Publications

Publication details [#8978]

Publication type
Article in book  
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Cambridge , UK: Cambridge University Press

Abstract

(From end) In sum, metaphorical insight, reasoned analogy, and empirical modeling are woven together in the fabric of scientific innovation, in the "hard" areas of psychology as in the "soft" areas. I have emphasized the process of proper analogical reasoning - the process leading from metaphor to model - because, although metaphorical insight is fundamental, it will not get us far in achieving scientific understanding unless we subject it to the sort of sustained reasoning by analogy that has been illustrated throughout this essay. Looking to the future, there is no reason to expect that the sort of reasoning by analogy that has wrought current scientific understanding in neuropsychology will cease. New developments, technical and theoretical, in engineering, chemistry, interpersonal psychology, and other yet unspecified domains, will continue to cross-fertilize the brain sciences -leading from vague but pregnant metaphors to more precise and testable models - provided that scientists continue to reason, carefully, by analogy. (Karl Pribram, p. 98)