Imagery,expression, and metaphor

Metaphorical utterances are construed as falling into two broad categories, in one of which are cases amenable to analysis in terms of semantic content, speaker meaning, and satisfaction conditions, and where image-construction is permissible but not mandatory. I call these image-permitting metaphors, and contrast them with image-demanding metaphors (IDM’s) comprising a second category and whose understanding mandates the construction of a mental image. This construction, I suggest, is spontaneous, is not restricted to visual imagery, and its result is typically somatically marked sensu Damasio. IDM’s are characteristically used in service of self-expression, and thereby in the elicitation of empathy. Even so, IDM’s may reasonably provoke banter over the aptness of the imagery they evoke.     

Form symbolism, analogy, and metaphor

Simple forms, such as a square and a circle, can be symbolic; for example, a square can be deemed to behard and a circle to besoft. The relation between form symbolism and the comprehension of metaphors and analogies was studied in three experiments. Subjects were asked to rate matches between terms such assoft andhard andcircle andsquare as symbols (Experiment 1), metaphors (Experiment 2), and analogies (Experiment 3). The results show that a highly rated symbolic relation could be a poorly rated metaphorical relation. Ratings of analogies were similar to ratings of symbols. We argue that apt metaphors, analogies, and symbolic forms claim that the vehicle and the topic of the comparisons have common features, but that metaphoric representation entails more common features than does either symbolism or analogy, because metaphor requires that the vehicle be an especially apt example of a superordinate class. Thus, metaphor is a particularly strong claim about common features shared by the topic and the vehicle.     

Using story as metaphor,legacy, and therapy

While stories have been a part of our lives for generations, we are becoming more aware of the power and variety of their uses. Stories can be used metaphorically within families or in therapy, as historical legacy to provide a confirmed existence, or as a part of the therapeutic technique. Stories can be found most easily in transitions or relationships, and humor should be kept as a part of storytelling.Jeanne R. Williams, MS, is a licensed marriage and family therapist who is in private practice with The Family Center, 607 Ingleside Ave., Athens, TN 37303. Reprints should be requested through this address.     

Meaning and metaphor

Sceptical theists--e.g., William Alston and Michael Bergmann--have claimed that considerations concerning human cognitive limitations are alone sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil. We argue that, if the considerations deployed by sceptical theists are sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil, then those considerations are also sufficient to undermine inferences that play a crucial role in ordinary moral reasoning. If cogent, our argument suffices to discredit sceptical theist responses to evidential arguments from evil.     

The synergy of memory, affects and metaphor

Recently, the concept of metaphor has been revitalized as a result of the convergence of interest in this subject from a variety of disciplines including neurobiology, linguistics and cognitive science. Metaphor is now viewed as an emergent property of mind. Metaphor is rooted in the body in two senses: metaphor is used to organize bodily sensation cognitively, especially affects, and secondly, metaphor is rooted in the body as it rests on the border between mind and brain. Metaphor is therefore viewed as a developmentally early, primitive mental function related to synesthesia. There is a significant distinction between frozen or foreclosed metaphors and open and generative metaphors. The foreclosed metaphor will dominate the perception of others in cases of trauma and can be understood as an explanation of transference repetition. Clinical examples of foreclosed metaphors are illustrated by vignettes of patients who have suffered traumas. Examples taken from two artists are used to illustrate instances in which the artist's own unassimilated experiences appear as generative metaphors.     

Scientific Philosophy,Mathematical Philosophy,and All That

This article suggests that scientific philosophy, especially mathematical philosophy, might be one important way of doing philosophy in the future. Along the way, the article distinguishes between different types of scientific philosophy; it mentions some of the scientific methods that can serve philosophers; it aims to undermine some worries about mathematical philosophy; and it tries to make clear why in certain cases the application of mathematical methods is necessary for philosophical progress.     

The neural, evolutionary, developmental, and bodily basis of metaphor

We propose that there are four fundamental kinds of metaphor that are uniquely mapped onto specific brain “networks” and present preliterate (i.e., evolutionary, including before the appearance of written language in the historical record), prelinguistic (i.e., developmental, before the appearance of speech in human development), and extralinguistic (i.e., neuropsychological, cognitive) evidence supportive of this view. We contend that these basic metaphors are largely nonconceptual and entail (a) perceptual-perceptual, (b) cross-modal, (c) movement-movement, and (d) perceptual-affective mappings that, at least, in the initial stages of processing may operate largely outside of conscious awareness. In opposition to our basic metaphor theory (B_mT), the standard theory (S_mT) maintains that metaphor is a conceptual mapping from some base domain to some target domain and/or represents class-inclusion (categorical) assertions. The S_mT captures aspects of secondary or conceptual metaphoric relations but not primary or basic metaphoric relations in our view. We believe our theory (B_mT) explains more about how people actually recognize or create metaphoric associations across disparate domains of experience partly because they are “pre-wired” to make these links.     

Receiving advice on matters of taste: Similarity, majority influence, and taste discrimination

People routinely consider the opinions of others prior to making decisions on matters of taste (e.g., a restaurant or movie). Our theoretical framework highlights the role of two sources, social (majority) influence and similarityamong advisors, in such decisions. We suggest that individuals’ use of these sources depends on their taste discrimination. While highly discriminating judges seek the opinion of a similar advisor rather than the majority opinion, less discriminating judges do so less. In four studies participants made musical choices based on recommendations. The studies document the great appeal of behavioral similarity and the role of demographic similarity. They also provide evidence for the discrimination hypothesis. A formal simulation is developed to account for the relationship between taste discrimination and the predictive accuracy of the majority and of similar advisors. The results shed light on theories of advice utilization and social influence, and are connected with applications involving personalized recommendation systems.     

Internal conflict,language, and metaphor: Implications for psychotherapy

The term conflict has only metaphorical validity when applied to internal dynamics, because an organism can never actually be at war with itself. Drawing upon Maturana's theory of living systems, we argue that the concept of conflict has been taken too literally by therapists and clients. Instead of eliminating conflict, we urge therapists to focus on the interpersonal implications of language habits and to explore with clients the options for more effective action in the social community.The authors would like to express their appreciation to G. Craig Caputo, Elsa R. Efran, Joseph Fiorito, Charles E. Gallagher, Christopher K. Germer, Richard J. Leffel, M. Penny Levin, Alan J. Lipman, Michael D. Lukens, Robert J. Lukens, and Richard Sadowsky, each of whom read earlier drafts and contributed valuable suggestions.     

The swaying form: imagination,metaphor, embodiment

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - How is it that metaphors are meaningful, yet we have so much trouble saying exactly what they mean? I argue that metaphoric thought is an act of...     

Synesthetic perception and poetic metaphor

To explore the role of cross-modal perception in the apprehension of synesthetic metaphors, subjects read 15 short lines from poetry, each of which contained a metaphor relating visual and auditory qualities; the subjects' task was to set the loudness of a 1000-Hz tone and the brightness of a white light to match the levels implied by each metaphor. The sound settings and light settings suggest that a cross-modal equivalence between loudness and brightness largely underlay the responses to the metaphors. This general cross-modal equivalence was characterized by some notable intersubject differences and was modified, in part, by certain metaphors that resisted complete equivalence. Even so, the metaphorically induced settings of loudness and brightness are mainly governed by a cross-modality matching function that is qualitatively like the relation found in people with visual-auditory synesthesia, and that is quantitatively like the function obtained in more traditional psychophysical studies.     

Aptness in metaphor

We propose that in understanding a metaphor, an individual sees a concept from one class or domain in terms of its similarity in two different respects to a concept from another class or domain. The two kinds of similarity are within-domain similarity, or the degree to which two concepts occupy similar positions with respect to their own class or domain; and between-domain similarity, or the degree to which the classes or domains occupied by the concepts are themselves similar. To test this dual notion of similarity, we obtained ratings of the aptness of 64 metaphors from one group of subjects and ratings of their comprehensibility from another group of subjects. The terms of the metaphors had been scaled (based on the ratings of pretest subjects) to give measures of distance both within and between domains. Aptness of metaphors related positively to betweendomain distance, negatively to within-domain distance, and not at all to overall distance. Metaphors are thus perceived as more apt to the extent that their terms occupy similar positions within domains that are not very similar to each other. Comprehensibility also related to aptness. In a second experiment, subjects ranked a set of terms as possible completions for metaphors. For both groups of subjects in this experiment, the rank of an alternative's within-domain distance correlated with its relative popularity. Quantitative models, patterned after a model proposed by D. Rumelhart and A. A. Abrahamson (Cognitive Psychology, 1973, 5, 1–28) for analogical reasoning, afforded significant prediction of the choices of the group of subjects in which all the possible completions of a metaphor were from a single domain. The same models did not predict the choices of a group of subjects in which the possible completions of the metaphors were from different domains.     

Dimensions of metaphor

Two rating studies examined several dimensions of metaphorical sentences. A pool of 260 metaphors was constructed, all in the form “(noun phrase) is/are (noun phrase).” In Study 1 all of the items, and in Study 2, 98 of the items were evaluated on ten scales presumed to be important to the comprehension or interpretation of metaphors: semantic relatedness of the subject and predicate, comprehensibility, imageability, imageability of the subject (topic), imageability of the predicate (vehicle), degree of metaphoricity, metaphor goodness, ease of interpretation, number of alternative interpretations, and felt familiarity of the metaphoric ground. Both experiments revealed the rated dimensions to be highly interrelated, but some analyses allowed evaluation of alternative predictions based on current theoretical approaches to metaphor quality and interpretation. The results indicated consistent but mixed support for the general poisitions under consideration as each appeared to have strong and weak areas of applicability. The interrelationships among the scales are discussed, together with implications of the findings for current theories and future metaphor research.     

会通与融合--马克思主义哲学、中国传统哲学与西方哲学的互动

马克思主义哲学、中国传统哲学与西方哲学的会通与融合,正在成为当前中国哲学界关注的热点问题。对此,我谈谈三点看法,抛砖引玉,以就教于方家。一问题的背景从1840年“鸦片战争”以后,中国逐步融入世界,开始启动现代化的进程。在思想界,介绍传播西方思想与哲学成为时尚,首先是达尔文的进化论,进而是培根、笛卡尔以来的近代西方经验主义和理性主义,然后是追本溯源,从古希腊苏格拉底、柏拉图、亚里士多德到德国古典哲学家康德、黑格尔等人的整个西方哲学思想经典,在中国都得到介绍与研究。1917年俄国“十月革命”胜利以后,马克思主义哲学作为…