No Metaphors - no Science? (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Philosophy - Theoretical (Realisation, Science, Logic, Language), grade: 1,0, University of Cambridge, language: English, abstract: Can there be any science without metaphors? Valerie Hardcastle, Marc Johnson and Diego Fernandez-Duque claim that this is not the case especially in attention research. Thus, this essay deals with the question of whether there can be non-metaphorical reasoning and theory construction in attention research and what role metaphors serve in scientific practice. After analyzing primary literature from attention research and especially presenting the Theory of Visual Attention by Bundesen (1990), the claim that there are no theories without metaphors will be rejected. However, a look into scientific practice reveals that metaphors engage in quite complex relations with not only models and theories in the scientific process. Metaphors often constitute the very basis for concepts to be further developed, revised or even rejected in a dynamic process through ongoing theory-modeling by new experimental settings or methods and empirical revision.