Stuart, Michael T. and Wilkenfeld, Daniel (2022) Understanding Metaphorical Understanding (Literally). [Preprint]
|
Text
Stuart and Wilkenfeld 2022 Understanding Metaphorical Understanding (Literally).pdf Download (190kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Metaphors are found all throughout science: in published papers, working hypotheses, policy documents, lecture slides, grant proposals, and press releases. They serve different functions, but perhaps most striking is the way they enable understanding, of a theory, phenomenon, or idea. In this paper, we leverage recent advances on the nature of metaphor and the nature of understanding to explore how they accomplish this feat. We attempt to shift the focus away from the epistemic value of the content of metaphors, to the epistemic value of the metaphor’s consequences. Many famous scientific metaphors are epistemically good, not primarily because of what they say about the world, but because of how they cause us to think. Specifically, metaphors increase understanding either by improving our sets of representations (by making them more minimal or more accurate), or by making it easier for us to encode and process data about complex subjects by changing how we are disposed to conceptualize those subjects. This view hints towards new positions concerning testimonial understanding, factivity, abilities, discovery via metaphor, and the relation between metaphors and models.
| Export/Citation: | EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL |
| Social Networking: |
| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators: |
|
|||||||||
| Additional Information: | Forthcoming in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science | |||||||||
| Keywords: | Metaphor in science; Scientific understanding; Objectual understanding; Explanation; Philosophy of science; Philosophy of language; Factivity; Imagination; Models; Creativity | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Rhetoric of Science |
|||||||||
| Depositing User: | Michael T. Stuart | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jun 2022 19:56 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2022 19:56 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 20796 | |||||||||
| DOI or Unique Handle: | 10.1007/s13194-022-00467-9 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Rhetoric of Science |
|||||||||
| Date: | 2022 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/20796 |
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Altmetric.com
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}