I think the point of view of design is easy to obscure here, if we
emphasize the linguistic, philosophical, cognitive science etc.
points of view, since these latter ones do not have to worry about
the usefulness and applicability of their arguments to design and
understanding of design.
As designers we must learn from them what we feel is useful and apply
it ourselves. And then, our applications, interpretations and
reframings may not sound compatible with the theoretical points of
view. However, I think that a more design point of view, a more
applied one, is also very fruitful for understanding the concepts
more holistically and realistically - that is, in a fuller relation
to reality.
In that I also second the importance of the knowing-how-it-feels or
tacit understandings and uses of metaphor and analogy, which Tim
seems to bring up...
A tight definition of anything is useful only in certain
circumstances, because in the end its validity is always dependent on
the conditions under which it was created and the conceptual
environment it should be fitted in. So if our conditions are those of
1) a designer thinking about how to understand the meaning of
metaphor in her profession, or 2) a cognitive scientist crafting a
theory of cognition and utilizing metaphor as a building block there
- we will likely come up with two different (but probably, hopefully,
compatible and complementary) ideas of metaphor.
kh
At 11:19 +0100 24.7.2003, Michael A R Biggs wrote:
>Dear all
>
>I think we might be getting side-tracked here.
>I actually agree with much of what has been said about the virtues
>of metaphor.
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