Publications
Publication details [#7198]
Leary, David E. 1990. Psyche's muse: The role of metaphor in the history of psychology In Leary, David E., Mitchell G. Ash and William R. Woodward. Metaphors in the History of Psychology (Cambridge Studies in the History of Psychology Series). Cambridge , UK: Cambridge University Press . pp. 1–78. 78 pp.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Keywords
Place, Publisher
Cambridge , UK: Cambridge University Press
Abstract
(From 'Conclusion')
In more recent years, the variation or pluralism of twentieth-century psychology, which is evident at so many levels of the discipline, has come to be recognized (e.g., see Koch, 1976), and not unrelatedly, awareness of the metaphorical nature of psychological theory, and of the metaphorical framing of psychological practice, has increased significantly. Where this will lead, whether to the dismemberment of psychology (long since predicted by Dunlap, 1938, and others) or to a revivification of psychology, we cannot yet say. (Are neuroscience, cognitive science, and the new health sciences at the "growing edges" or on the "fraying ends" of psychology?) In either case, in the elaboration of these and other developments, we can be confident that Psyche's Muse -muted and hemmed in, but far from inactive during much of this century - will have her say. Or rather, we will have our say, at least a chance to have our say; for, as I have tried to show, Psyche's Muse, the fount of psychological theory and practice, is none other than we ourselves, using what the empiricist David Hume called "Analogy, that great principle of Reasoning" and what the rationalist Immanuel Kant, though in an unfortunately transcendentalist mood, called the "Analogies of Experience."5 I have said a number of times that my thesis is hardly new: Many scholars and scientists have recognized that our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are informed by metaphors.
(David Leary, p. 21)