far as the extent and recognition of the transfer of individual concepts between science and literature is concerned, both are subject to continuous change. Until the mid-19th century, no rigid boundary existed between men of letters and scientists. Beer, for instance, discusses Darwins’s influences on the literature of Kingsley, G. Eliot, and Hardy (Gillian Beer, Darwin’s Plots. Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (London: Routledge & Paul, 1983) p. 5. In turn, Darwin based his insights, inter alia, on Malthus’s On Population as well as on Beagle: The Poetical Works of John Milton
Beer, Darwin’s Plots. Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (London: Routledge & Paul, 1983, p. 9). A countercurrent is associated with the name of T. H. Huxley: even if science was a powerful and convincing aspect of everyday life to which writers and poets should devote their attention, they would find nothing but “raw material.” “For Huxley language is a great chasm that separates science from literature; on one side parsimony and discipline, on the other effulgence and abandon”
(Stephen J. Weininger, Introduction: The Evolution of Literature and Science as a Discipline, in F. Amrine (ed.), Literature and Science as Modes of Expression, Dordrecht (Boston, London: Kluwer, 1989), XV). In Weininger’s view, Huxley at least insists on a discourse-typical processing of scientific materials. The divisional perspective shared by a number of authors has again been countered since the 1960s by the research undertaken in literary criticism, philosophy, and history of science: it addresses the influence of scientific constructs on literature, but also the linguistic foundations of science
(e.g., Beer, Darwin’s Plots. Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (London: Routledge & Paul, 1983
Weininger, Introduction: The Evolution of Literature and Science as a Discipline, in F. Amrine (ed.), Literature and Science as Modes of Expression, Dordrecht (Boston, London: Kluwer, 1989)
Stephen Mulkay, “Action and Belief or Scientific Discourse? A Possible Way of Ending Intellectual Vassalage in Societal Studies of Science,” Philosophical Studies of Science 11 (1981), 163-171
S. Shapin, “Talking History: Reflections on Discourse Analysis,” Isis 75 (1984), 125-130
Stephen Wooglar, “On the Alleged Distinction Between Discourse and Praxis,” Social Studies of Science 16 (1986), pp. 309-317. Apparently, the metaphor is of special relevance for both directions of research.
George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
Max Black, Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962).
Mary Hesse, “The Explanatory Function of Metaphor” in Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1972).
Black, Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 1962, p. 33.
Hesse, “The Explanatory Function of Metaphor” in Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1972), 1972, p. 249.
Black, Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 1962, p. 41.
Hesse, “The Explanatory Function of Metaphor” in Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1972), 1972, p. 253.
Cf. Black, Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 1962, p. 45.
Black, Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 1962, p. 46.
Andrew Ortony, “Metaphor: A Multidimensional Problem” in Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
Andrew Ortony, “Metaphor: A Multidimensional Problem” in Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 5.
Black, Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 1962, p. 23, emphasis added. Such ambiguities in the classification of metaphors into semantic and pragmatic accounts have a systematic reason, i.e., this distinction always describes an analytic division of the phenomenon. As a rule, the authors usually prefer one of the two aspects without entirely denying the other. In the next two sections I will propose a solution for this perspectival dilemma.
Donald Davidson, “What Metaphors Mean,” in Mark Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), p. 201.
Donald Davidson, “What Metaphors Mean,” in Mark Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), p. 202.
Samuel R. Levin, Metaphoric Worlds (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 17.
Samuel R. Levin, Metaphoric Worlds (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 2.
Samuel R. Levin, Metaphoric Worlds (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 25.
Samuel R. Levin, Metaphoric Worlds (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), p. xii.
Samuel R. Levin, Metaphoric Worlds (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), p 103.
Davidson, “What Metaphors Mean,” in Mark Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 1985, p. 218.
P. McHugh, “On the Failure of Positivism,” in J. D. Douglas (ed.), Understanding Everyday Life (London: Routledge & Paul, 1971), pp. 337–354, here: p. 329.
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 17.
Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 1989, p. 9.
Karin Knorr, “The Scientist As An Analogical Reasoner: A Critique Of The Metaphor-Theory Of Innovation,” Communication & Cognition 13, 2/3 (1980), 183–208.
Karin Knorr, “The Scientist As An Analogical Reasoner: A Critique Of The Metaphor-Theory Of Innovation,” Communication & Cognition 13, 2/3 (1980), p. 111.
Karin Knorr, “The Scientist As An Analogical Reasoner: A Critique Of The Metaphor-Theory Of Innovation,” Communication & Cognition 13, 2/3 (1980), p. 187.
Karin Knorr, “The Scientist As An Analogical Reasoner: A Critique Of The Metaphor-Theory Of Innovation,” Communication & Cognition 13, 2/3 (1980), p. 186.
Karin Knorr, “The Scientist As An Analogical Reasoner: A Critique Of The Metaphor-Theory Of Innovation,” Communication & Cognition 13, 2/3 (1980), p. 195.
Karin Knorr, “The Scientist As An Analogical Reasoner: A Critique Of The Metaphor-Theory Of Innovation,” Communication & Cognition 13, 2/3 (1980), p. 194.
Ortony, too, places Black in a constructivist context (Ortony, places Black in a constructivist context, 1979, p. 7).
D. A. Schön, Displacement of Concepts (London: Tavistock, 1963); Mulkay, “Action and Belief or Scientific Discourse? A Possible Way of Ending Intellectual Vassalage in Societal Studies of Science,” Philosophical Studies of Science 11, 1981.
Knorr, “The Scientist As An Analogical Reasoner: A Critique Of The Metaphor-Theory Of Innovation,” Communication & Cognition 13, 2/3, 1980, p. 186.
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Experiment, Differenz, Schrift. Zur Geschichte epistemischer Dinge (Marburg/Lahn: Basilisken Presse, 1992)
Bruno Latour, “Postmodern? No, Simply Amodern! Steps Towards an Anthropology of Science,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 21 (1990), 145–171
Timothy Lenoir, “Practice Reason, Context: the Dialogue Between Theory and Experiment” Science in Context 2 (1988), 1, 3–22.
Lenoir, “Practice Reason, Context: the Dialogue Between Theory and Experiment” Science in Context 2, 1988, p. 11.
Rheinberger, Experiment, Differenz, Schrift. Zur Geschichte epistemischer Dinge (Marburg/Lahn: Basilisken Presse, 1992), 1992, p. 14.
Susan Haack, “Surprising Noises: Rorty and Hesse on Metaphor,” Proceedings of Aristotelian Society (1987–1988), 293–301, here, 299.
Thomas Kuhn, “Metaphor in Science” in Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 414, emphasis added.
Lindley Darden, and Nancy Maull, “Interfield Theories,” Philosophy of Science 44 (1977), 43–64, here, p. 43.
Lakoff, Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 1980, p. 454.
Mary Hesse, “The Cognitive Claims of Metaphor,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 2 (1988a); Mary Hesse, “Theories, Family Resemblances, and Analogy” David Helman (ed.), Analogical Reasoning (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988b), pp. 317–340.
Hesse, “The Cognitive Claims of Metaphor,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 2, 1988a, p. 3.
Bo Dahlbohm, “The Role of Metaphors in Science” Mats Furberg (ed.), Logic and Abstraction (Göteborg: Acta Universitatis, 1986), pp. 95–118, here, p. 98. In this quotation Dahlbohm refers especially to technological concepts as primary source for scientific metaphors. This cannot be but part of an answer to the question on what makes which kind of metaphors conceived of as appropriate at a certain socio-historical time. In what follows I will address this issue on a purely formal level although I am convinced that one might be able to trace back the prevalence of certain metaphors in science. Such a project might be called “Evolutionary Metaphorology”: presumably one would find several (perhaps interdependent) branches, like technological, physical, biological, and medical metaphors in science which develop parallel to each other over time. Questions such as: are there epistemological or ontological reasons for major changes in privileged (systems of) metaphors? might be answered within the framework of such a project.
Beer, Darwin’s Plots. Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (London: Routledge & Paul, 1983, p. 9)
Hubert Rottleuthner, “Biological Metaphors in Legal Thought”: in G. Teubner (ed.), A New Approach to Law and Society (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1988), p. 101.
James J. Bono, “Science, Discourse, and Literature. The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science” in St. Peterfreund (ed.), Literature and Science. Theory & Practice (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), pp. 59–89.
James J. Bono, “Science, Discourse, and Literature. The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science” in St. Peterfreund (ed.), Literature and Science. Theory & Practice (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), p. 73, emphasis added.
James J. Bono, “Science, Discourse, and Literature. The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science” in St. Peterfreund (ed.), Literature and Science. Theory & Practice (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), p. 78.
James J. Bono, “Science, Discourse, and Literature. The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science” in St. Peterfreund (ed.), Literature and Science. Theory & Practice (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), p. 77.
Cf, James J. Bono, “Science, Discourse, and Literature. The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science” in St. Peterfreund (ed.), Literature and Science. Theory & Practice (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), p. 81.
James J. Bono, “Science, Discourse, and Literature. The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science” in St. Peterfreund (ed.), Literature and Science. Theory & Practice (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), p. 81.
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Maasen, S. (1995). Who is Afraid of Metaphors?. In: Maasen, S., Mendelsohn, E., Weingart, P. (eds) Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0673-3_2
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