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Metaphorical Models and Scientific Realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

M. Elaine Botha
M. Elaine Botha*
Affiliation:
Potchefstroom University for CHE
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Extract

The primary significance of the adoption of Black’s (1962) interaction view of metaphor by Hesse in her network model of theories (1966, 1972 and 1974) and in her network model of meanings (1984a) is the fact that it leads to a fundamental modification of the hypothetical-deductive account of scientific theorizing and a relativization of the traditional logical positivist distinction between observation language and theory language. Hesse argues that what holds for metaphorical language in ordinary language use, namely that it is affected by the contextual interaction between the various elements present in the metaphor, is also true of scientific models. They function in a similar fashion (1972, p. 254). She does not reject the distinction between literal and metaphorical language, but claims that the distinction is a pragmatic one. The distinction concerns the way in which speakers learn, use, and if necessary, define the words of their language.

Type
Part VI. General Philosophy of Science (B)
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 373 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

1

The initial draft of this paper was developed during a sabbatical at Notre Dame University, made possible by a Senior Researcher Grant of the Human Sciences Research Council of the Republic of South Africa. I would like to thank Ernan McMullin for helpful discussions and assistance during this time. For comments related to preliminary versions of this paper I would like to thank Johann Mouton, Alexis Retief, Dian Joube and Wentzel van Huysteen.

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