Naming and knowing: giving forms to things unknown.
Part of a special issue on the power of metaphor in social science. The writer discusses the role of metaphor in giving form to things unknown, with a focus on behavioral psychology. Humans are creatures of metaphor due to their need to understand things through employing terms previously reserved...
| Publicado en: | Social Research Vol. 62; pp. 267 - 299 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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New School for Social Research
Summer 1995
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | Part of a special issue on the power of metaphor in social science. The writer discusses the role of metaphor in giving form to things unknown, with a focus on behavioral psychology. Humans are creatures of metaphor due to their need to understand things through employing terms previously reserved for other things. Metaphorical or comparative thinking is embedded in the ways in which scientists and nonscientists come to understand themselves and their world. The behavioral momentum metaphor demonstrates how theory and practice in a scientific field can be advanced by a basic metaphoric insight. However, the metaphor's long-term existence as a tradition will depend on whether it makes or promises to make a difference in a practical way. Overall, the priorities by which things that should be named and given a local habituation are selected may be more important per se than giving forms to things unknown. |
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