Key-Metaphors: A Case of Cross-Contextual Cognition

Abstract

The explanatory aspect of metaphor is but one of multiple functions which makes it a practical means for cognition. Metaphors are used to perform various functions in the service of knowing. For instance, they are utilized so as to render natural phenomena more conceivable, to give form to our innermost subjective life, to provide access to the physical world, to make the psychic world understandable, to explain social events and give labels to historic epochs, to model the existing, and to open perspectives on the possible. The utility of metaphors is a universal key applicable in almost all knowledge processes. This explains why it is difficult to find any intellectual activity or scientific discipline that is devoid of metaphorical elements; they are necessary in astronomy for structuring distant planetary systems, in psychology as a means to shape subjective »nature«, in physics as a mode of explanation for both macro and micro phenomena, in psychoanalysis for depicting amorphous drives beneath the threshold of inspectability, in the social sciences for representing mechanisms of social interaction, in the historical sciences for easier comprehension of the dominant characteristics of particular epochs, in religion for the construction of divine reality, in cognitive science for providing models of mental activity, in philosophy as legitimate means of epistemology and metaphysics, etc. In short, wherever a creative process is at stake, wherever there are various forms of knowledge in the making, there are metaphors which help formulate new experiences and aid the fabrication of new facts.KeywordsConstitutive PartTheatrical MetaphorHistoric EpochBiological MetaphorExplanatory AspectThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.