Sublime

An inspiration engine for ideas

AllPeopleCollectionsArticlesAudioBooksFilesHighlightsImagesLinksNotesTextTweetsVideos

A metaphor is formed when two aspects of the world become linked together in a meaningful way. For example, we talk of a stormy meeting. We take the turmoil and chaos of a storm and make correspondences with the turmoil and chaos of a conflicted meeting.

Victor MacGill • Unravelling the Myth/Metaphor Layer in Causal Layered Analysis

Metaphor

metaphor.systems

The people who get to impose their metaphors on the culture get to define what we consider to be true.

~Lakoff & Johnson

Embassytown: A Novel

China Mieville

amazon.com

Metaphor originates from the Greek word meta meaning ‘across’ and pherein meaning ‘to carry’. Metaphor allows us to bring forth or carry over a deeper context which words on face-value can lack.

Giles Hutchins • The Need For Metaphor: A Shift from Machine to Nature

When used properly, metaphors enhance speech. But correctly dosing the metaphorical spice in the dish of language is no easy task. They ‘must not be far-fetched, or they will be difficult to grasp, nor obvious, or they will have no effect’, as Aristotle already noted nearly 2,500 years ago.

Benjamin Santos Genta • How changing the metaphors we use can change the way we think | Aeon Essays

The heart of metaphor is inference. Conceptual metaphor allows inferences in sensory-motor domains (e.g., domains of space and objects) to be used to draw inferences about other domains (e.g., domains of subjective judgment, with concepts like intimacy, emotions, justice, and so on). Because we reason in terms of metaphor, the metaphors we use det

George Lakoff • Metaphors We Live By Quotes by George Lakoff

Metaphors are interpreters—what interpreters do for bits and bytes, metaphors do for reality. They translate physical experiences into thoughts, ideas, insights and lessons that can be interpreted and understood, acted upon and shared.

The most important claim we have made so far is that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical.