Aaron Grinter’s “Metaphors in Science: Lessons for Developing an Ecological Paradigm” appears in Telos 190 (Spring 2020): Economy and Ecology: Reconceiving the Human Relationship to Nature. Read the full article at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our online store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are available in both print and online formats.
The scientific method seems familiar to most, but an important element of this practice is often overlooked: the metaphor. This article explores the role played by metaphors in the conception and experimentation of scientific hypotheses, and the extent to which the process of metaphorical consideration is founded in imagination and creativity. With positivistic and reductionist traditions coming to prominence within scientific disciplines, there is emerging a corresponding lack of imagination and increased dislocation from the natural processes being studied. Using the complex process logic involved in metaphorical understanding, the task will be to develop a new paradigm to break out of these stifling traditions, one that has the potential to consider the complex holistic interrelations of the biosphere. As the epoch of the Anthropocene becomes more inculcated in contemporary culture, there has never been a more important time to reassess our relationship to, and position within, the natural world.
